A couple nice Rossin's on the bay

Anyone that knows me by now knows that I have a serious soft spot for Rossin's. I'm always searching for them online, and I'm sure at some point I'll end up with a second one. Anyways, here are a couple I came across on ebay recently:

Although I'm not a big fan of the modern components on the bike, this thing is pretty sick. I love the old TT frames, and they are super rare. Link to auction and more photos HERE.



I'm posting this one because its literally the first time in almost 2 years that I've found another Rossin like mine. This is the RLX, a columbus SLX frame. Overall, its pretty similar component-wise as mine. I think mine is in better shape though ;) Either way, its nice to know that another exists out there. Link to auction and photos HERE.

small changes

I'm sure everyone is sick of seeing the Rossin by now. I made some small changes the other night. I switched the black 110mm cinelli 1a for a silver 90mm 1a. I also changed the bars to cinelli 64-40's, and put the clips and straps back on. I don't think I will be riding this as much now since I got the BMC, so I wanted to make it a bit more of a comfortable ride. The top tube is a bit long so I compensated with them stem. Sorry for the shit pictures. Straight off the ol' iphone 4...

nago...

Someone on the NYfixed boards posted this Colnago tonight. Such a beautiful ride. I love the Gilco tubes and headtube lugs. I'm not too crazy about the saddle, but otherwise I wouldn't change a thing! Apparently it may be for sale?

Royal H Cycles

I love neo-retro builds. This new Royal H build turned up today. This one is definitely has some odd touches, but overall I like it.

Check out more at their flikr photostream!

Some new parts...

I recently bought this Campy Athena seatpost and perforated white turbo saddle on ebay for a what I would consider a really good price. I could see from the auction pictures that the seatpost needed some TLC. I figured if I could get it cheap enough, it would be easy for me to make it look a lot better.

I have an affinity for turbo and flite saddles, and I'm gaining quite the collection. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the saddle just yet. The pictures don't do much justice as to what the seatpost looked like before, but the end result is clear. Wetsanded with 400,600,1000,2000 and then polished...

Before:

After:

Project Rossin part 2

Been awhile since I posted. The Rossin is built, and I've been riding it quite a bit. Heres a few pictures of the rest of the build. The derailleur pictured is not the one that ended up on the bike. Somehow I misread an ebay auction and bought a clamp on instead of a braze on. The one that's on the bike now is a Chorus braze on. Before these pictures, the frame was frame savered. I also used some mother's mag wheel polish on the chrome, and it made it way better than before, even after the wetsanding!

Bottom bracket after cleanup. It was in great shape as it was:

Cranks after cleanup:

Bunch O' parts. Chorus levers, cinelli tape, Campy C9 chain, NOS campy cables etc. The brake adjuster barrels are actually for newer calipers, but since finding ones for nuovo record calipers was becoming impossible, I chose to try these, and they worked!:

Brake cables routed before the bar tape:

I picked up this Selle Max Flite on ebay. It looks almost brand new. I was going to use this until I came across the white Super Turbo I now have on the bike:

Last building phase pix:

Project Rossin

Since I moved to the city, I've got pretty heavy into bikes. I used to build cars. I sold them all before the move. I have to build things. Its in my nature. I love the challenge of taking something old and making it new again, or the challenge of picking just the right parts to make a super solid ride. I just love the style, the design, and the feel of classic stuff, be it cars or bikes.

After extensive searching, I found this 1988 Rossin RLX (columbus SLX tubing) in my size (54cm). I found it on craigslist in Cali, and had it shipped here. A risk in itself. It had a mix of Campagnolo parts on it. This is my first vintage road bike. I've learned so much just researching the shit out of everything.

The RLX was the second in line to the Rossin Ghibli for 1988. It came with one of 4 gruppos. Either C record, Croce d' aune, Chorus, or super record. When I got it, it had chorus cranks, athena rear derailleur, super record brakes and seatpost, etc. My guess is that it originally had a chorus group judging my the cranks, and headset. All the other parts were either made before or after 1988.

The frame itself is in great shape. It just needs some TLC. It has its share of small chips, light rust, and dulled chrome. I am in the TLC phase. On with the pix:

This is the frame the day I got it after I stripped mostly everything off it. I think I'm keeping the mavic/simplex retrofriction shifters. I think they are Mavic because they lack the simplex logo:

This is everything I stripped off it, pre cleaning:

This is the fork when I got it. Obviously needs some polishing. I used sandpaper in 5 parts. I went from 320 to 400 to 600 to 1000 to 2000 grit, then polished it. I may go over it again, but it looks way better now:

I stripped the headset, degreased it and polished it. The last 2 pictures are the surface rust around the headset cups before and after. I still may touch up the chips around the lower headset cup:

There's still a long way to go. I have a ton of parts on the way. I'm basically trying to get it set up to ride. Once I do, I will concentrate on matching the gruppo. I'll keep this updated as things progress!