# Help ID this old Cinelli (real) frame (pic heavy)



## williamf777 (Jun 4, 2004)

So I bought this off of a customer that wanted service on it but it had a crack in the drop out so he sold it to me. The bike was way too big for him anyway. 

I am not really sure who made this frame. The BB lug is stamped Cinelli but there are no serial numbers or badges or holes for a head tube badge ( I looked inside the headtube ). 

The internal cable routing is positioned in the front like it was meant to have a non aero brake lever cable running to it since the angle of exit is really odd. 

The drive side rear dropout has an extra hole in it for what I am lead to believe is for a really old Campagnolo derailleur spring. You can also kinda see the brass from where my dad and I brazed the drop back together in front of the axle. 

The B.B. shell is English threads. The rear axle spacing is 126 or so. I have not measured it for sure but I ordered a 130 spacing hub and I have to pull slightly the get it in. 

This is my Fixie slash day after it rained bike. The stickers are an attempt to demoralize whoever I pass on the bike path, especially dudes on high end bikes with team kits.
































































































































Build List:

Cranks: Mavic Starfish with All City 44t Ring and Dura Ace loose ball B.B.
Headset: Stronglight needle bearing
Stem: Nitto lugged
Bars: Fiamme Dallas
Brakes: Cane Creek levers and 105 5600 series calipers
Hubs: All-City rear, Ultegra front
Rims: Open-Pro F/R
Seatpost: Thomson Elite
Saddle: Selle San Marco Lemond world champion stripes


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## fast ferd (Jan 30, 2009)

Looks like a very nice frame from an expert maker. Superb workmanship from somebody who poured hours of effort into creating, only for it to turn into one of Sid's toys from Toy Story.


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## williamf777 (Jun 4, 2004)

fast ferd said:


> Looks like a very nice frame from an expert maker. Superb workmanship from somebody who poured hours of effort into creating, only for it to turn into one of Sid's toys from Toy Story.



How do you figure? 

Are you referring to the Chrome Pie plate or the hello kitty stickers. Maybe if the paint was in pristine condition I would not have been compelled to spice it up a bit. Maybe if I wasn't such a jackass I wouldn't need to protect my spokes from the chain. 

Or is it the mix of 10s era brake calipers with one of the most desirable 80's crank sets ever made. Could it be that you wish you had some Fiamme bars on your bike or maybe you never even new that Fiamme made Handle bars.

Maybe if this bike had some knock off china Deep V's with some 90mm stem and some riser bars and no brakes. Then I could see calling it a cobbled together heap. 

If you cant see past the stickers and stupid pie plate and actually see that this bike is assembled in a true riders fashion with parts that work in real world situations, then you need to go back to the General Discussion area and talk about your new Scattante bike with Tiagra parts.

Thank you for contributing nothing to my thread that I didn't already know.


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## latman (Apr 24, 2004)

It must be older with the Over BB gear cable routing and the hole in the dropout , Its surely not a cinelli with ENG bb threading , has neat pump peg and Cinelli BB shell ,doesn't look like any unique markings on lugs, i like it exept for that spoke guard Lats


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## slamy (Mar 15, 2004)

Very interesting frame. It's definitely not a cinelli. It does have a cinelli BB shell. Ok where to start? Personally this looks like a custom built bike. The rear drop outs are the older campagnolo style with the two holes in them. Most builders stopped using those in the early 1980s. As pointed out the cable routing over the shell is also late 70's early 80's. However the internal brake routing and pump peg indicate mid to late 80's.


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## velomateo (Mar 7, 2009)

It may be custom or possibly just had some updating done. You show the bottle screws on the seat tube. A lot of times the older bikes, with the above the bottom bracket cable routing, only had them on the down tube. Do the ones on the down tube also have the "star"? If not, that may indicate that they were added later - as may be the case with the internal rear brake cable. Nice looking frame though, I'm in the "nix the pie plate" camp though. Also, don't get your hackles up when someone doesn't agree with your style...it makes for an ugly thread.


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## fast ferd (Jan 30, 2009)

*You're right...Sid didn't use Hello Kitty stickers*



williamf777 said:


> How do you figure?
> 
> Are you referring to the Chrome Pie plate or the hello kitty stickers. Maybe if the paint was in pristine condition I would not have been compelled to spice it up a bit. Maybe if I wasn't such a jackass I wouldn't need to protect my spokes from the chain.
> 
> ...


It's your bike - do what you want with it. Personally, I'd rather see this sort of treatment on a 70's Peugeot UO8 or Raleigh Grand Prix. Back in the late-seventies, when our expert builder likely constructed this beautiful piece, you'd see it equipped with Campy Super Record and get out the door for over a grand. That was big money back then.

It could be a Saso (he sometimes called them a Butterfly) from the mid to late 70's. Dale still builds to this day in the San Jose area. He often used Cinelli lugs, bb shells, and fork crowns.

It could even be an early Ritchey. He personally made a number of framesets before eventually becoming a mega-company. Owning one of the earliest of these could be worth several thousand dollars. It might be a good idea to find out what you have prior to rusting it out as your rain bike.

Are Tiagra-equipped Scattante's good bikes?


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## JML (May 16, 2003)

Those thinned lug points and the fillet-brazed rear brake bridge are very unusual, and a pump peg braze-on with the internal cable routing seems like it was added after the frame was first built, given those dropouts. The lack of a serial number also suggests this is not a factory bike, or even a job from a small-production shop. And the missing logos and badges suggest a serious repaint at some point, of course.


Didn't you ask anything of the guy who sold it to you?


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## FatTireFred (Jan 31, 2005)

those BB shell points (DT, ST) seem incredibly short, or at least look so in the pic


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## williamf777 (Jun 4, 2004)

Hey thanks guys. 

First off let me apologize for flying off the handle. It was late last night and I was super stoked that someone replied so soon after posting. 

The Pie Plate we be gone shortly. 

I'm guessing that this is some sort of one off frame. The guy I got it from doesn't really ride bikes. He is a runner that does one Triathlon a year. He got it from a friend of his that is a "Bike Guy". After he sold it to me he came in the next day with a higher end Centurion to get fixed up. 

I am guessing late 70's or early 80's. But you guys are pretty sure that the internal routing was something that didn't really come about until later in the 80's? 

The paint seems to be a professional job, but it does not seem like the original paint. I found blue tape still in the steer tube. Maybe it was repainted after it was modified. 

The down tube bottle bosses are the same as the seat tube.


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## paredown (Oct 18, 2006)

Like JP, that filet brazed brake bridge caught my eye as well.

Those cable entry points for the internal cable on the TT also look custom--the 80s bikes often used lugs (like Merckx, Colnago...) Also the star-point attachment for the braze-on bottle fittings look unique--or at least I've not seen that done that way before.

I think those lugs are Bocama lugs with the factory stamped cutouts & these didn't appear until the mid 70s or later. So this would place the frame around 1975 or 1976 at the earliest. These lugs were more common in the late 70s and 1980s though, so I would think some time from mid 70s to early 80s. (Top mounted rear derailleur cable suggests earlier, as does the Campy 2-hole dropout. Double braze-ons suggest later...)

Have you measured the seat post--or checked the inside of the fork, or tried to see inside the the BB to get an idea of what tubing was used?

Edit: that looks like a Cinelli fork crown to match the BB--which is also investment cast, so late 70s/80s.


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## williamf777 (Jun 4, 2004)

So some new information has come to light. While installing my new Chris King headset I peered inside the headtube and noticed that the headtube in not drilled in any way to vent the top or down tubes. 

I did not want to mess with my fit or else I would have looked down the seat tube too.

I also took the pie plate off.

I know that Soulcraft is big on not drilling the tubes for venting but I am not sure if any other frame builders did this as well.

The fork steer tube is stamped 00153 or something really close to that.


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## bicycleguy (Mar 31, 2010)

fast ferd said:


> Looks like a very nice frame from an expert maker. Superb workmanship from somebody who poured hours of effort into creating, only for it to turn into one of Sid's toys from Toy Story.


 i totalyy agree, super nice craftsmenship......but i think the hello kitty makes the bike and im not being sarcastic


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## Maybeck (Sep 30, 2004)

I would guess it's possibly a late 70's Ron Cooper frame that was re-worked and re-painted in the later 80's.


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## williamf777 (Jun 4, 2004)

So my second fixed gear phase is now over and I thought that this bike needed a makeover. Another reason for the change is that I have stolen the wheels for my single speed cyclocross bike and it saddens me to see this bike hanging with no wheels and a saggy chain.

It is going to get Campy 11s components with Record hubs and Open Pro rims. The stem, handlebars and seat-post and saddle will remain the same. 

I am also going to try my hand at pin-striping the lugs and filling in the triangle sections on the lug with with model paint. 

Oh yeah and the Hello kitty's are going bye bye.


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## williamf777 (Jun 4, 2004)

I guess this is going to turn into sort of a build up thread.

Here are the wheels I laced up tonight. Record 32h laced to Open Pro hard anno. 




















This is the paint and paintbrush I purchased to pinstripe the lugs and fill in the details on the lugs. The paint brush is a Dynasty brand and is a 15/0 size. Never mind those Ti crank bolts those came out of the Mavic cranks.










This is what I started painting tonight. The flash makes the white paint fill in the detail area better than in real life. The center of the triangles will need at least a second coat maybe more. The paint really seemed to be drawn the edges and did not fill in the center as much. I'm guessing the surface tension of the paint is causing this. 

I think that I might cheat and by a paint pen to do the pin-striping portion. I am going to try with what I have here first though. The paint pen will be a last resort. 











The Hello Kitty stickers are on there really good so it will take some time before they are all gone.


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## tarwheel2 (Jul 7, 2005)

I didn't know that Hello Kitty made bikes, but it looks like a nice frame.


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## gamara (May 20, 2002)

That is a nice quality frame but near impossible to identify. Nice lug work, bb, quality touches like the water bottle reinforcements. But I don't understand why you want to detail the frame as it is. Although the paint overall looks decent for a repaint there are quite a few battle scars that I would consider stripping it & repainting instead. I would consider using Dave Hickey's method of rattle can with 2 part clear for a durable finish.


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## paredown (Oct 18, 2006)

Maybeck said:


> I would guess it's possibly a late 70's Ron Cooper frame that was re-worked and re-painted in the later 80's.


This seems possible, but did RC do those star-shaped bosses for the bottles, or do you think that was a re-work?

To the OP--love the wheels & I like the highlights in the lug windows. I would not repaint...


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## steelbikerider (Feb 7, 2005)

The holes in the dropouts are for a campy chain hangar from the late 70's. It was a semicircle that you could shift the chain onto for a quick wheel change. The only problem was that it used 6-speed spacing but using the chain hangar only allowed a 5 speed freewheel


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## williamf777 (Jun 4, 2004)

gamara said:


> That is a nice quality frame but near impossible to identify. Nice lug work, bb, quality touches like the water bottle reinforcements. But I don't understand why you want to detail the frame as it is. Although the paint overall looks decent for a repaint there are quite a few battle scars that I would consider stripping it & repainting instead. I would consider using Dave Hickey's method of rattle can with 2 part clear for a durable finish.



My entire reason for the embellishment of the fame is to make it easier on my constitution about not quite being ready to be able to do an entire repaint/ refinish just yet. Plus I am the kind of guy that has to have my own personal touch on all of my bikes new or used. If I could I would be all about a repaint and refinish of the frame set including rotating the top tube for a better cable exit angle and chroming the rear triangle.


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## Cinelli 82220 (Dec 2, 2010)

steelbikerider said:


> The holes in the dropouts are for a campy chain hangar from the late 70's. It was a semicircle that you could shift the chain onto for a quick wheel change. The only problem was that it used 6-speed spacing but using the chain hangar only allowed a 5 speed freewheel


The Portacatena didn't last long, those dropouts could help determine the frame's age.
When it came out most people were using narrow 7 speeds so it was compatible with a narrow 6.


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## williamf777 (Jun 4, 2004)

So the pin-striping turned out to be way too difficult for my unsteady hands to manage. 
I went and bought a Sharpie brand fine tip paint pen. The paint pen is much more manageable. It does not look very pro by any means but it is acceptable to me. When the bike is assembled and on the ground it should look fine. 











Here is the box of parts. All Chorus 11 except for Record cranks and rear derailleur.


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## abarth (Aug 12, 2008)

williamf777 said:


> But you guys are pretty sure that the internal routing was something that didn't really come about until later in the 80's?


Internal routing has been around much earlier than late 80's. I've seen 60's Rene Herse with internal routing through the top tube.


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## sryanak (Apr 15, 2010)

Maybeck said:


> I would guess it's possibly a late 70's Ron Cooper frame that was re-worked and re-painted in the later 80's.


I have a 75 Ron Cooper. Top of seatstays are completely different, it doesn't have cinelli bb or fork crown. Lugs are different too. Mine was before any braze ons though so maybe he changed everything when they came into fashion.


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## mudrock (Jun 4, 2008)

The pinstriping looks like **** - get rid of it!


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## foz (Sep 30, 2004)

my thoughts exactly! I think you really screwed up a nice frame with the white highlights. It already looked pretty bad with the stickers all over it, but now it just looks worse.


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