2011 Marnoni Pista: built

I finished building The Marinoni a few days ago. I swapped most of the parts over from my Felt with the exception of a few bits. I'm in love with this thing so far. The ride quality is excellent. It's steel, but lighter than my aluminum felt. The toe overlap is minimal, and the paint and chrome finish is amazing.

A couple reasons why I chose the frame: I wanted a steel frame, and this fit the bill nicely. I had been looking at them for the past 3 years. I always loved the older Marinoni frames and road bikes, so I figured I couldn't lose. You can order direct from them as they are located in Quebec, Canada. When ordering a frame from them, you can choose between a 1 or 2 color paint scheme from any of 38 colors. The logo colors are an option too. For a small extra fee, you can also get a custom fit frame and choose your dimensions. Click HERE for the Marinoni website. I'm VERY happy with my purchase...

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More photos on my flickr.

Marinoni frame shots

Its built, but here are a few shots sans parts. Build shots to follow...

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Moving forward...

I took apart the Felt today, and stashed the frame in a dark corner of my apartment. Out of sight, out of mind.

I also started building the IRO. I've ordered a bunch of parts, most of which aren't here yet. I'm hoping to have it rideable next week some time.

I bought an FSA CX headset with integrated cable hanger.





Finished product.

Also, I officially put in the order for my new track frame. Turns out the wait time will be half of what I thought. I can't wait!

More to come as everything progresses...

this made my morning!

I remember seeing this project in progress awhile back. The owner had a cracked Rossin Ghibli road frame that he turned into a pursuit bike. I never thought it would come this far. Looks amazing!! Click photo to enlarge.

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...

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!