Cinelli Stratocaster

Posted on December 1, 2013 by saarf

Well, I saw this looking lost and unloved ,

hand made, tig welded, Columbus Thron, and Cinelli..circa ’95-’96

for cheap…

here’s the original factory spec, courtesy of cyclingnews.com

“STRATOCASTER Racing geometry with Green Line Custom sprung forks, and “full optional” components of the type usually used on bikes in a higher bracket, (Columbus Thron tubes, Shimano STX groupset with Grip Shift gearshifters, 3T Extreme bars, 3T Procrome stem, Bontrager saddle, Tom Ritchey tyres), make it light, the lightest in its category. The handmade TIG welded frame is painted with the multilayer Hardmat process, and it is also available with an unsprung fork with Columbus Thron forkblades. Geometry (18″ size): seat angle 73=B0, head angle 70=B030′, chain stay length 423mm, rake 43mm. Colour: Saffron Hard Touch, Violet Blue Hard Touch.”

so I set out with my bag of parts to the rescue..

I decided to lose the stem, and the bars will be used on another build,

the paint is ‘Hard Touch’, a textured and very robust finish,

but the forks were quite corroded..

so I cleaned them up somewhat. but will have to dismantle to get inside and see how bad the decay is, and get the spring back in them.

Came with factory spec Shimano 3×7 speed STX group, original Ritchey tires, and great FIR mtb rims…

and an original Cinelli seatpost clamp..

As it is, it’s a fast mtb, I’ve flown on it, and it’s my current winter beater.

Here’s a mock up, with Rock Shox Judy forks, before I had the seatpost battle…

managed to find these original Rock Shox Judy playcard decals..

There are a number of paint çhips, although not deep enough really to affect the textured finish, so I hope to be able to source the correct colour somehow, and just touch up, or possibly air brush,

I’ve been riding old/vintage Milanese road bikes for a while, before it got fashionable, and now that rare Italian steel bikes have become more popular, I’ll keep them off the salty winter roads.

(well, that’s how I justify it)

I’m using Ritchey Comp stem and bars, Ritchey Comp saddle and when I manage to dislodge the seatpost, a Ritchey one.

The seat post was stuck, one of the worst cases I’ve come across, and to cause as least damage as possible to the “hard touch’ paint, I opted for non chemical extraction..I took the frame to an engineer friends workshop..

I managed to get some of the post out at the top, but further down it really had melded into the Thron steel seat tube..

so we tried a primitive reaming process…

which ended up in damaging the frame, leaving a split just below the non drive side seat post clamp collar!

so I got it tig welded..

and filed the area down to a smoother finish and reclaimed some of the clamp detail that had been welded over…

There is still some seat post inside, so now have to resort to chemical extraction, and as the paint has more chips on it now, will powder coat it olive-green…