jeirvine 

This popped up on the "Are You Looking.." thread (thanks #Jp42 !). Pictures were vague but intriguing, and I had a meeting not far from Frederick today, so arranged to look at it, figuring it may be worth it for at least the shifters. Turns out to be an un-molested early 80's Italian race bike. The mark is Gi Esse (GS - get it?) And it is built with a complete Gipiemme gruppo (GPM - get it?), which I thought was pretty funny. It's a little small for me (59cm x 58cm), but I figured it needed saving from fixiedom, so here she is.

And now that I have her home, I think the whole package probably deserves to be kept together. The 3ttt (TriTi-TiTi?) stem is pantoed "GS", and it has Gi Esse toe straps, including a third on the seat rails for a spare tubular. The mechs are Gipiemme re-branded Simplex. The rear is an LJ4000, which is what (with a little drillium) Fignon won the '83 TdF on. So the shifters are part of the Franco-Italian gruppo proper, so they'll stay. There's precious little on the web about Gi Esse, and hopefully this here post will assist future searchers on the mark. I wonder if it is a Gipiemme house brand of some sort, which might explain the joke. Nice lugwork in any case. Any one know what the "Mercurio d'Oro" prize was ca 1980? It weighs 23.4 lbs. One wonders how a race bike from an obscure Italian mark ends up in central Maryland? Enjoy.

Cyclist3098765

Cool machine! I saw the Simplex shifters, actually thought that was a Super Record rear derailleur from the CL pics.
Hope someone can give some insight on the history of the bike.

jeirvine 

Anyone know what model Gipiemme crank this is? Looks almost Ofmega-ish.

noglider 

Yes, that crank may be Ofmega. It looks like one. Considering the derailleurs and shifters are rebadged Simplex, the crank could be, too.

I like the letter-pun of the GS-GPM, too. I would have bought it for that, too.

Salamandrine 

That is a very neat gruppo and bike. I'd keep it together myself, for the history. Gipiemme was sort of smirked about circa early 80s, and referred to as gyp-me. Many people considered it to be a slightly inferior campy substitute. But the same things were said about Dura ace. I think that it was actually good stuff. Those shifters are way better than the last generation of NR/SR, and the derailleurs were just as good. Rest of it was practically speaking equivalent to NR. The gruppo is actually kind of a notch above the frame really. The frame is very cool nonetheless. This bike was probably a lot of bang for the buck for a young racer.

I think Gipiemme did their own forging, but I don't know. Maybe it was the other way around, and they made Ofmega's cranks. A lot of subcontracting went on in Italian bike part manufacturing.

Gipiemme had a bunch of different cranks BITD. I remember some were vaguely similar to Campy NR, but not the same. This crank is similar to an Ofmega CX as far as the crank arm profile, but the spider is different.

jeirvine 

I'm not familiar with Zeta tubing, but it weighs a pretty respectable 23.3 lbs as built.