Pegasus #2

From knowing nothing about the Pegasus brand or Keith Davis to suddenly finding myself with two frames!

This frame came from one of our regular customers who has a bit of a collection. Occasionally, she tries to move one or two bikes on to make space for the next project. This came in as a frame only and I liked the look of it.

I also liked that it was in great condition; ready to build.

I lowballed her, but she wasn’t interested, I suspect she’d accurately assessed my interest and knew I’d come around. And she was right.

Beautiful clean lines, Reynolds 753 tubing, no dents or major blemishes, just the odd small scratch.

But, the thing I really liked about this frame was the decals Especially the gold against the dark green frame; and the white sections just seemed to accentuate that beautifully. I’d been thinking of doing the first Pegasus as gold on royal blue, so, I guess I was already a bit partial to the gold, but seeing it in the flesh, so to speak, made a great impression.

While I was still undecided on the build, the groupset, bars, whatever, I knew from the moment I saw the gold decals what wheels I wanted; Mavic CXP-30s in the gold finish!

I’d had a pair of these back in the mid 1990s when they were all the rage, I loved them. Back then they were laced to Shimano 6500 hubs in my 1992 Koga Miyata Pro Racer. I had upgraded it from 600AX to STI and gotten rid of the tubular wheelset and I thought these were pretty special. They were allegedly heavy (but I didn’t know any better), and they were aero, and that I could feel when I was riding, especially descending.

But for this build, I needed hubs. Well, I had plenty of hubs, but I needed to decide on a groupset before I chose hubs. So I could choose appropriate hubs. And build lovely wheels. I definitely didn’t want to commit a stylistic faux pas that the local vintage steel crew might fall upon in glee! As they are sometimes wont to do, in the nicest possible way – I think.

Around about this time, I friend of mine was trying to sell some parts on Retro Cycling Marketplace to finance another project. Amongst the offerings was a Campagnolo Veloce 9 Speed groupset complete with hubs. It just needed a bit of a clean up. So we struck a deal and we’re off to the races.

First, I popped in a generic alloy seatpost because the Campagnolo one was too short (and the wrong diameter). Fortunately, that wasn’t an omen! I got the bike in the stand and the real work started.

I had a nice Berelli handlebar and a Cinelli stem that were wallowing in a box of parts from another bike, or several bikes, largely forgotten and rediscovered while trawling for Shimano 600 Arabesque parts for different project.

The bar and stem went on and the rest of the groupset followed quickly. Before long I had most of a bike. It was looking good to me, but nobody else was feeling it.

Aaaaand then I built the wheels and it was a whole different story.

I polished the hubs to a very high gloss finish, triple butted DT Swiss spokes and chrome plated brass nipples, Velox cloth rim tape and a pair of Vittoria tyres.

Finished with a new Selle San Marco Rolls saddle with gold trim and the Supacaz Super Sticky Kush with the gold fade. I also had Sole bidon cage that seemed pretty keen to get into the game. I’m still not a fan of the seatpost!

Apart from that, I think it looks amazing and the local vintage steel officiandos agree!

The only thing to do is to take it for a decent ride, but I’m a little busy at the moment.

More to come on that soon …