Product Description
Olmo of Italy are considered the equals of Colnago's in some circles. This particular model of vintage road bike frame is fairly similar to the Colnago Super in design and ride quality—scalloped seatstay caps, flat chrome fork crown w/ pantographed logo, Italian style Prugnat lugs w/cutouts, Columbus SL tubing... This is a high quality racing frame!
The 1975 date correlates to the style of Columbus decal in use in 1975 and is a rough estimate. This frame has chrome scalloped seat caps with no logos (most seem to have logos and no chrome, it seems the mid-1970's frames were chromed. Fork tangs have cutouts instead of OLMO star logos like later forks. The Prugnat head lugs lack the notches many Competitions have.
A bit of history: Giuseppi Olmo was a highly successful Italian bicycle racer in the 1930's for Bianchi. He held the Hour Record for a year in 1935, and won the Italian National Road Race Championship and Milan San Remo twice. Before his pro days, he won a gold metal in the Los Angeles Olympics in 1931 (thus the olympic rings in his decals). He founded Olmo Biciclette in 1938, and the company is still producing bikes.
Condition
New old stock, built (partially?) but not ridden. Unrestored, original paint/decals. The fork has definitely had a brake mounted, but rear dropouts/hanger & seat cluster ears don't show clear & certain signs of parts mounted. It is very very close to pristine. The only imperfections worth mentioning are 1) driveside fork leg has ~5mm chrome wear spot near middle, 2) near pinpoint size chip under the first "I" in driveside Competition decal, 3) underside of bb has the slightest wear
Details
- Frame number: On steer tube, 337 (none elsewhere)
- Frame size marked on BB: 56
- Seat tube: 55.7cm
- Top tube: 54cm
- Headtube: 131mm
