7Speed’s 1993 Ritchey P-21 (TIG Welded Frame)

[7Speed]

If you look carefully you can see a bonus stem wedge jammed into the steerer...

 

[7Speed]

 

[7Speed]

Taking off the BB cable router gave me a clear serial number confirming a P-21 from 'around '93

 

[7Speed]

...there was also a nice badge which I assume is from the shop that originally sold the bike - a LBS in Illinois that still seems to be in business today.

 

[7Speed]

Re-Spray or Not?

A look at the frame showed a lot of paint chips and scratches. The colours were still bright but had seen better days. Intimidated by some of the builds on RetroBike I reached out to Rick Stefani who Tom Ritchey worked with back in the day for all his frame painting. Rick still works today and gave me a very reasonable quote for a red-white and blue fade, but with shipping etc it was well over a thousand dollars...