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Finished building up my Marco Lietti 88/89 Bottecchia frame from a few pages back. Here is the man himself looking like Napolean Dynamite's cool Italian cousin.

I've kitted it with mostly 20 speed Campag Chorus, and the classic Mavic Starfish crankset as a nod to 89. I've had to fit mine with Stronglight rings for 10 speed chain as the original 8 speed rings were too fat. 3T bars and stem, Record FD and brakes, Record hubs laced with Ambrosio Excellence rims and 28c Turbo Cotton tyres.


Super chuffed to have found a original red Elite bottle cage to match the white one that came with the frame, and love these cranks all shined up in the sunshine.

And as the sun was out I had to give it a quick pic with some classic Shamals :)

Nice, great condition and a rare sight these days considering they seemed to be everywhere back then.

Good effort, but I see your XR3 and a raise you a Cozzy ;)

Nice, never seen a diamant ti, good job.

Not seen that before but that's well shit, why on earth does he keep.buying the same peddles over and over again if that keeps happening??

Thanks, yeah I guess that's a possibility too.

I think the Bottecchia factory burnt down in recent years, so I doubt there's any actual remaining records there, and from my experience of Italian frames their records were not great even when the factory wasn't incinerated :)

I'm not on Facebook or Twitter or anything but would be great if I can find a contact for Marco and ask him.

Any 80/90's racing buffs like to chip in to try and solve a mystery?

I got back from work today and this had arrived in the post from Italy


Reportedly a team ADR Bottechia so around 89. I used to have a smaller one of these, not a team one but another from 89 so know a few of the identifiers. Cinelli spoiler bottom bracket, it has the handmade Carnielli sticker and the 80th anniversary sticker 1909-1989 so all seems to point to a 1989. It has some other period correct looking stickers on it too, Mavic, Regina Extra and Wolber, and Bottecchia decals on the fork and rear stays that my previous one did not have. I've seen elsewhere that the team ones had external rear brake cable routing like this one. In 89 ADR rode a Mavic groupset and the bottom bracket has the giveaway angled facing as used by Mavic BB's so that's another clue maybe. The old school Elite bottle cage looks from the period too.


And on the bottom bracket is the name stamp of the rider I was told it belonged to, Lietti, as in Marco Lietti who had a 10 year pro career with Italian teams.

It appears as a bigger unit (frame size 60.5 x 58cm - frame is Columbus SPX) he was more of a classics specialist, but did appear to have domestique duties in some of the Grand Tours, and he had a moment of glory outsprinting Lemond to win a stage of the 1991 TDF while riding for Ariostea.

The mystery is from my googling it doesn't look like Lietti ever rode for ADR. He did race for Malvor Bottecchia Sidi for 1988, and in 1989 that became Malvor Sidi Colnago, so seems the Malvor Bottechia's were 88 only, and this frame has a 89 sticker so 88 doesn't seem likely. And I can see no mention of Lietti ever actually riding with ADR.

Was Malvor more of a 2nd tier team? I wondered if maybe Lietti was scheduled to ride for ADR in 89 and they built a frame for him, but for whatever reason the ADR thing never worked out and he went to Malvor instead, and the frame never got used. The frame is in great condition, it was in the hands of a collector for many years so not ridden much, and I suspect its never been raced as it doesn't bear any scars of battle that I can see.

I don't know if the 88 Malvor team rode this classic red and white colors, but if they did they surely would not have done so with a rival teams ADR sticker on the top tube! And in 89 Malvor were riding Colnago's. Of course I'm aware decals could be added at any time, but they look legit and old to my untrained eye. Did Malvor have any links with ADR other than they both used Bottecchia's for a bit?

Only downer is in transit one of drop out screws has been bent, the threads are still fine, so I just need to dremmel the end off and unscrew it and replace that, but otherwise thing looks great.

Any thoughts on if my guess above is the likely explanation, or any other ideas?

My plan is silver 10 speed Campag, but I do have a Mavic BB and Mavic starfish crank, so plan to get some 10 speed rings for that and have that as a nod to 89. And I managed to find a matching old school red Elite bottle cage, so that's on the way :)

Jesus, bleak.

Everyone loves jewels that look beige. Into the sea with that.

Reminds me of....Black Adder to Percy, "I don't mean to be pedantic or anything, but the colour of gold is gold, that's why its called gold. What you have discovered, if it has a name, is some beige ...

"oh Edmund can it be true, that I hold here in my mortal hand a nugget of purest beige?"

Hello, I'll.take it please. I am London based but am.coming to Bristol the weekend of the 25th-29th May, so is it OK to collect it then?

Otherwise my sister lives in Bristol so I can.maybe ask her to collect it before then if u need it out of the way before I come up.
If either rof those OK pm me collection address and payment info and I'll be back in touch when I finish work later, cheers.

Thanks, its one roll but it was still a hassle! Its Supacaz Belgium tape.

They don't make it any more but for a few years they did a series of multicolored ones in the colors of countries flags. My Simoncini one has the Supacaz Jamaica version.

My ti Merckx got the short straw and did the bulk of the 3800 autmn/winter miles I rode from September to end of December, so ended the year in a sorry state....

The wheel bearings were done for, as was the cassette, chain, brakes pads and cables so I just grabbed another bike and ignored it for the last 5 months.

There are still some good deals to be had on ebay if you are prepared to collect, and I found a nice set of the new wheels. Ambrosio semi deep Focus rims that look decent with the fat ti tubes, laced to some Campag Chorus hubs, with Chorus skewers and a barely used 29-13 10 speed Campag cassette, all for £56! I did have to go to Hanwell to get them but well worth the trip.

And as that blue tape was just to minging to be allowed to continue any further, I got new tape and saddle and some pedals from my parts bin, and I've Belgium'ed up ti Eddy.



And its taken me 5 years of scanning ebay but I've finally managed to get Merckx cages for all 5 of my Merckx bikes, which now all have Eddy 2 cages each :)

When these GP5000's are done for I'll get some gumwall 28c Vittoria Corsa's I think,

ooof that's bloody lovely, but we can't wait till 2024 to see it built, make it 2023:)

I still remember the first time aged about 10 I got a lift in my dad's mates 900 turbo, was black with red interior and I thought it was a space ship compared to the bangers my folks were driving.

And it had headrests in the back, which along with twin exhausts and electric windows marked you out as a millionaire or a royal in the early 80's.

I had a couple of old school spots over the weekend. Coolest car I saw in Mayfair yesterday, forget the wall to wall dead to me Lambo's, Porches and Range Rovers, was this little factory fresh gem. A boggo standard Mk1 1.1L Ford Fiesta, from the first year of release, 1976. Before this Fiesta was just a full bush grot mag you'd find in a hedge.


And this gave me a flashback to my folks' bangernomics car days as we had one of these for a while when I was a kid. All I remember about it was it seemed huge inside and was very comfortable on shit country roads, a baby blue Morris 1800.

Ah cool, yes I couldn't find much about them, and I consider you our oracle of old American motors, so if you hadn't heard of them they must be pretty obscure. If a car could tell a story, I wonder how it ended up on a street in Crystal Palace.

And after my recent flurry of big and brash American cars, today's choice spot is a stunning little European number, definitely right up @jonny 's alley, an absolutely fantastic condition Fiat 850 Spider, nipping in and out of traffic like a water boatman, great little car.

That's a lot of car for the money at current prices things go for. Although I'm guessing finding parts in the UK for a 40/50's Frazer is a bit of a mission.

And I missed the tarp'd one round the corner, while I snap nice and interesting cars I see when I'm out I think lifting up tarps for snaps is out of order haha. I do always play 'guess whats under that' when I see one though.

Damn that Max fork is going to rock, lucky girl! Love the beefy Samson crown too. Looking forward to see them finished.

I think I'd heard Columbus had starting selling Max again, are those the new release stuff or are those old tubes you somehow managed to find?

If you ever fancy making any more Max forks with a long steerer for a 61 cm frame let me know, me want :)

Spotted in Shoreditch, obvs,

Spotted this mahoosive 75 year old upturned bathtub earlier, I've never heard of this make before, a 1948 Frazer Manhattan. Looks like you can get about 10 people in it.

A cute Vauxhall, said nobody ever, probably. I think this 1956 Velox is, and is clearly loved. If Noddy and Big Ears are still driving I could imagine them in this.


And the wheels look shit on this, but otherwise a very cool looking land yacht, and I'm a total sucker for bulbous weirdly shaped fastback type rear windows. Nice little west London runabout, a 1971 3rd Generation 7.5 litre Buick Riviera. I'm imagining a debt collector drives this and the trunk is full of severed fingers.

I'm pre-programmed to hate all bikes with those stupid huge jockey wheels, but in addition to that the bike just looks like a nasty plastic clothes hanger you'd expect to see in Topshop.

Great to see the MG finished at last, look forward to the pics of it being thrown at some bends.

Maserati looks hot.

Spotted a nice TR6 today.

Ban it.

If all they can offer LUFGUSS in return is higher listing on some rankings, and bossman is not dependent on these higher rankings to help keeps the lights on and servers throbbing, then fuck megacorp off into the sea, we don't need them. If we can give them the finger lets do it, not many will make that stand, so if we can we should imo.

I just don't like the idea of being harvested. I'd prefer a more realistic Siri/Alexa that gave me the kick up the arse I sometimes need "hurry up you stupid cunt get your fucking keys and wallet and get out of the house now, you've got to be at the station in 5 minutes you tedious faffing twat. And the position of those shifters is fucking embarrassing dude, and oil that chain, fucks sake just sort your shit out!".....

....but just have that uneasy feeling that Terminator 5 will start with 50 year old John Connor posting on LFGSS asking if he can bodge an old 8 speed Campag road cassette onto his 9 speed MTB hub, and after we've politely mocked him for being a clueless noob, the machines will order he be destroyed by the appliances in his high tech kitchen he posted on LFGSS the previous week, and the rest of us will be next.

So that's a definite no from me.

Fuck, any humans out there remember how to make a list?

Continuing my week of cool old American car spots. Hard to believe this is 74 years old as it looks fresh out of factory, and the colour is soooo dreamy, and ALL THE CHROME! That front bumper/fender is a WMD.

1949 Cadillac.

Middle aged thread>>>>> :)

...a horizontal speedo that moved very slowly no doubt for the base model:)

The GT was the pick of them, but there was 2 others, so guess yours was like the one on the left.

There was also a very cool old XJ, tidy Merc 180 and a nice C10 Chevy truck there.



And spotted yesterday a bad to the bone Chevy Chevelle SS.

Ha, yes sausage finger typo, duly amended.

I think I saw 1 or 2 of the Ronald Finger Fiero vids, but just seen he finally finished it, good job him. He's got a Datsun 280Z project now, and I love those so will see how that progresses.

The Barbie Jeep needs killing with fuoco.