steve-d

Hopefully there will be some agreement this build works. Despite the HIDEOUS 80s four color (count 'em: green, red, blue and white) fade paint job.

It is a 1980's something Gazelle top of the line frame I obtained from Holland. I'd rate the frame at around 90%. For me that's a super frame given its 30 something years old. I decided to upgrade it to the level of a real racer of the day and put all my ever expanding collection of excess parts to good use.

Here's what I did after cleaning and polishing it:

I then gave the frame over to John J. Hollands, frame builder, Baltimore, MD, 410 823 7691. He prepared it for the build-up. Bottom Bracket and Head tube faced. Fork crown faced. Bottom Bracket, Steerer Tube, drop-out and shifter boss threads chased. Frame straightened and rear triangle spread to 126mm. Set up as a fast competition frame. Totally fantastic!!!

Weight as built: 22 lbs, 9oz,

Size: 58cm seat tube, center to center

Tube set and fork: Reynolds 531c (yep, competition).

Drive Train:

**Derailleurs - Super Record, front and rear, NOS
**Chain – Wippermann 808 Conex nickle plated
**Freewheel - Sachs Maillard seven speed 13-28, NOS
**Crankset - Campy record 53-39, NOS, 170 crankarms, square taper.
**Bottom Bracket - Campy 102 symmetrical carbon shell cartridge
**Gear levers - Simplex Retro Shifter, located on the down tube where all shifters should be mounted!!
**Pedals – Campy Record Pista
**Toe clips – alloy Cinelli
**Toe straps – Alfredo Binda
**Toe strap button – A total necessity. Without buttons a bike just isn’t well dressed to go out!!
**Cinelli 'Spoiler' bottom bracket shell. https://www.google.com/search?q=cine...=1813&bih=1082 and "1982: Cinelli “spoiler” bottom bracket shell – the first bottom bracket shell to significantly resolve the problem of corrosion caused by water residue in the bottom bracket area of steel tubes."

Wheel Set:

**Hubs – Campy Record High flange, 36 hole
**Rims – Mavic GL 280 front and rear
**Tires – Vittoria Tubulars
**Spokes – Wheelsmith, cross 3

Steering:

**Headset – Stronglight Delta roller bearing. Amazingly smooth. On the bike stand, movement of the fork leads it to sway back and forth.
**Stem – Old School Cinelli 101, NOS
**Handlebars – Cinelli Champion del Mondo, 44cm, NOS

Brakes:

**Modolo old "Professional" model with worn lettering, Apparently greasy from disassembly and cleaning. Campy Record Levers, NOS
**Modolo Cables and Housings

Seat and Seatpost:

**Brooks Professional Select. Only Professional with black rails. Hardest leather seat known to mankind. Verified by the US Bureau of Standards!!!
**Gran Sport seatpost, 27.2

The bike rides very true. It is effortless to keep the selected line. It allows for a relaxing ride not having to constantly ‘keep after’ the bike to maintain the direction. It is, nevertheless, a real 'sports bike' and will change directions very quickly. It gives a great deal of confidence when riding it. I have to ensure I don't let my eyes wander as it can go to the unimproved green section of the circuit quickly.

The bike’s frame and wheel set are very comfortable and forgiving. It truly will allow for a long distance rides even though designed as a race bike. I just did a 40+ mile ride this past Sunday and the bike was super. Overall, I've put about 100 miles on it and can't imagine a nicer ride. They are all great and have their strong points. This one is a keeper and will constantly remind me for the need for a new paint job!!

Best
Steve

steve-d

Sooo, who was Piet de Wit? He was a Dutch champion of the racing discipline known as Motor Paced Bicycle Racing. It used to be very big in Europe, but doesn't exist as a type of racing anymore as far as I can tell. The last year there was a championship was in 1992 (amateur) 1994 (pro). See: Piet de Wit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Motor-paced racing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Steve

steve-d

I'll see if I remember how to do this.

non-fixie 

Piet opened a bike shop in Wormer after his racing career. He somehow managed to get Gazelle to put his name on the bikes. As far as I know the bikes themselves are no different from standard Gazelles. Which is not a bad thing.

steve-d

running into a prob: Pics are too large and can't be uploaded. Don't know how to downsize. Any suggestions welcome. Would've thought the upload procedure would do this.

steve-d

Probably a National Pride issue.

non-fixie 

Best results if you host them on a photo hosting site like Flickr or Photobucket and link to them from your post by using the picture icon in the editor tool bar. That way they'll show here nice and big.

steve-d

Sorry, I'm afraid this post is worthless. Can't resize the pics I took earlier and don't deal with photo hosting sites. What an effing waste of time. Sorry

SJX426 

If you are using Microsoft, you can use the picture editor from Microsoft. Right mouse click on the picture and select "Open with" then select "Microsoft Office 2010" for example. There are a number of picture manipulation capabilties including changing the size. When you do, save it with a different name. The tool will tell you what the new size of the file will be. Anything around 1M will upload.

non-fixie 

An easy way to resize pics, if you're on a Windows PC, is to use the Snipping Tool that comes with Windows:

1. Bring up your pic on the screen:



2. Open the Snipping Tool and choose New:



3. Capture the area you want to show and save. The pic will usually be between 150 and 250 kB, the latter being the BF upload limit, IIRC:



4. Upload to BF (From Computer). This is now 230 kB:

non-fixie 

Darn, SJX beat me to it. Not sure about the 1 MB, though.

Another trick: once you've uploaded the file to BF, you can reference the URL as if BF were a picture hosting site. Et voilá:

steve-d

steve-d

Another two.

steve-d

Not getting easier, but hopefully it'll be worth the view.

BTW, the caliper is very dirty from my last ride. Apparently, it was still very greasy from the tune-up. I'll get it cleaned up IMMEDIATELY !!!!

Steve

steve-d

Thanks for the help in getting the pics resized.

Steve

pullup

Thanks for the pics Steve-d those Gazelles AA specials are very well build bikes.

The Piet de Wit shop still exist today and apart from having their own Gazelle model they also had some bikes build under their own name in the 70's and 80's.

non-fixie 

Absolutely worth waiting for. Thanks for taking the time!

Now, about the bike: those colors aren't nearly as bad as you suggested. I actually like them. My Gazelle looks quite mundane compared to that. Love the Brooks.

steve-d

I didn't know his shop was still in business. I did a little research and voila !! Go to the history tab:
https://translate.google.com/translat...channel%3Dfflb

pullup

Nice, It has been a while since I had a look at that site and it is nicely updated.

A couple of years ago I found this nice Piet de Wit but sold it because it was to big for me. You can see the Piet de Wit font is the same as on your Gazelle



This was not build by Gazelle but Build for the shop by a framebuilder from Amsterdam Klaas Kwantes

steve-d

Very nice. I always wondered why the Gazelle and Italian frames used the 'braze-on' front derailleur so frequently and the English manufacturers use the clamp-on types. The braze-on types could lead to fatigue of the tube where the item is brazed. Just a random thought. Nevertheless, the bike you picture has a clamp-on front derailleur.

CV-6 

I like the paint scheme. But then I own a Jan De Reus with a rather vibrant paint scheme.

AZORCH

steve-d, your AA is strikingly similar to my own:


What is your serial number? Gazelle dated my frame (#3266835) as 1982.

steve-d

I'll check in the am. Very nice bike you have there, and it fits your moto: Not an UGLY bike!!!!

steve-d

It is: 3309855. No clue as to getting info from it.

steve-d

Yes, but mine has the UBER COOL number racing tab on the horizontal tube!! I've been told that is what makes it a very fast bike!!