Pinarello – GOING for GOLD

Stuart had this amazing Pinarello that has been restored with extra bling! But it had travelled and been in storage and was generally looking a bit worse for wear. So, he asked me to bring it back to its former glory. 

​I had to track down a few bits to get it working properly. We had to replace some damaged components. Some bits just needed cleaning. But the I thought the real job would be getting the gold coating done on anything we needed to replace. Fortunately Stuart still knew the guy who’d done it originally.

The original build had only focused on making the bike look stunning. Ten out of ten for that! The downside was that some shortcuts were taken. The bottom bracket didn’t have the correct spindle length, so the drive side crank tightened against the chainstay and wouldn’t turn.

Also, while cables ran to the Campagnolo Delta Record brakes, they hadn’t been set up, so they didn’t work. Partly because if that, one of the Delta faceplates wasn’t secure and had been lost.

The Cinelli stem also mission the expansion block inside it, so the bars weren’t secure. While the bars would stay in place while the bike was hanging on the wall, you couldn’t put any weight on them, or they would turn in the stem. Not ideal.

We started looking for a new Delta brake caliper to poach the faceplate off, anther one of the Cinelli stems and a bottom bracket with a longer spindle.

While waiting for those to show up, I stripped the bike completely and gave it a thorough clean and polish and touched up a couple of scratches. Then I stripped, cleaned, polished and rebuilt all of the components. I also stripped the wheels and polished the rims and hubs back to a mirror and relaced with shiny new spokes and nipples and some new Vittoria tanwall tyres. Then it was time to start putting the rest of the bike back together.

With a longer bottom bracket the cranks went on and tightened down with room to spare, sacrificed the new Cinelli stem for the internals and got the faceplate back from the metal platers and pretty soon had brakes working like new. When they’re set up right, the look trim and work pretty well.

I redid all the cable, tracked down some new white Campagnolo brake hoods and wrapped the bars with my favorite Specialized Classic Wrap. Sadly this bar tape, which is so good for retro builds, is no longer available.

The finishing touch was the saddle. The original had taken a few hits and wasn’t nearly as white as it had once been. We tried repainting it, but it didn’t come up as well as we’d hoped. So, the search was one for new Selle San Marco Rolls saddle in white. Can’t be that hard, I’m a Selle San Marco dealer, I’ll just order one. Duly arrived, opened the box and, despite it’s pristine whiteness, all the trim and rails were silver, not gold. I’ve seen quite a few white Rolls saddles and they all had gold trim; is this a new thing. I asked the distributor they said it was as mish as a surprise to them and they had no idea if or when we would see one with gold trim. Hmmmm.

Well, that’s what the internet is for. Found a shop in the UK that had one. When I told them the story, they were like, “Wait, what? I’ve been looking for one of them!” Well, let’s do a deal. So we paid postage to the UK and they paid postage to here. And everyone was happy.

In the end it was fully operational and a discrete test ride was undertaken. Such a beautiful bike, it was hard to give it back! We even managed to source an acrylic Pinarello bike stand to show it off as it should be.

I was very happy with the outcome.

Pinarello History & Links

Pinarello is a manufacturer of high end road bikes based in Treviso, Italy. Founded in 1953, the brand has been associated with many of the biggest names and teams in professional cycling, including the great Miguel Indurain.

There is a comprehensive history of Pinarello on Wikipedia as well as on the Pinarello homepage.