Biankeith
Kona Fan
Thought I’d share here, I’ve long been a Bianchi fan and a friend of mine knows this, so when I received a message from him that simply said ‘you need to buy this’ and a link...there was an inevitability to what followed.
24hrs of ‘hmmmm’ was followed up with a few emails, and with a PayPal transaction I became the keeper of one of Super Mario’s 2005 Liquigas team bikes - one of the years he wore the rainbow jersey.
The only real snag being that the bike is in California and I’m in Hong Kong, with absolutely no idea when I’ll actually get to see it (I don’t have the space for more bikes here!)
The bike was given to the Munich Bianchi store in 2006 to put on display and was bought by a local man. in 2011 it was sold to a collector in California, from whom I bought it. The frame is a wild geometry custom made for Cippo, and a fat rear triangle (unlike the carbon on the normal FG lite) - to stand up to one of the most successful ever sprinters!
It’s lost a few of its original parts over the years - the forks were swapped out by the first owner (I’m trying to find out what the original ones were, they were a 3rd party fork, stickered to match), and there’s some nice detective work in working out the seat post, bar and stem. I’ve managed to get hold of a set of correct spec Boras (...which are in the UK
).
I’ve also spent time picking up accessories to go with it - short and long sleeve jerseys, a team musette bag, a signed Cippo team-launch card and, incredibly, a signed bottle - possibly reuniting it with the exact same bike!
Hopefully one day I’ll get to put everything together!
24hrs of ‘hmmmm’ was followed up with a few emails, and with a PayPal transaction I became the keeper of one of Super Mario’s 2005 Liquigas team bikes - one of the years he wore the rainbow jersey.
The only real snag being that the bike is in California and I’m in Hong Kong, with absolutely no idea when I’ll actually get to see it (I don’t have the space for more bikes here!)
The bike was given to the Munich Bianchi store in 2006 to put on display and was bought by a local man. in 2011 it was sold to a collector in California, from whom I bought it. The frame is a wild geometry custom made for Cippo, and a fat rear triangle (unlike the carbon on the normal FG lite) - to stand up to one of the most successful ever sprinters!
It’s lost a few of its original parts over the years - the forks were swapped out by the first owner (I’m trying to find out what the original ones were, they were a 3rd party fork, stickered to match), and there’s some nice detective work in working out the seat post, bar and stem. I’ve managed to get hold of a set of correct spec Boras (...which are in the UK
).I’ve also spent time picking up accessories to go with it - short and long sleeve jerseys, a team musette bag, a signed Cippo team-launch card and, incredibly, a signed bottle - possibly reuniting it with the exact same bike!
Hopefully one day I’ll get to put everything together!
