Super Corsa No. 2814

My thanks to Jonathan who writes in with, "I've just finished restoring my 1974 Speciale Corsa frame number 2814 and I'd love to feature it on your Cinelli only blog which I really enjoy.  (N.B. My frame may be a 1975 - I'm not 100% certain so any advice on this would be appreciated)

When I bought the frame last year the paint was quite worn but was generally sound, it was however missing the original fork. I wanted to recreate a fork as true to the original bike as possible so I managed to source an original sandcast Fischer-made Cinelli sloping fork crown and drilled fork tangs and entrusted the frame restoration and fork rebuild to Neill Shankland at Atlantic Boulevard in Bury. Neill sourced the Columbus tubing for the fork and steerer and oversaw the frame and fork work, rechroming work, paint, wheel rebuild and other polishing work. Decals exactly matching the original ones on the frame were supplied by Greg Softley in Australia.  I deliberated over keeping the yellow but decided to go with classic Cinelli silver in the end. The paint used was an old Porsche silver but with the metallic flake replaced with a very fine grain - the finish is fantastic and is a good match to the silver used on Cinellis in the early '70s.

I rebuilt the bike using much of the original Nuovo Record groupset that came on the bike but stripped every component down to the last bolt and refurbished everything.  The original wheels were missing so new wheels were built using 60s-mid 70s Fiamme red oval logo rims which were NOS and needed a lot of polishing work, the spokes are Robergel trois etoiles, again NOS. I picked up the lovely early 70's high flange Record hubs in good condition.  Any parts badly worn were replaced like for like with NOS or VGC period correct parts - the Unicanitor saddle, Cinelli 1R stem, Giro D'italia bars and Nuovo Record pedals with strap loops and Bindas for example. I've tried to keep everything as period correct as possible the only concession being the Clement Criterium Tubulars which are from the early 80s but i want to ride the bike and was worried about reliability of anything older."

More photos can be found here.

Reminder: I invite you to contribute by sending in photographs of your Cinelli bike, illustrations, personal stories, and articles about Cinelli bikes and components. I can be contacted at veronaman@gmail.com