Hello,
I have modest collection of vintage lightweight bikes (with a far more mode st claim to knowledge about them), including an Atala Pro, a Francesco Mose r, a Gios Torino Super Record, and a Motobecane Team le Champion. The lates t addition to this collection, a bike of unknown make, was a find I made th rough an advertising magazine when studying in Rome this summer. It is with hopes of identifying this that I've turned to this list, so recommended by the users of bikeforums.net.
What initially attracted my attention was that the seller advertised the bi ke as a Pogliaghi. After emailing back and forth i bought the bike after se eing the pictures, at a very reasonable price. He claimed to have bought th e frame new in about 1963, to have painted it himself and to have built it up with his components of choice; a mix of Campy hubs, pedals, seat-post, r ear casette, shifters and levers, Weinmann brakelevers and Universal Mod.61 brakes, with Gipiemme crankset and 3 TTT stem. This being Italy, however, doesn't make all claims to origins accurate, without suspecting anyone of d eliberately lying. Therefore I searched the web for all the pictures of old er Pogliaghis I could find. It didn't turn out to be a vast amount, and fro m what I have gathered, Pogliaghis of older vintage are subjected to specul ation of years of manufacture based on approximate production numbers per y ear.
As I have listed on bikeforums.net, the features that I have gathered to be similar to Pogliaghi are the BB milling, long wheelbase and relaxed angles , as well as similar lugging and fork crowns, although the latter seem to b e spaced wider than the ones found in reference pictures. Some features tha t are remarkable are the brake cable guiding that goes from a single 'chess -pawn' braze-on, through the seatpin and down to the universal centrepull b rakes that are mounted directly to the frame in two points. Furthermore, ca bles run through and over-bb braze on, and front derailleur and derailleur shifters are mounted with a braze-ons. From what I've learned on bikeforums .net, this doesn't necessarily have to point to a later year of production. It has been suggested that braze-ons could have been mounted later, but I find this a hardly likely modification made by an Italian amateur cyclist. Although, the bike has been looked after and modified: the frame has a lot of soul in the set up and features extensive drilling to nearly anything th at could be drilled, the rear-derailleur fastening bolt included. The nuovo -record rear derailleur has even been milled out with a rough hand. A point of importance is that I haven't found a 'PSM' number by the seat-cluster o r anywhere else. The bike seems free from any serial numbers, however the p aint is bubbling and chipping, and something could possibly be found under the front tube paint.
This condition of the bike means that it is in need of a re-spray, and ther
efore it is important to find the most likely manufacturer. I have understo
od this mailing list to have some pogliaghi-knowledgable capacities among t
heir numbers, and I would really appreciate any input and interest. Picture
s are to be found at http://www.bikeforums.net/
Sincerely,
Eirik Arff G Bøhn
Oslo, Norway