Jeremy,
There are many bikes out there that will serve your purpose well. Last weekend in San Diego they had a birthday ride for Joe Bell where folks were asked to ride their Colnago Super if they had one as this is Joes favorite ride. Brian Baylis loves the ride of his Colnago as well and Sheldon Brown describes the ride as Colnago frames almost always ride like a dream. Some folks show no interest in them because they think they are too common in numbers, however there are many of us that have spent time in the saddle and know of the legendary ride and have fallen in love with it. I owned a Mexico, that I ended up selling because it was just a trifle too big, but oh what a ride.....it possessed what I call the Magical Mystery Ride. At the present time I have a Colnago Tecnos, although not in the time frame of the list, it is a most wonderful ride and it does have nice lugs. I also have two Raulers, who learned the craft at Colnago and started out on his own in the mid 70s, which have that wonderful classic Colnago ride. In fact Rauler built frames for Colnago until 1985 and built the first Colnago Arabesque. Although the bikes are few in numbers in this country if you happen to find one it will cost about half the going price of a Colnago as there doesnt seem to be much of a following. If you do find a 55 or 56 c-t please allow me the first right of refusal on it ;-).
Good luck in your quest,
Mark Poore
Slatyfork, WV
Greg Brooks <gregb51@lycos.com> wrote: Jeremy, FWIW; This summer I've done one regular century ride & half dozen metric centurys on my '74 Calif. Masi,a '72 Paramount P-13, & a D.M. Hetchins with vibrant rear stays. All 3 are plenty responsive without beating me up. The best part about doing long rides on older lugged steel frames is passing all the titanium & carbonfiber bikes on the hills! I would think any of the well know top end lugged frames would do well if setup correctly. Let us know what you decide on. Happy hunting, Greg Brooks, Ridgetop,TN
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