My Road Bike

[Chris620gsi]

Hi,

I am a newbie to this site and have just posted details of my MTB's over in that section and now for the road section

Before I start, it seems all my pics are too large to attach. Any assistance/guidance would be most helpful.

First my history...

I began riding a racer in 1984 when I was 15 as a way of keeping fit whilst my tennis double partner recovered from snapping his achiles tending. It was a 10 speed Peugot made from 103 Carbolite. This was soon stolen and so to continue my laps around Richmond Park I purchased a second hand Claud Butler made from Reynolds 531c. I had this for a year then bought a Vitus 979 frame from my LBS (Holdsworth Cycles in Putney) and built it up with a mixture of then current Shimano 600 & 105. Unfortunately a combination of the frame being slightly too big for me and flexing too much as I always pushed a big gear I swapped the frame with a friend for a correct sized Rossin SL frame. Now at work in 1988 when I was 19 I then built the 'last racer I'll ever own' and my current pride and joy.

She is a Chas Roberts racer custom built for me from Columbus SLX. She is 75 degree parallel and has double bottle cage mounts, internal top tube cable routing, fastback seat stays, Cineli form shoulders and Cinelli Supercorsa cast bottom bracket with Campag vertical dropouts. When she was new, she was hot pink with fully chromed forks and rear triangle.

Component wise she is still almost original with Shimano Dura-Ace 8 speed hubs with Mavic Open 4 CD Rims, uniglide cassette & chain, front and rear mechs, downtube shifters and headset. Campag Delta Record sorted the rest, such as 53-42 crankset, bottom bracket, aero seat post and the lovely series 1 Delta brakes. Cinelli bar and a Cinelli Record stem with white tape and a White Regal Girardi saddle finish her off.

There is nothing like a custom made bike. She was built just for me (including the extreme frame angle) and I will never part with her.

My winter ride is a 2012 Raleigh Airlite 300 modified with 105 brifters to hide the gear cables and Shimano r501 30mm deep rim wheels.
I don't mind getting this one dirty, lol.

As I say, any help in showing me how to compress my pic files will be most appreciated.

Chris

 

[NeilM]

Re:

Welcome to the forum, your Roberts sounds great.

The best way to put pictures up is to host them on one of the sites like Flikr, photobucket or one of the others and then post a 'shared' link across using the Img button ^^ up there.

There are some tutorials on the forum which make the job easier.

Look forward to seeing some pictures. :mrgreen:

 

[Chris620gsi]

Re:

Thanks NeilM I shall get on it as soon as I can.

 

[Chris620gsi]

Re:

 

[Chris620gsi]

Re:

As she is now

 

[kingbling]

Nice

 

[Nob]

I much prefer the original paint scheme with chrome personally but a nice handbuilt frame none the less

 

[NeilM]

Re:

Very nice.

It's very.....erm pink!

 

[Mike Muz]

Re:

Welcome!

Lovely bike, how come you went for 75degree? Are you a triathlete? Was the original pink pearl? And is now a solid colour?
On the rare occasions I go to Richmond Park, I see a lot of nastiness, mainly on the bikes though! Plus a lot of things expensive plastic bikes, that in my mind, look ugly. But that's just my opinion.

Mike

 

[Chris620gsi]

Re:

Thanks for the comments guys.

The original colour was the famous Roberts hot pink (usually paired with blue) and the rear triangle and forks were chromed. It looked VERY pink but also VERY beautiful.

Over the years and as a result of storage in a damp shed the chrome flaked and the paint was chipped so in 2015 she had a refurb, but financial constraints meant She has was powder coated. The pink is actually 'hotter' than the photo suggests and they didn't have silver to initiate the chrome.

My aim is to get her done properly by Geoff Roberts, but for now she still works and gets ridden 2-3 times a week.

I used to train around Richmond Park from 1986-1990 doing 3-4 laps in the evenings after school before they put those 'new' cobble corners in at the roundabouts. My fastest time was 17 mins 34 secs.