Brian,
Hey, I was just a dumb midwesterner (downstate Illinois) who drove out in his 71 Pinto to go grad school at Berkeley. Folks said go get a bike at Velo Sport, so I did. I was a 40lb, or so Campania, from Japan. Seemed to work fine.
We rented a house in the Berkeley hills from a professor who went on sabbatical for a year but left his three kids (high school age) to watch over the house (and us of course). Anyway, the eldest male, Eric, was an avid cyclist. He had this rattle can greenish blue bike that really looked terrible, but it was incredibly light and seemed to run like a watch when you turned the pedals. I didn't know why then but it was clear it was in a different universe than mine. So he explains: it's a Cinelli with all Campagnolo parts, sew up tires (Clement Del Mundo seta) and Universal Mod. 61 brakes. Cinelli bar and stem of course. So now I knew the secret sauce, and back to VeloSport. The next bike was a too small Falcon, three main tubes Reynolds, Campy NR font and rear derailleurs, seat post and a Cinelli bar and stem. Tipo 27" wheels as I recall. Steel cranks too but still a step up from the Campania. So the upgrade work started: Sugino alloy cranks ( put on by Bruce Gordon who worked at College Avenue Cyclery at the time), sew up wheels that barely fit, but still much closer to the Swiss watch feeling. Then one day I saw that Eisentraut at the Missing Link, and even though it might be a tad big, I got it, fleshed it out all Campy including the brakes, which were half the price of the frame itself, and never looked back. I was able to use the Falcon's derailleurs of course, and oddly enough the seat post, which was a 26.8 and so was the Eisentraut.
I saw the Colnagos at Velo Sport, but typically they were complete bikes so they were out of range, at least as a single purchase (poor graduate student syndrome). Within the last year or so I got a 1969 Colnago from ebay from a guy up in Marin County and had Ed Litton restore it (it had been repainted many times by the time I got it.) I believe it's quite likely from the first batch or two Peter imported back then. So I got my Velo Sport Colnago after all (just 40 years later).
Regards,
Jim Ready
Cupertino, CA
USA