Product Description
Gorgeous early 1970's De Rosa Strada frame and fork with some unique features. The collector I'm selling it for can't remember if this one's restored or not, but it is restored it's very high quality work. This is a pretty rare frameset and is an important year as it's likely among the first to feature De Rosa's signature diamond chainstays that ran through the 1980's and has De Rosa's rare and exotic long pointy lugs. This frame and it's unique mix of features create a lovely transition piece from the very rare 1960's De Rosa frames known for their more elaborate lugs to the more "production" homogenous 1970's and 1980's era where the differences from each frame and each year were minimal as they slowly graduated into having distinct models.
De Rosa's of this era are notoriously difficult to nail down the build date as feature changes had a lot of overlap in years. My best educated guess is 1970 or 1971 (based on info from Anderea Bonfanti's Classic De Rosa book). You'll notice the extra pointy & long tang lugs that were used on some 1960's models and as late as 1970. These are my favorite of the De Rosa lugs, as most others are quite basic. No shifter braze-ons present, these seem to have started ~1971. Diamond chainstays are present, which introduced sometime around 1971. Seatstay caps are capital letters (which ran 1970-1973) but not the heart "O" that was introduced sometime in 1973. The fork crown is a semi-sloping version and has the lug points going down the middle of the fork leg's outside face vs the more common snakebite fangs on either side. BB has 4 slots and heart. Decals
Condition
New old stock (but built) or freshly restored. If it is original paint, the bike must have been taken very good care of. If it's restored, it passes VERY well as original paint. It has the tiniest hints of patina, primarily on the crown (which seems to be original chrome and in lovely shape). Slightest impressions from brake washers/seat binder/axles. Decals are mint except the Columbus tubing decal has the slightest patina. Whatever its history really is, it's a glorious piece of Italian racing bicycle history in show bike condition
Details
- Columbus SL
- Top tube: 56cm
- Seat tube: 58cm c-t
- Head tube: 148mm
- Blue and yellow
