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bobble-
Honestly I was so excited to get a better look at the frame I never took a photo of it built - it was pretty much as in the first post. Rear mech is an early Deore one that’ll get reused, same for the 105 triple front mech (even though I’m going double), brakes and pedals are old 105 too in that odd grey they did for a a while.
Bonus detail of this absurd Cinelli A1 it was fitted with
trigs
Howdy folks - bit of a funny thread, but this project has gotten me very excited and thought it worthy of sharing.
Roll back a couple years, I bought a very nice Lee Cooper fillet brazed frame off here, in a delightful sparkly blue. This was going to be my forever bike, as I'd wanted a fillet brazed frame for years but could never afford to have one built to my specs. I built it up somewhat adequately, and then rode it for the first time on the way to work. A very friendly but inattentive driver decided to plow right into the side of me, leaving me bruised and the bike somewhat mangled. The frame was intact, but it felt cursed and I passed it onto a friend to get it gone - they've done a much better job of building it up, anyway, so it's worked out in a sense.
After the crash, I reacted to the trauma of the thing by abandoning road riding as fast as I could. That meant I learned to mountain bike for the first time, which has been really cool, but now I'm feeling the loss of long days on quiet lanes, audax riding, and all that business.
So, a few days ago, while browsing Facebook Marketplace, I happened upon this 'touring bike':
It checked all the boxes: fillet brazed, long seat tube but shorter top tube, tight clearances but also rack and mudguard mounts, and holy heck that paint job. £250 later, I picked it up from a lovely bloke who had been using it to commute, and it's perfect. The frame stamp tells me it was built in 1992, and it's exactly what I would commission myself if I had a few grand laying about.
The paint job is way braver than anything I'd risk, but the silver/red fade combined with the ornate gold lettering speaks to my love of early modern sci fi art, like what you'd see in Astounding magazine back in the 30s and 40s, and makes the bike look like a space rocket in my mind:
More photos and plans to follow, but right now the frame is stripped down and looking in great nick - aiming to have this on the road in January with an initial build combining new and old parts to keep it affordable. Right now I'm just feeling so grateful to have stumbled upon this frame - I'm hoping it will help me revive my road fortunes, and maybe I've finally found my forever bike.... we shall see!