1950s Cinelli

Before going onto this bike we should first re-visit an earlier blog post which had this photo of a 1952 Vecel  & Co. advertisement:

If you click on the image to enarge it you can clearly see that the fork has a spear shape to the side.


The following bike has the same fork, and the owner descroibes it as such:
CINELLI  VINTAGE LIGHTWEIGHT RACING BIKE EARLY  1950s  LUBELLA  REAR TRIANGE TUBING ,HAS A STAMP IN THE LEFT CHAINSTAY IN THE FRAME,, MEANS DRAGONFLY? I THINK,
  531 WAS USED AT THIS TIME, HARD TO TELL IF ITS REYNOLDS OR FALK,? COLUMBUS?   SIMPLEX FRONT AND REAR DROPOUTS , FB LARGE FLANGE HUBS, NISI RIMS  MATCHING TUBS HOLD AIR  
 RIDES WELL AS THEY ALL DO,   CHAINRINGS ARE A BIT NEWER,         ITS AN EARLY BIKE ,POSSABLEY ONE OF THE EARLIEST  NON   SEAT  CLAMP MODELS
THEY DONT COME ALONG VERY OFTEN,    I HAVE HAD IT FOR 4 YEARS, FROM A PRIVATE COLECTION    23 "  CENTRE TO TOP OF SEAT TUBE,       ITS THE ONLY WAY TO MEASURE A FRAME
22" TOP TUBE C TO C
GUTTI SPLINED CRANKSET   WITH THE EXTRACTOR,  CINELLI  PISTA BARS AND EARLY CINELLI STEM, CHROME IS TIRED UNDER THE STEM,
FRAME WAS RESPAYED A FEW YERS AGO , NOT BY ME   NO RUST ,OR DENTS,  UNRIDDEN FOR THE LAST 5 YEARS,, TOOK IT ALL APART AND SERICED EVERYTINHG , ABOUT A YEAR AGO, SO READY TO RIDE
SHEFIELD PEDALS,  GRAN SPORT REAR MECH, UNIVERSAL BRAKE STIRRUPS AND LEVERS.

 
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

1950s Cinelli at L'Eroica

My grateful thanks to CasbahCicloClub for permission for story and photos:


"While sitting outside our van at Eroica, waiting for the night to come, sipping our cold beer, we suddenly had this apparition. An elegant man riding a really old Cinelli just came across and disappeared in the parking lot, we stood there like four garden dwarfs for a while. Then the man came back and stopped right in front of us. In two seconds we were all around him jumping and screaming like a bunch of school girls.

As many of the Eroica participants he was more than happy to tell us something about his ride, on the other side we were so euphoric that we forgot to ask his name. Very impolite. Anyway he was looking for somebody he couldn’t find so he spent ten minutes recalling the story of this bike.

The frame was built for his cousin in the early 50′s, considering that Cino Cinelli started his business as a frame builder in 1948 this must be one of the first bikes produced. At that time Cinelli was an exclusive brand, it was the brand for the rich people, the top rated bike around. The guy omitted the way his cousin became rich during the war and was a little upset because he had to wait until his cousin death to ride this jewel.



Some clues could help us dating the frame. First the seatstay are in a “traditional” position, as all of us know Cinelli lately redesigned the seat collar, bring the seatstays in behind the lug rather that along side it, but this modification was brought around the 1953 apparently.


Second clue is the rear derailleur. Is a very rare Cambio Paris Roubaix produced by Campagnolo from the 1950 to the 1955. This derailleur was extremely innovative since it allows the rider to change gear by using only one lever, instead of the two normally used those days (one for moving the chain one one for release the wheel). We were astonished by the way this derailleurs works, but the guy with peacefulness in his eyes told us that during the day he had no problem shifting the gear more than 20 times over a 40 km tour. Only 20 times in the hills surrounding Gaiole in Chianti? This man came from another, and better, conception of cycling."




I invite you to contribute by sending in photographs of your Cinelli bike, illustrations, personal stories, and articles about Cinelli bikes and components.

Thanks for stopping by.

I can be contacted at veronaman@gmail.com