Accidentally bought a 1st year Bianchi Project 7?
 

So this will be a somewhat rambling, convoluted post so please bear with me.

A few weekends ago I stopped in at the bike shop (Dakota Cyclery) in Medora, N. Dakota, located in the ND badlands. I saw this bike sitting out front and asked them about it when I went in.
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It turned out the shop owners were selling it for the wife of a friend of theirs who had died due to complications from being struck while riding a bicycle. I didn't know the guy, but I always hate to hear about those kinds of tragedies.

I had kind of been casually on the lookout for a Bianchi, but it had to be celeste; I was very flexible on which particular model, but figured a roadie would be much easier to find. Anyways, I took it for a test ride around town and was surprised to find it fit me quite well as it looked so small when I first saw it. I also instantly liked the 'feel' of the bike. We went back and forth on the price for a few days, settled on one we could both live with and I went to pick it up.

I was confused in the beginning as to why this Grizzly had 700c wheels and tires on it, but figured no biggie I could also locate some proper mountain wheels for it if I felt like it. I got further confused in looking at the chainstay clearance which didn't seem very roomy even with the 35mm tires it had mounted. How in the heck did they get a 2" tire in there I wondered? I had narrowed the bike down to a 1990, possibly a 1991, but neither of those year Grizzlys were available in celeste. Hmmmm.

So I started doing some research into my Grizzly and discovered that the bike, may, in fact, be a 1990 Project 7. I found this old reply post in a BF thread started by someone who was also confused about just what kind of Grizzly they had:

"What you have there is a 1991 Bianchi Project 7 [he possibly meant 1990, as the '91s did, I believe, have a Project 7 sticker]. I owned one new and a friend still rides it. Yes it has Grizzly stickers. There were no Project 7 stickers. Bianchi figured it was a top of the line MTB w/700 wheels so when it arrived w/o stickers they put some on. There were a couple other glitches. They had wanted a bike with a 71 head tube angle, which was still considered steep for a hardtail back then. Somehow the frames got made with 69 degree heads. Then the clearance at the stays was not much."

The Bianchi catalog I found seemed to back up the missing stickers claim as the 1990 Catalog shows a Project 7 with no sticker on the top tube. I also believe I can eliminate the 1991 P7 as it had Ukai rims, not the Araya VX-400 this bike has, and that came on the 1990, assuming they are original which I have no reason to doubt. The wheels are still sporting the OE Suntour XC Pro hubs. Any confirmation from any of the Bianchi experts here is much appreciated.

I also found an old Bicycle Guide article on the Project 7 that said only 125 were produced that 1st year, which if true is astounding -- and exciting (if in fact this is confirmed as a 1st run P7)!

In another post I'll add some more pictures taken in my garage last night and comment on all of the non-OE or stock equipment I believe this bike came with.

More photos. Overall, frame is in amazing condition with just a few scratches and tire rub marks. I already have some celeste touch up paint on the way which I'll apply after some light sanding and priming.

Non-stock items I've seen so far: Pedals, middle ring of the OE XC Pro crankset, brakes, seatpost and seat and the handlebar. I'm tempted to try to return it to full catalog spec, but will just enjoy it as is for now, with the exception of swapping to some better tires, tanwall of course.
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Bike also came with a grab bag of goodies that I can assure you will NOT be going back on the bike, with the possible exception of one of the Paramount cages, though I do also like the funky Trek rear rack and will find a use for it on another bike.
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Previous owner seemed like a cool guy running celeste+ purple parts. What a score

Yes, sir, I'm pretty tickled about stumbling onto this bike.

The celeste & purple's not really my cup of tea, but I guess I'm stuck with that middle ring for now, though XC Pro chainrings are available on ebay, just not in the correct tooth count (36T - bike came with 38T middle). I can more or less live with the purple middle ring, and may just keep it on there in tribute to the deceased owner, but just don't care to have purple all over the bike. As they say each to their own, horses for courses, etc...

These 700c steel hybrids are always such great bikes. The head tubes are always nearly universally short, which requires one to get creative with handlebar height. But Celeste and Prestige tubing? That is a winner right there.

Agree with AmCo. That’s a great bike for whatever you want to with it...dirt drop, gravel, hybrid commuter.

Whoa, Cowboy! Bianchi marketed this as a mountain bike with 700c wheels and were adamant that it was not a hybrid. From all my reading since acquiring this bike, a lot of people seem to think it was the first attempt at a 29er MTB, but was held back by the narrowness of the wheels and tires of the era. Maybe I'm already an overly sensitive Project 7 owner, haha. In any case, the bike may only be a footnote in the history of mountain biking, but was an interesting concept and attempt to break free from the 26" wheel standard of the time.

But as stated by jdawginsc, they are a blank slate for whatever you want them to be. I may install some mild riser bars for a little more comfort for my aging back, but other than that intend to keep it close to the spirit of its original configuration.

That's a really nice example, great find.

The Project 7 is one of my many late 80s/early 90s grail bikes. As you noted it's only a footnote in MTB history but I think as we move forward into the future it's role will be reappraised as a more significant milestone. Bianchi had a relatively strong marketing campaign for their "700c Mountain Bike" (advertisements in Winning, Bicycle Guide, etc) but the limited tire availability IIRC due to manufacturers in Asia unable to make larger 700c tires at the time mostly for technical and economic reasons - kept it from being able to achieve anything more than a niche alternative to 26" models. By the late 1990s/early 2000s 29er development was further along and from what I can tell the Project 7 was a proof of concept the bigger players in the emerging space looked at closely.

Thanks for the input, Spoonrobot, some good information there. You seem to know a lot about these bikes.

Do you think I'm safe in assuming this is a 1st year, limited production Project 7 (as opposed to what I assume is the more mass-produced '91)? I base it on two things: in the Bianchi catalogs, the '90 is described with both Bianchi Superset-2 and Tange Prestige tubing, whereas the '91 describes the tubing as Bianchi Superset-2 and Ritchey Logic tubing; additionally the '90 had Araya VX-400 rims (as on my bike) and the '91 had Ukai CR-700 rims, both using the XC Pro hubs.

I'm pretty certain it's a 1990, but I don't want to be unreasonably certain! According to Cycle Guide, Bianchi only made 125 of the 1990s which would make it a pretty rare bird indeed.

From what I can tell in - addition to what you noted - the 1990 has the rear rack braze-ons located on the outside of the seatstays and the 1991 has them on the inside of the seatstays. And then the 1992 has them back outside but has different decals and spec, etc.

So it sure seems like a 1990.

Why don't you want the handlebar extensions? I wouldn't ride my mountain bike without a similar set, which provide my primary hand position. Since I have long brake levers similar to yours, I can operate the brakes from either the bars or the extensions.

Interesting. I went back to the 1991 catalog and indeed that year the rack braze-ons appear to be on the inside. Thanks, Spoonrobot!

I tried 'em before, back in the day, but never really liked them. No doubt they add some comfort to the ride, but I never really felt like I had the same control as the bar grips in the rough stuff, not to mention I'm one to dance through the gears according to terrain so rarely had my hands on them anyways. They would probably be more useful to me nowadays, but they won't be going on this bike in any case.

I've been making some slow progress on the Project 7.

I touched up any scratches on the frame with some celeste touch up paint I located on ebay. I don't think this paint would work on any of the more metallic celestes, but it works great on what I guess you would call classic celeste. Unless you look really, really closely the match is great. Frame now looks next-to-new and will get fully cleaned and polished tonight.
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There was one spot on the 'Grizzly' decal on the drive side that had a small chunk torn out of it. This picture isn't the best because I cropped a previous photo to zoom in on the spot. It's between the L and the Y, and you can see where part of the black zigzag graphic is gone:
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So how to make a nice improvement to the damaged decal? With a Sharpie and some long dormant stippling skills. Turned out well I think:
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Scored these sweet NOS Bianchi branded SPD pedals off of ebay and installed them after removing the old SPDs the bike came with -
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Things left to do: Install the new tires, Soma Shikoro 700x38c with brown sidewalls (supposed to arrive today), install a more appropriate seatpost (also on the way), slightly wider & higher handlebars in silver alloy (yep, also on the way), then a new seat and grips, I'm thinking dark brown would go well with the celeste and brownwall tires, but am going to wait until I see what the tires look like installed. Will post more updates as I progress.

FYI - https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...zzly-26-a.html

Thanks for posting that SoCaled; I've already read it several times -- it was part of my research that helped me determine I have a Project 7 and not a Grizzly -- but I'm sure there are more than a few people who haven't read it yet and would be interested in it.

This is a great bike; nice pick up. As others have said, this will make a great all around bike. I have a 1992 Trek 750 (lugged chrome moly) I'm fixing up also as an all around bike.

I agree bikemig, and am looking forward to riding it once I get it all put together. I doubt I'll do any real off-roading with it (I'll use my 'modern' bike for that) but it should be really fun to blast around town on. I'm already mesmerized by this thing before even riding it (excepting the short little test ride I took on it) -- I can't help staring at it whenever I'm out in the garage. :)