Drillium Dude 

Another eight:

I received the Portacatena lever already milled as seen here, so I took a stock FD lever and milled it to match; voila!



The "NOS Button" referred to earlier in the text:



More drilled decoration; these particular holes do not penetrate the reverse side of the calipers:



OMAS alloy center nuts affixed to an OMAS titanium center bolt:



Campy QC miss:



This was the first pair of brake levers I ever took a Dremel to; they were NOS at the time! I love how the hoods have aged - they are original:



The other one. I simply over-bored the original holes along the sides, then dressed them with a chamfering bit. The middle row of holes was used to guide the milling of the three slots, so, even though these were NOS and the first-ever attempt, a lot of the layout work, if you will, was already done for me



I cleaned up some scratches and then sent this Cinelli 1A off to Jon who milled the round-cut slots and polished it up in an almost perfect match to the finish on the seatpost. Bar is an early-logo Cinelli Giro d'Italia. Cable housings are period correct CLB alloy coils with neat translucent coverings. They are a bit flexy-looking, and I can't recall what the braking was like it's been so long, but they feel okay when testing on the stand:



DD

Road Fan

Which Gommis do you have? I’ve used the Champions and the Espressos. IMO the Champions are much better than the Conti Giros, and the Espressos are among the best I have ever ridden, though I have not sprung for any Veloflex or FMB.

In cheap tubulars, my pecking order is (bottoms first) Conti Giro, Vittoria Rallye, Yellow Jersey Service Corse (feels like a tubular, repairable, no fractures experienced) and Gommitalia Champion (smooth and lively feel, flexible and compliant, as nice as the classic Vittoria CX and similar). These are all too “old school” to have breaker layers, so flatting is possible.

I like the Velox Jantex tape. I tried the heavy duty Tufo once, and it’s too hard to undo. I’d probably try the regular Tufo, and I’m curious about Cafe Espresso. Drawn to the cafe culture thing, I guess!

Classtime 

If they haven’t shipped your Challenge tires yet, google a little, and find they have a reputation to shed their tread. But folks just glue it back on so maybe no biggie. BEAUTIFUL BIKE. Since March, and without commuting, 95 % of my miles are on Tubulars. Continental Sprinter on the Medici and Victoria Corsa G+ on the Sachs. Glue is the way to go. Tape seems like trouble so I’ve never tried it.

Drillium Dude 

The Gommis are Champions and they look good, although I hope they will stick down well at the valve. They've been settling on these rims for awhile now, but they 'push up' a bit at the valve. I may clean/trim the base tape there to help. The Giros look really, really good in construction/finish but of course it's about the ride. Maybe they ride like the YJ tubies - don't know the thread count. Having 2 pairs of the Champions, the Giros and the Challenge Elites on their way sets me up well for the near-future I think. Thanks for the feedback on the Champions - until today I'd not heard anything about their ride from anyone who'd used them. And I'll look into the Jantex tape as well; I still have the remnants/box of that stuff from when Wildwood and I teamed up for a once-only tubular-taping session.

Just curious what you didn't like about the Giros. Obviously I haven't used the NOS pair I have, but I did run them in Hawaii for a short time before giving them up for clinchers across the board. Can't recall how they rode...

Thanks for you .02

DD

Drillium Dude 

Thanks for that consideration - you know, I've heard of some tubulars losing their treads here and there. In fact, I saw a tread separation on Cino in 2014, but don't recall the brand of the tire - might have been a Dugast or FMB, tho.

I've heard good things about Challenge tubulars and having given their Elite clinchers a go (and being impressed until I destroyed the rear in a monumental lock-up) I'm looking forward to the feel/performance. They're on the way, so hopefully I'll be finding out soon.

At least for the time being I've got lots of tires to play with. Something will float my boat in the end!

DD

Road Fan

This was about 15 years ago. I had been using Giros off and on for a few years, on roads in Denver Colorado and Dallas, TX. I didn't have a lot of trouble with them at first. Occasional flats and one carcass failure. Then I started reading horror stories on BF about whole batches failing. I pooh-poohed it, until someone asked for my address. A few days later I I opened a UPS box which had 4 unused and absolutely useless and unrepairable Giros in it. At this point I realized I needed to stop recommending them. Not long after their price popped up about $10 each (about $40?), while the YJ tires were unchanged and still 3 for $50. At that point I just left the Giro behind me. I continued using my small stash when I had to equip a wheel, but those tires eventually all turned into that twisty snake inside shape. Have never had that problem with YJs. My Gommi experience is fewer tires, but all good - Reliable and they feel good!

You also mentioned the Gommi Champions mounted to the rim with a gap on either side of the valve. I have had that happen with a few tires, but I have never worried about it, and just went out riding. After some time on the road the tires got "rounder." If I was really conscientious I would have demounted and re-glued them after they settled, but I did not. As a cyclist I beleive they are safe. As a safety engineer I am not supposed to believe anything is safe unless I have a well-documented paper pile that explains how its safety is guaranteed by known physics, but actually BF is probably the closest to that, as far as I can see. I think they are most-likely fine, and I would still just ride them cautiously/carefully and look, feel, and listen for any signs of trouble brewing. Have you tried to ride them with those gaps? What happenned? Did you put maybe 4 days of usage on them? Did it feel odd in any way on the road? Have the gaps become smaller in any amount?

SJX426 

Jeff, I also leave an unglued space opposite the valve stem. Since I use glue, this may not apply to tape. For a little while after first riding newly glued tubes, there is a ticking every revolution. I think it is the glue being pulled up at the edge of where it stops. The sound goes away after a number of miles. Kind of irritating at first until you realize what it is. I carry a plastic tire lever to get under the tire at the unglued spot. Most of my tires are a bit challenging to get of at first. Really good adhesion.

seedsbelize 

And my first ever glued tire has that gap at the valve. I thought nothing of it, not knowing any better. Under the weather today so maybe I can ride it tomorrow. I was shocked at how easily it mounted.

seedsbelize 

Oh, and DD. That is my favorite color for a bike. Beautiful!

Drillium Dude 

Thanks for the detailed answers!

My pair of Giros are probably from the same era; gumwalls with the small orange label. Tread still seems pliable, tho the latex on the sidewalls is beginning to brown nicely. The valve sits nicely and doesn't ride up, so that's a bit of a leg-up over the Gommi Champions, but the Champions are newer. I would also imagine that a little bit of a gap that will probably settle later is no biggie in any case; the area is as small as the area some have suggested to leave tape- or glue-less on the opposing side. Pretty sure if it were an issue more people would be pointing that issue out.

I've not mounted any of the tires yet as I'm waiting on tape and the new Challenge Elites to arrive; they are going to be my beginner pair. My plan is to ride them - if possible - for an entire week straight, then go over to one of my clincher-tired bikes and do the same, then report my findings in a compare/contrast post in this thread. If nothing else, it may serve as a practical lesson to someone else thinking of going back to tubulars after a long absence - or even for someone contemplating tubulars for the first time.

DD

Drillium Dude 

Seems that to do it with tape I'll just need to cut two separate lengths after I've measured for the gap. Easy. If the tire is challenging to come off, I see that as a good thing; my biggest fear is a tire coming off at speed.

At least if a tubular goes flat at speed you can still ride it home without slowing down:


DD

Drillium Dude 

Thank you! It was originally supposed to be a close match for Raleigh's Sunburst Orange Metallic or whatever it is - the same color as my old Super Course 12. Came out looking more like cafe au lait

It took awhile, but the shade grew on me; it also varies in depth with different lighting. The blue seems to look more and more like it should stay the more I look at the bike!

Congrats on gluing up your first - hopefully you will feel better and get a chance to test it out tomorrow. Which tire did you end up mounting?

DD

merziac

Love the"Medieval" call, that crank is awesome.

Drillium Dude 

Thanks - I put a lot of time and effort into those rings. They started out as Record with the extra webbing, which allowed for the fancy points. Whomever aerodynamacised the the crank did a super job. Never seen another like it.

DD

SwimmerMike 

DD-

Beautiful Bike. I've been doing a lot of polishing, but the drilling along with the polishing kicks it up another notch.

For the tape, I cut off a bit of the tape, leaving the plastic covering exposed about an inch, then I just apply the tape from the valve stem (leaving a bit of a gap) and work my way around until I get to the other side, then I cut it, again cutting the plastic covering a bit longer. This was I don't have a bunch of tape trying to stick to everything. I fold the extra plastic over to pull it out once I have the tire on perfectly.

Mike

merziac

So cool, great work.

Well the whole thing is bangin, the color gives me pause a bit but as @Fahrenheit531 puts it, the blue rims really set it off, so I vote keeper.

And based on the last post on the Colnago that went down the road, maybe you should swap out the shifters for regular ones that you can really get after it with to make a better assessment.

Drillium Dude 

These have a bit more meat on them at the base of the lever - on the Colnago, I cut too much material out of the base and weakened the lever to the point it began bending. No such issues with this pair

DD

majmt 

Very nice work! It looks like one of those bikes that you can just tell will be a nice rider. Thanks for starting the tubular conversation as well - I had similar questions re tape etc. I have no art or aesthetics background but I like the frame color a lot but to my untrained eye, the blue rims might need some help to tie into the rest of the bike (in addition to the Campy decal on the down tube.) Perhaps some bar plugs or blue (instead of black) paint inside the longer drillings on the shift and brake levers.

qcpmsame 

Conti's Giros have gone down in their durability and quality over the past couple or years. When I first used them on the Medici DD sent my way, they held up quite well. Last pair I used, in 2019, puncture flatted much too easily. Even a small piece of broken gravel could penetrate the thin tread and then it shredded if you couldn't come to a stop fast enough. Rim cuts in the extreme, and why I stopped buying them. Those Gommis always piqued my interest, perhaps I'll give them a try.

Bill.

Road Fan

I don't see any benefit to intentionially leave a gap at the valve, and I don't think the gap we've been talking about is due to lack of tubular cement, it's just that the tire is a bit stiff when first installed.. One of my fellow Classic Rendevous members posted quite a while ago that he leaves about a three inch unglued area opposite the valve, to facilitate getting an "extraction" started while on the open road and need arises to change out a tire. I don't recall who it was, however.

But yes, with tape it should be that easy to create a gap. I would say, mark the edges of the gap with cheap masking tape, run the tire tape from the valve to the mark, snip it, and run from the valve the opposite way until you hit the gap marker, and ship again. You just want to create a short place on the taped rim bed where the tire has a little extra response to when you grab it and push, after getting a flat.

Drillium Dude 

The suggestion is to leave a gap in the tape/glue opposite the valve; I'd be concerned if there were no tape/glue at the valve since any significant amount of creep could snap off the valve. No worries about having an inch untaped/glued on the opposite side, tho. Your description is basically the approach I had in mind.

DD

Drillium Dude 

Thanks Mike

I like your approach here and intend to follow it in basically the same way. After striking out on tubular tape at all my local shops (!) I finally snagged some Jantex Competition 76 from Ebay. Maybe the tires and tape will arrive the same day. Should I let them sit 24 hours after taping - just for general purposes - or should they be ready to go? The one time I mounted tires with this stuff was for somebody else - they directed me and I was the muscle

Anyway, I have the stuff I need on the way and the expertise provided here and elsewhere in this thread should enable me to wind up with a serviceable tubular wheelset.

DD

Drillium Dude 

Thank you - and I hope you are correct! I really do not know what to expect, because I'm completely unfamiliar with the bike to begin with, and trying tubulars for the first time in 20 years is being thrown into the mix at the same time

Thinking along the same lines as you, I decided to add one small blue flourish to the bike itself to echo the blue rims: I refinished the Portacatena button with a clear blue acrylic paint which should look good in sunlight. If we ever get any more of that around here I'll take it outside and get a photo.

Because the blue is transitional - I have a second set, a dark grey pair of Mavic SSCs on Campy small flange hubs - I will leave the black infill alone. The SSCs were this bike's wheelset for a long, long time; the blue set is basically getting me back in the game for the time being.

DD

gaucho777 

Jeff, I'm late to the party. A lot of great input in this thread, but first...your Alpina is gorgeous. All you bikes are special, and this is no exception. The drillium work is fantastic. I can see why you'd be reluctant to despoil such a beauty with usage but you have more willpower than I do!

As for the tubulars, another +1 to Veloflex tubulars. I've been riding tubulars since I was a teenager in the mid-80s, and have ridden lots of different options--new and vintage, high-end and entry-level tubulars. I was initially turned off by the large font graphics of the Veloflex tires, but after a few hundred miles on some 28mm Veloflex Vlaanderens, I'm sold.

+1 to Stans sealant: I haven't tried a lot of other sealants, but sealants in general are a game-changer. They used to be race-day only tires, because you never wanted to flat at the beginning of a ride and then worry about rolling a tire the rest of a ride. Being able to fix most flats with sealants, and not have to mount an unglued spare, makes a huge difference. Plus avoiding the obvious hassle of repairing and reglueing the tire after each flat/slow leak.

I'm still an glue over tape guy, but haven't tried any of the tape. If it ain't broke...

Road Fan

OMG yes, absolutely a keeper!