Chesini Olimpiade

Bought a Chesini Olimpiade from peter v, quite a while ago.

This is what I bought:

It's a nice enough looking bike, but possibly a little too utilitarian. For me, Chesini's need to be a little more lively, so this became a 'project'.

I started with the easy bit, I took a load of the parts off, which gave me this:

Since then, I have bought a few bits off e-bay, and sat looking at the frame a lot. So now to encourage myself to get on with it, I've only gone and posted in Current Projects. Hope to have this done for summer.

As my 'other project' has hit a bit of an interregnum, thought I might spend a bit of time on this today.

As I have noted above, the bike as purchased was fine, but the components were a little lacklustre.

For me, the bike was (is) crying out for a lovely set of Shamal's. However, Shamal's in useable condition are ruinously expensive, and I have a family to keep, so I needed something a little more budget.

After a lot of time on t'bay, I got these at a good price:

Vento - the poor man's Shamal!

These are an unusual example, in as much as they are Vento Rims built on Dura Ace hubs. Not what you would normally expect, but it works for me:

And here's what they look like attached to the frame:

I'm off for a quick cup of tea, then it's bars, stem & seatpost time:)

You do drink a lot of tea haha, nice bike too (just like the gios!)

Tea is the beverage of Champions!

Off we go again then.

I had this seatpost lying around. It's from USE, and has the word Titanium written on it, so should go with the look I am striving for.

Next up is Bars and Stem. I had this Ambrosio Bar / Cinelli Stem combo left over from a Woodrup I sold ages ago:

The eagle-eyed reader will notice that the bars have Chorus Brifters already attached. This is a bonus. The bike as supplied had down-tube shifters, but it was obviously designed to take Brifters as it has cable guides brazed on to the bottom of the head tube.

I am going to go for an 8 speed build, largely dictated by the Brifters.

Saddle next - another dredge from the parts bin. This is a Concor Supercorsa in white, long-ago abandoned as phenomenally impractical, but rediscovered here 'cause hey, this is going to be a fair-weather ride!

Slap a couple of barrel-adjusters to the downtube, bolt it all together and this is what we have so far:

I reckon more tea (if that's allright with nutsjesmoar), and it's on to brake callipers.

Brakes then.

Nice Italian bike, Shamal-a-like wheelset, there is an obvious choice of calliper - the famous Campagnolo Delta.

Not the cheapest option, or the easiest to get hold of, but after trawling various 'speciality forums', managed to get these off a guy in Finland (or maybe Norway).

Logo's in good condition, nice and shiny, just perfect for this build. And yet, when I put them on the frame, they didn't do it for me. They looked a bit inelegant, a bit clunky.

Never mind, I had back-up. A more or less new set of Chorus Callipers that I'd picked up for next to nothing on e-bay. These would be perfectly in keeping with the rest of the components I have earmarked for the build, a good, solid, dependable option:

Then I remembered a long since abandoned attempt to accumulate the elements of a Graphite Groupset. In a shoebox, in the back of the shed were a set of more or less forgotten Monoplaner Callipers in Graphite finish.

And here they are:

And here's a side view:

And for the ladies, one from behind:

Lunch I think, and then drivetrain. If the weather holds, and I don't have too many problems cable-ing up the levers, I might be riding this by tea-time.

Haha, as long as you keep on going building bikes like this, you may drink as much tea as you can! But I wonder if it's smart to have it ready by teatime.. that's just the time for drinking more tea!

No probs with an 8-speed Shimano cassette and 8 speed Campagnolo Ergo's? (rhetorical question this is)

We'll find out later. I think the problem is going to be me, some cables and getting them to fit the ergo's.

Right then, drivetrain.

Crankset is a Campagnolo Mirage, in very good condition that I bought for a great price from this forums very own Colnago Costa a few months ago. What a nice bloke he is, and I am delighted to say his bike addiction is far worse than mine.

Anyway, here's the crankset:

Front and rear mechs are also Mirage, and they came with the bike as supplied by peter v. Reduce, Re-use, Recycle!

Chain is a cheap and dirty number from the local Halfords - I always find it hard to spend decent money on chains.

Anyway, stick that lot all together on the frame, and by golly, we've got ourselves a drivetrain:

And to prove it all works, here's a gratuitous action shot:

There is now no getting away from the fact that the obvious next step in the process is to fit the cables - the part I fear most. So before that, I'm off to put the kettle on.

I liked it as it was.

Me too, but it will be nicer and more Chesini'er.
Cabling isn't that hard is it?

I love the way you can play with 3 sets of Campag brakes to choose the right one, one set being the oft lusted over deltas, the silver monoplaners would have been more period but I guess you can't have everything,
Great thread for a wet day.

Another thoroughly entertaining Jin-Jan thread. Good stuff.

You have made the right caliper choice, very sleek.

Personally, I'd love to have a rummage through your 'parts bin'!

Looks great!
What downtube shifters came with the bike?
Looking to sell the deltas?

Personally, I'd love to have a rummage through your 'parts bin'!

That's very kind of you, but I'm not that sort of person!

Looks great!
What downtube shifters came with the bike?
Looking to sell the deltas?

I think the downtube shifters were Mirage, I'll have a look tonight.

I probably will offer the Delta's for sale. They came with levers that will probably clean up well. While they look nice, the Delta's aren't 100% to be fair, so you'd probably want to look at them first.