I Purchased my '71 GC from a LBS owned by Dominic Malvestuto, born in Italy, raced in Italy for many years and a life long bicycle guy. The bike came with Mafac Racers with the little TA front rack. He said that he remembers Masis from the old days with the same brakes, and he was certain that the bike came that way. When I removed the brakes, it looked as though it was the first time.
Pat Moffat Tempe, AZ, Where I still remember my first time. Sort of.
-----Original Message----- From: Fred Rafael Rednor <fred_rednor@yahoo.com> Sent: Jan 6, 2005 4:53 PM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR]Late 1968, early 1969 Masi Special, all original
Steven,
Thanks for posting the pictures of this bike. It is more in
keeping with what I remember people riding in the 1960s and
early '70s than many of the bicycles I've seen displayed
recently. These days, everyone seems to mount Campagnolo
brakes on their old machines even though these were often
difficult to obtain (and seemed insanely expensive) in '68, '69
or even 1970 for that matter.
So I'm not entirely surprised that Weinmann brakes were
installed, although I am surprised that their sidepulls were
used. You often saw Weinmann brakes and Universal levers,
although in the case of the sidepulls that wouldn't provide any
quick release mechanism, so using the Weinmann levers here made
perfect sense.
Another thing I noticed when visiting Italy is that Italians
did not really feel the need to ride all-Campagnolo since,
already being cool Italian guys by birth, they didn't need
"tutto Campagnolo" bikes to prove they were cool Italian guys.
Anyway, I'm really touched to see a bike set up for an ordinary
aspiring Italian club racer.
Ciao,
Fred Rednor - Arlington, Virginia
> I have posted some new photos of the latest Masi Special that
> I have brought in from Italy. The bike has the world champion
> stripes on the seat tube stating the 1967-68 and 1968-69 pro
> road race wins, so it needs to have been built after the
> world's in 1968. The bike is incredibly clean shape with all
> original components. I doubt the bike has been used much at
> all. The only truly unexpected components are the saddle and
> brakes. It appears the saddle is a 'tuned' version as one of
> the saddle rivets has the name AVRES on it, so I guess the
> buyer was true to his 'butcher'. More appropriate would be a
> Unicanitor saddle. The brakes are Weinmann with the neat Q/R
> levers built into the lever. They also have quite fancy cable
> adjustors. The bike is a 59 cm 'Masi measurement' or a 57 cm
> C/C.
>
> The photos can be seen at:
>
> http://www.wooljersey.com/
>