I remember assembling those bicycles in the '70s. Nothing compared to the
Japanese in terms of ease of assembly. I once found a leftover lunch from
Italy in the shipping box. Cables scratched through the brake housing.
Also, chain alignment problems were rampant. It seemed that frames were
never in line.
Regarding changing the derailleur-I concur. My feeling is that if you put
a slant pantograph derailleur on the back, you should change the shifter.
The campagnolo shifter has a small barrel and does not move much cable.
An old SunTour or Shimano shifter moves more cable and I found that to be
more satisfying. In first gear, your shift lever will not be really far
back. Good luck.
Tom Witkop
Rockville, Maryland
On Thu, 12 Sep 2002 10:05:52 -0700 (PDT) Fred Rafael Rednor
<fred_rednor@yahoo.com> writes:
> > I have an atala grand prix aprox. from 68-70 it has
> > a rear dellairur campagnolo valentino extra...
> Diego,
> For whatever it's worth, I'm certain your bike must be from
> the (early) '70s. The Atala Grand Prix bikes I saw during the
> '60s all were made from Columbus tubing and equipped with
> Record hubs and derailleurs (or NR for the RD in the case of
> later bikes). Also, most (all?) had the TTT Gran Prix stem:
> http://www.employees.org/
> At the time - when I was _much_ younger - I was under the
> impression that the model name was take from the stem or vice
> versa.
> Does your's have a sticker that says "Tullio Tubing"? I
> always wondered what that really was? In any event, those
> bikes rode well and were reasonably light considering the cost
> of the bicycle. Strangely, the '70s version used a sort of
> "antique" style font for their decals, so they were more retro
> looking than the '60s bikes which used a sort of cursive OCR
> style font (which was very futuristic looking in those days).
>
> But as Sheldon suggests, change that RD! Any modern $25
> Shimano thing will work just fine. On my brother's bike, I
> replaced the Valentino with a Suntour VGT. (This was around
> 1975 but you can still find them around if you want the bike to
> remain "period" in appearance.) Anyway, the difference was
> dramatic even with an ordinary, black Regina Corsa freewheel.
> Best regards,
> Fred Rednor - currently in Arlington, Virginia but
> once upon a time from 15th Street in
> Atala-land
>
>
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