I love a good story. I have more than a passing interest in Canadian bikes having owned a couple of Sekine's and currently own a Miele. This on this side of the Atlantic is quite unusual. Owners word translated below with before and after pics, pic heavy.
Hello,
Another curiosity. I thought I had found an Italian bike. In fact Marinoni, although of Italian origin, is a frame maker and a brand from Quebec, which explains the fleurs-de-lys on the fittings. Nice Colombus frame, well finished, branded, unusual equipment: Campagnolo Touring for the derailleurs, apparently Gran Sport for the hubs, pedals and brakes, Gipiemme for the crankset and headset, Cinelli handlebars. A bit of work, but it should make an original tourer.
A progress report on getting this bike back into shape. It had been through a lot and suffered from the Quebec climate, the steering pivot is all pitted from condensation due to the cold, I found an inscription 8476 ? At first I thought of repainting it because its paint is quite faded, but faced with the impossibility of finding the same decals I decided to try to reconstitute them from what was left ... Not easy. The brush wasn't easy for a line half a millimetre wide, so I thought I'd use an indelible gold felt-tip pen. After many tries with a ruler, the gold was just about right but not very even, so I made up for the smudges empirically with a black felt-tip pen. It was still shaky but about right, and to give it a bit of shine, I applied a little body wax. Not a good idea at all! I hadn't protected the markings with the felt-tip pen and the wax turned them into a shapeless magma. Let's do it again, this time I protect the felt-tip pen with an acrylic varnish and it works. I had to spend as much time on it as if I'd repainted it, and the result isn't the same as new paint and decals, but at least it retains its identity and from a distance, it looks good ... I wanted to ‘Europeanise’ it by fitting aluminium mudguards, a leather saddle (Idéale) and fixed lighting (Sanyo).
That's when I realised that this frame doesn't have a very ‘touring’ geometry, it's more of a racing adaptation with a long rear. The fork is a bit tight for an aluminium mudguards, and the Esgé front is narrower than the rear, so I kept both and replaced the broken front. The wheelbase is short and the pedal touches the mudguard which explains why it broke. As for the tyres, I've fitted 700x25s because there's very little room and I'm worried that a 28 will touch just about everything. The same goes for the lighting: even if I put the wheel as far forward as possible, the tyre would be a bit too far away, too far for the dynamo to fit properly. So all that's left of these projects is the saddle and the bag holder. As I had the parts, I made an ‘all Campagnolo’ with Super Record steering, seatpost and ‘homemade’ triple Record. Which goes to show that I wasn't the only one to come up with this idea.
I upgraded the Rally derailleur with perfectly compatible chrome parts from Nuevo Record, whereas the cadmium-plated Rally parts didn't stand up well to the Canadian climate. The result is an original hybrid derailleur that I find quite nice. I've still got to adjust everything properly, at the front it's a matter of millimetres between the bottom can, the toe clips and the mudguard. I'd have to gain a few millimetres for it not to touch any more, maybe that's possible by bringing the mudguard closer to the tyre, but as it is it's not aesthetically pleasing. I like the mudguard to follow the tyre radius. The same goes for the rear. We'll see, I think we'll have to rework the whole fender attachment... A handlebar with shellac should suit it well, but I'll have to wait for better days.
