Phoebe: My Mom's Bianchi

This bike is built around a frame I purchased, in my more naive days, from a person either deceptive or uninformed. It came to me completely unpainted and clearcoated and set up as a fixed gear. It was very attractive, but of course as soon as I started riding it, it began to rust. This is because clearcoat doesn't protect bare steel from oxidation (clear powdercoating would work; but primer is needed for wet paints). Lesson learned!

It was a bit small for me anyway. Not so for my tall mother! Using a variety of parts I had around the house, I built this bike for her last spring, and she rode it all summer. Noah of Velocolour did the paint job with some extra paint he had left over from Mike Barry's Torpado project, and it looks great. The crankset is a 48/39, and she says she's only used the "big" ring once. She loves the bar-end shifters and the rear rack. Even though the bars are level with the saddle (an old B.17), she still wishes they were a bit higher. She calls her bike "Phoebe."

(Most of the photos below were taken before I'd connected the derailleur cables. I have a bad habit of photographing my projects slightly before completion. I also added a nice brass bell on the stem quill, which makes the long quill look less odd.)