Curved tube, Columbus Max Aero Road Project

Another Winter , another Winter project ...

Picked up this rather unusual frame a couple of years ago , unfortunatly I know nothing of it's history or who built it . Columbus Max tubing , 127mm rear spacing , English threads and Reynold fork ends , suggest a British builder , late 80t's early 90t's . Frame no RT267MAX ,anyone reconise it ? would love to know it's history

Perfect size for me, for a steel frame , 59 cm c-t seat tube with a 56cm top tube. It's certainly a well built frame , fillet brazed throughout , using the lovely sculptured Columbus Max tubing and of cause the rear wheel hugging curved seat tube. There's a lot of attention to detail , especially in the way the cables are all internally routed through teflon sleeves and the extraordinary way the rear gear cable exit's the chainstay via a spoiler made from a build up of alumium ( problary 'Lumiweld' ) never seen anything like this before , very aero.

I'm guessing this was a full on time trial rig in it's day , with tri-bars , disc wheels etc. My plan is to build more of an aero road bike , using aero derived parts roughly from the same period as the frame , a rather nice example -

Had to attend to a few jobs before taking the frame down to Mario Vaz for paint.
Cold set the rear spacing to 130mm , as I'm going to be using 8 speed kit , this was actually a bit of a struggle, down to the stiffness of the frame , a quick alignment of the forks ends and hanger and job done.
At some point a front mech braze-on had been rather grudely removed,
so I smoothed off the mess with a dremil . Last job was to go round the frame looking for cracks none found,good.

Anyway it's at Mario's now , being refinished in , you guess it , Cinelli Laser blue . As I don't know the builder , It's going to be stickered up as a ' Columbus ' with some discrete graphics .

Subscribed. Girly scream

nice. very nice.

forum is awash with sexeh columbus max all of a sudden. an improvement? is 2014 the year of the Max?

Got any specific components in mind?

This looks like it's got good potential.
Can't wait to see it completed.

wow. at first look I thought that chain stay was proper squashed.

No time to go through the whole plan now , but as this is going to be my #2 road bike , it's not going to be a NOS credit card shagging project , infact I've collected most of parts already ;

Shimano 600 tricolor gears with 8 speed D/T shifters , braze-on front mech with modified adapter bkt.
Campag C-Record or Chorus cranks
Mavic CPX30 rims
Shimano ax brakes

Anyway good news , not only is the frame painted , a mates picked it up from Mario , not seen it yet , but in apparently it's stunning , have to wait to Friday
Will post up pics soon as I can.

No NOS credit card shagging project.

Have some rep!

Subbed. Can't wait to see it built up.

Nice. My guess is RT in serial is Roy Thame very much like the below

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29885795@N03/5301024980

Want some more good news? I have a pair of down tube stickers (white with black edging) and a head badge sticker. Yours for the asking!

^^ Thats the conclusion I came to 2 years ago , but I checked with the shop in Putney ( it was still around then ) and they said the numbers don't match at all . Shame , I know Tommy Quick build some of their frames and I used to own a nice TQ lugless frame. The only other RT builder I can remember is Ron Thomas , which is a possabilty as I picked frame up in Harrow , all academic now as it's painted ,mind you if the true builder is every revealed, I'll fit their name somewhere.

All credit to Mario, he's done a fantastic job , mixed the colour for me and got it spot on, and the
finish is perfect . I supplied the decals he did the rest , turned it round in less than 2 weeks and only charged me £80 , fantastic service and a nice guy ,really happy to recommend his work ,

Did the first bit of spannering today , ream/chase/face the frame and fitted a stronglight taber bearing headset.

Awesome! That came out great indeed.

awesome frame and nice colour ... no fan of the decal on the dt though

Looks amazing! Can't wait to see how this turns out.

Very nice but +1 on the dt sticker, needs to be bigger with more spacing

HOT. DaMN.

Nice, was skeptical of the cinelli colour but it's come out beautifully. I love the routing on the chainstay too.

Decals are brilliant. Looks amazing.

Win! Looks great.

Paint looks truly excellent, DT logos need work...

Maybe get some custom vinyl cut by roboto?

i also don't like the dt decals but kept my mouth shut because i presumed theyre under the lacquer.

now with all the voices raised i also have mustered the courage.

i think they just gotta go alltogether; its already a lot going on with the colour ánd the frame design..

its already a lot going on with the colour ánd the frame design..

and that's exactly why the dt sticker is just perfect the way it is. should not be the tiniest bit bigger.

Finish looks great and I like the stickers the way they are. I'd only want a large down tube decal if I was advertising the builder*, yet it's still appropriate to advertise the tubing cos it's Columbus Max, and it's cool!

*I might have been tempted to put the down tube Columbus decal on the top tube, to keep the option open of adding the correct down tube sticker later, but otherwise...