Concorde Colombo build

[Jamiedyer]

James, first welcome aboard and secondly, wow! what a thread to kick off with.
That is a fantastic build and it came together in a really organic way and looks superb because of it.
I had a Concorde Squadra from 1989 in TSX tubing and it was a fantastic riding bike, mostly C Record and loved it. I only sold it a couple of years ago now due to needing some quick family finances but still regret it. Mine was a 48cm found for me in a race shop in Amsterdam by Mel, from on here.
I am sure you will soon be putting some very enjoyable miles on the rebuild.
Thanks for sharing

Jamie

DSC_1901 by Jamie Dyer, on Flickr

 

[James_CX]

Re:

Cheers Jamie! That looks a beauty, love that paint scheme and would’ve gone for that if the decals were available. Shame you had to let it go but hopefully someone else is enjoying it

 

[sjcprojects]

The final build looks great - the modern(ish!) drivetrain fits well, in my opinion. I've never been keen on rims with massive stickers, but then I guess when you're actually riding it, it makes no difference anyway...plus like you say, those are pretty nice rims!

To keep the Concorde appreciation theme going, here's more or less what my Prelude looked like before I sold it. Looked good from a distance, but in reality it needed a proper respray, which I was reluctant to do at the time seeing as I never rode it, so I thinned out the collection. Then of course a few months after selling it I went and bought another Columbus frame which needed way more work to build up! :facepalm:

It now lives in a bike café in Newark, weirdly enough...

 

[olivejunkie]

Q Does anyone have a ‘Flite 1990’ and know the dimension, bottom of the rail to top of the saddle?

I do and will measure it for you soon and get back to you.

I'm relatively new to this forum too and I enjoyed reading about your restoration because I purchased what was believed to be a Concorde on Gumtree but after some toing and froing there was no definitive conclusion, so I settled for "believed to be a Concorde" It was a quality frame with a poor new paint job but after a little desktop research I had all the original images the seller had posted to try and establish provenance.

Restoring a frame is a real labour of love but unless you do it yourself you have to have deep pockets!

After reading this post and the range of contributions, I'm still curious about the range of models under the Columbus brand all built in italy with Columbus tubing and painted in PDM racing team colours. e.g. When trying to id my own "believed to be a Concorde" I was sent this threadhttp://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/ ... t=concorde

https://ibb.co/j4g2PJ
https://ibb.co/jBdhPJ

Which featured a Concorde "Etoile" which is as close to the builders detailing on my (btbac) I could find. Provenance is an important topic when it comes to something like a bike for sale, but in truth, it can certainly send you into a spin and down a rabbit hole!

 

[sjcprojects]

After reading this post and the range of contributions, I'm still curious about the range of models under the Columbus brand all built in italy with Columbus tubing and painted in PDM racing team colours. e.g. When trying to id my own "believed to be a Concorde" I was sent this threadhttp://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/ ... t=concorde

https://ibb.co/j4g2PJ
https://ibb.co/jBdhPJ

Which featured a Concorde "Etoile" which is as close to the builders detailing on my (btbac) I could find. Provenance is an important topic when it comes to something like a bike for sale, but in truth, it can certainly send you into a spin and down a rabbit hole!

Your frame looks like a Concorde, from what I can tell (though I'm no expert) - the headtube lugs, in particular, look right. Does it have Ultech dropouts? If so, that's a sure sign. Yours doesn't have the original forks, that much is for sure - they always have the Concorde bird icon on the fork crowns.

 

[jamesdak]

Loving all the beautiful Concorde's!

 

[olivejunkie]

@sjcprojects I think you're confusing the Etoile images (URL's posted above) with my 'believed to be a Concorde' which is here https://photos.app.goo.gl/VjSxWm1tmP1DWxPp8 and has since been fully built up with a Shimano 600 (6400) Ultegra 'Tricolor' groupset.

 

[sjcprojects]

@sjcprojects I think you're confusing the Etoile images (URL's posted above) with my 'believed to be a Concorde' which is here https://photos.app.goo.gl/VjSxWm1tmP1DWxPp8 and has since been fully built up with a Shimano 600 (6400) Ultegra 'Tricolor' groupset.

Ah, yes I was getting confused! The rear brake bridge is quite distinctive on yours, I would think that would ID it as definitely a Concorde or not? Anyway, it still looks like one to me, judging from the other details. Yours is almost certainly the Concorde with the most minimalist paint job out there - not the usual often 'interesting' paint schemes they favoured...!

 

[James_CX]

Re:

Some lovely warm weather last weekend so took this for first proper ride, but first an update:

After a long search I randomly found a narrow-wide chainring in 135bcd so the carbon cranks have been covered to single-ring and transferred to my modern winter bike. A search on eBay and I found a cheap Veloce Ultratorque crankset in silver, complete with sharkfin chainrings and some nasty scratches. This now sports the chainrings from the carbon crankset and has been polished to a mirror shine.

The cranks looked so good after polish that I got a bit addicted and did the derailleurs too, along with the stem and seatpost. The only things I won’t strip and polish are the brake levers as I suspect bare aluminium plus sweat will equal black fingers, not good with white bar tape!

These bits now looked so good that the forks were letting the bike down, so I sourced some new chrome forks. I couldn’t find any curved forks so reluctantly went straight - but I love it, and I found some Concorde fork decals in Holland and popped those on. I didn’t realise but I think these were NOS and quite brittle. Might be up for some custom made decals - any recommendations?

And how does it ride? Really smooth, fast and on the flat annoyingly comparable with my other brand new (and much more expensive) Bianchi I also rode for the first time the same weekend. I built this for the fun of the build but I think this will be a regular ride in the summer.

 

[Peachy!]

Cracking job James, now let’s see a photo from the “correct” side