My post of earlier today, resent sans HTML gobbledegook:
This bike was fairly well known in certain Auckland, NZ bikenerd circles a few years ago. The previous owner was Bruce O'Halloran who hails from Coeur'd'Alene, Idaho, and who ran a subterrainean bike shop and bike rental business in downtown Auckland. Bruce told me that a friend bought the frame from Ernesto Colnago whilst travelling the world after his tour of duty in Vietnam. Allegedly it was intended for a member of the French Olympic team which would make it early '68, however Bruce's friend negotiated it from the initially-unwilling Ernie Colnago withe aid of some good red wine. For years this was part of Bruce's rental fleet, though for long peroids it was unavailable to the general public due to its popularity among Bruce's shop grommets.
As Charles has suggested, Colnagos were unusual in New Zealand in the 70s. As far as I can recall, the best frames that could be readily acquired were of the order of 531 Raleighs, Carltons & Falcons. A reasonable number of Kiwi riders travelled overseas though, so some exotica was available to be ogled by the rest of us, such as Kim Sinclair's Bianchi Speciallissima which he bought new in Vicenza in 1975: http://www.flickr.com/
Mark Battley <mark.battley@xtra.co.nz> wrote: Thanks to everyone (and there have been very many of you) who have replied. This group continues to be an amazing source of information.
I have just spoken to the owner and asked him to check the underside of the bottom bracket, he is not with the bike at present but hopefully will be able to check tomorrow. I meant to check when I viewed it yesterday but was in a rush and forgot.
The late 60 fits with what he was told when he bought it, although it does appear that it may have had a few brazeons added later in its life.
Thanks again, and I will update you when I know more.
Best regards,
Mark Battley Auckland, NZ.
-----Original Message----- From: Jim Ready [mailto:jimr@rfj.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 2:01 PM To: mark.battley@xtra.co.nz Subject: Re: [CR]Help with Colnago age and model ID
Mark,
Boy, your post sure genersated a lot of responses. As I mentioned in my response, and as you can see from the timeline, the key to it being from the 60's is the bottom bracket cut out. I have a 1969 Colnago and the most distinguishing characteristic is the bottom bracket with a circular set of holes, rather than the Colango "club" cut out. I can't wait to see what you have.
Jim Ready Cupertino, CA
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