I got bored during lockdown, sold my Systemsix and bought a late 2000s Ron Cooper

one in, one out. So it goes and we move from the 'dale SystemSix to this, something my buddy has tempted me with for the past few months and as close as i'll probably ever get to a custom frame and maybe the much talked of an rarely seen, bike for the rest of your life (yeah right).

Its a NOS Ron Cooper, tentatively dated to 2009, unknown mix of probably Columbus tubing.

Downtube is 31.7 od, Top Tube is 28.6, so could be Spirit, Life or Zona. Unsure as to which but is the fact that its part lugged part welded make a difference here?

Seattube is 28.8 od and 27.o id, which is.... ? SL maybe?

anywho, heres a pic whilst I try and get some more info.

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Few more pics of the frame, classy lugwork and even room for 28c tyres, which is nice

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For NOS it's not a very good paint job :)

Truth, really rough primer job to protect it it seems.

Which is a nice segue on to the paint, didn’t take me long to decide, it’s gonna get deep metallic burgundy paint job, Caad7 Saeco style.

Cinelli bb, nice

Nice. Looks about my size too ;)

Dibs

Those aren’t welds, that’s fillet brazing. The seat cluster has an external sleeve (not really a lug as such) to join collar to seat tube, to reinforce there.

It’s a basically a piece of shit. I’ll give you £30 and a big toblerone for it.

Thanks for kindly exposing my limited knowledge of frame building and the vocabulary nee nomenclature that goes with it.

Cheers for the kind offer but I believe the saying is 01-21-do 1 is it not? Also I hate nougat.

@jontea beat you too it, he might have to be quite patient though

Off to Mario Vaz next week for paint.
The rest of it should be pretty quick as I’ll be transplanting a groupset to start with.

Change of plan, getting to London ain’t gonna happen now, so off to Argos and a longer wait. The mysterious Dark Rosso is the chosen kolor

Yasssss

That's nice. There was a similar one on Hilary Stone with Carbon 1 inch forks that I tried to buy but it had already gone. Looking forward to seeing it finished

after so much time waiting, this and then the new RC will arrive in a very short time frame...much excite

Retro

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Updates:

Frame is at Argos, now getting done in Dark Flam Red, but they are stupid busy..

Decided against keeping the 31.8mm bars and have gone for a Nitto setup, Dynamic stem and the M109 compact drops.

This is exciting, Mat. I look forward to further updates.

Still no date on the paint yet.....

but did manage the almost impossible and get the dynamic stem on to the Nitto compact drops without scratching the bars.

Pics or I call bullshit :-)

yeah, I can't believe this, quill stem/compact bars. I'm impressed if you managed that!

Are you at all concerned about how narrow the clamping area is? As a person who has been devastated to damage carbon rails before, it makes me a little nervous for you.

Ta da!

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How did you do it? Inverse shim?

pedal spanner....used it to lever open the clamp