alexnagui

Here is my new project, Vittorio (Randonneur?) from early 90's as far as I can tell from the components it came with.
Vittorio is quite known and well-regarded around here, especially for custom made touring and tandem bikes. I believe, non-fixie has a couple of those.
The bike is built like a tank, it's Reynolds 500 throughout. It's definetely not lightweight, the whole bike as it is weights 17,6 kg.
Clearly, it was built with the idea of heavy loaded touring or even going around the world, a so called vakantiefiets. According to the seller, it hasn't seen many km's though.
It comes wilt custom built racks which look very sturdy and are not the lightest, I suppose.
I mean, I don't really care about the weight at all. I hope it'll make a nice tourer, I would love to tour this year somewhere around Europe.
The bike is very stable, I took it for a short ride and cycling no hands is not a problem at all.
I measured the tubes and they are 58ct (seat tube) and 56ct (top tube). The chainstays are about 44cm long. I really love the extended head tube!

It came with mostly a mix of Shimano DX and LX components, but also Maxi Car hubs laced to Alesa rims, both 40h rear and front, Stronlight (needle bearing?) headset, Kajita sealed bottom bracket (never heard of those before ). The saddle is a Brooks B17 model Campagnolo, it seems to be from 1960.

The plan for now is to change the cockpit, pedals, maybe put lighter tires and overhaul most of the bearings. Maybe I can start planning a small tour in the meantime
















The serial number is E6311

alexnagui

The only issue which troubles me a bit is that the paint under the NDS seatstay is coming loose with some soft filler material underneath I have to take a better look at it later.

The Golden Boy 

That is a beautiful and extraordinary bike!!! It's in beautiful shape and I love all the appointments...

By "changing the cockpit" are you talking about replacing the flat bars with drops?

That bike looks nice enough to really dolly up- but everything is in such nice shape. And those Maxi-Car hubs... wowza!!!

obrentharris 

Maxi-Car hubs, 40-spoke wheels, sturdy!

I'm no Brooks Saddle expert but I'm under the impression that the "Campagnolo model" saddle dates from the late fifties or early sixties.

Brent

mstateglfr 

Wow that is quite the head tube extension!

Can you provide details on the cable routing along the headset/head tube? What is the cable guide attached to?...the headset?
And what are the cable stops on the downtube? They look like plastic circles.

non-fixie 

Very nice find. Congratulations! The last of the classic touring rigs. Vittorio and Snel were the two major Dutch brands competing for that market at the time, and their machines came similarly equipped. Nice stuff!

Looking forward to its new cockpit and the first ride reports.

alexnagui

Thanks!
The flat bars have to go, I don't understand how people go on a tour with those, they seem so uncomfortable to me. Yeah, I wanna put drop bars maybe Nitto Noodle bars or some other wide bars, I only have experience with vintage drops but modern wide drop bars are supposedly much more comfortable, right?
It is in nice shape, you're right!

alexnagui

It has a '60' mark underneath so I guess it's from 1960. It's still in a rideable shape though, a bit of proofide and it's good to go!

There is some kind of a washer between the bottom headsed cup and the headtube which has those cable guides on both sides, I'll take some pictures of that later.
The cable stops look aluminum to me. I am gonna check that later as well. I don't think they are plastic in any case.

alexnagui

Thanks! I actually came across a Snel bike last year which was equipped with the same racks made by Jan Groot (Vittorio).
Anyway, almost all Vittorio bikes I've seen are either Strada or Populair, this one doesn't really belong to any of those. Do you think it was a custom made bike, especially considering the unusial head tube?

juvela

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thanks very much for sharing this machine!

the "soft stuff" under the NDS seat stay may be some brazing flux which did not get cleaned away prior to painting.

shall look forward to reading the observations of our non-fixie


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alexnagui

Brazing flux makes sense to me, it looks kinda yellowish, shall I just remove it and touch up the paint?

pullup

Super fun bike.
I happen to own a little brother of that one.

non-fixie 

I doesn't have the typical 'JG&Z' top eye panto's of the bikes built by Frank Groot, but I don't know if that means anything. The Belgian frames were also mostly, if not all built to order, and could be had in pretty much any size you wanted, as long as you were prepared to accept a slightly longer lead time.

non-fixie 

Nice! Have you still got that green Vittorio Randonneur as well? How do they compare?

I noticed that @Elev12k is around as well. He owns a few nice Vittorio's and perhaps can shed a little more light on these touring machines?

pullup

Yes,I still got the green one
I intended to build this as a randonneur as it's got all the braze-ons to install all the needed racks for touring. I got that red one relatively cheap on marktplaats and that is such a nice riding bike I left the green one without the racks for the time being.
This one is build with Columbus tubing and a lot lighter compared to the red one (also Reynolds 500 buils as the bike from alexnagui) I finished it with a nice Campagnolo 10 speed triple group

Maybe I will install some racks in the future

pullup

The green one rides more or less like a stable racing bike, but the red one i like better as it feels almost indestructable and rides very comfortable

alexnagui

Thanks for sharing your bikes pullup Both look like fun rides My Vittorio also feels indestructable, that's plain gauge tubing after all. Have you done some touring on your red bike?

bean_burrito

beauty!

Soody

i love that front rack
suggest zip tying a small metal basket on the top of it

pullup

Yes I did i took it te Basel Switserland and rode it back to Holland. Last summer i was planning to go to Biarritz and back but then Corona happened

JaccoW

Very nice bike @alexnagui! That should be a nice rider. Don't forget the Weinmann A129 concave rims.

Looks like it was built to last.

alexnagui

I'll see if it works with some rando bag, maybe the front light has to be moved somewhere else.

Nice! Let's hope that this summer such a trip will be possible again!
Can you possibly look if there is a frame number stamped under the BB shell of your bikes? Just trying to figure out if there is any logic in those numbers..


Thanks! The rims indeed look like Weinmann concave rims, but they are marked with "Alesa Alloy 419x700c". I am wondering if they are hookless as the 129 rims.

Bianchigirll 

THAT BIKE IS AWESOME!!!!!!! the only thing I'd change is put a set of bars on it with built in bar ends like a Scott AT-2. I bet this saw little service and used more a grocery getter than anything else.

I have these on my Project 3 and the extra hand position is great, of course I seldom go more that 10 or 15 mi8les at time on it but since I don't use the drops on my road bikes anyway, this feels very similar.

alexnagui

Just a little update on the bike.

I have taken the bike apart and overhauled most of the parts. The fork is now back with the headset installed and adjusted.
The year codes on the Shimano parts suggest that the bike is from 1993.
I decided to go ahead and try to service the hubs, not much progress with that though, got stuck with the front hub. The rear hub is also quite annoying to deal with, it seems, I tried to tap the axle out of it today but it is quite stuck there. I'll see what I am gonna do about that.

Anyway, I got new bars for the build, decided to go with Grand Bois Maes parallel in the end. Found an appropriate SR stem that should work for me. Also, got MSK Sylvan touring pedals and a 24t inner chainring for the crank. I had a pair of Suntour barcons laying around which I will be putting on the bike.

As a bonus, here is a picture of another Vittorio bike. The guys from Steel Rides posted , so I came by today to check it out. It looks very similar to my bike, also Reynolds 500 but no head tube extension. The racks are identical, the components are similar, some have been obviously upgraded. It's got those nice little Maxi Car low flange hubs. I checked the serial number on the blue Vittorio and it's E6180. I am wondering if it's from 1991 then. My red Vittorio's serial number is E6311, and I am pretty sure now that it's from 1993.

alexnagui

Okay, another bonus. This one showed up for sale recently. In case someone is interested