Il Gruppo Progetto: Serotta Colorado AL

The Velominatus’ machine is their own manifestation of personal taste and demonstration of adherence to The Rules.  We each, in our own way, meticulously maintain our bicycles and adorn them with the essential, yet minimal, accoutrement.   Yes, we must Obey the Rules pertaining to bar tape, tyre selection, saddle choice, stem height, color matching and so on.  But within those parameters there lies flexibility and choice.

Furthermore, this site is a refuge we turn to for brotherhood, community, and belonging.  However, cyberspace is a vacuum in that we apply and practice our craft apart from one another, spread to all corners of the globe.  With this in mind, I offer an experiment,  Il Gruppo Progetto, inspired by Brett’s Il Progetto: Bosomworth.  The intent, dare I say charge, of Il Gruppo Progetto, is for our community of Velominati to come together in designing my new build project, a Serotta Colorado AL.

I picked up the Serotta frame and fork recently to further my adherence, em, obsession over Rule #12.  Although not a top shelf Serotta (think of it as Maker’s Mark as opposed to The Glenlivet), it is a platform worthy of respect, care, and craftsmanship.  As fall arrived I found my foul weather steed in need of replacement and the Serotta was the perfect combination of material, style, and economics.  My mind was flooded with ideas of how I might build her up.  Then I thought of all of you, your experience, ideas, and of course, passion.

So as fellow Velominati, I humbly ask of your counsel for this build.  The basic platform is as follows:

  • Serotta Colorado AL frame and Kinesis aluminum fork
  • Shimano Ultegra 6600 and 6500 mixed group set (6500 cranks – octolink) 10 sp
  • Shimano SPD SL pedals
  • Bontrager XXX Lite wheelset

As you can see from the list above this worthy steed is in need of much more.  Bars, stem, bar tape, saddle, seat post, possibly a fork, tires, chain, headset, and cables.  Please keep in mind the following:

  • I do have budget constraints.
  • This bike should be capable of riding many miles on gravel as well as tarmac.
  • My plan is for this bike to be utilitarian in nature.  Performance, knock-about, foul weather, durability, weight, aesthetics, tradition, period (mid 90’s to 2004 or so)

So there you have it.  My proposition is for us to come together in a modicum of further connection than what cyberspace allows.  My hope is that the finished build will be a tangible symbol of our collective wisdom and a reminder to me of what we, the Velominati represent,  as I ride this bike.

Thanks in advance for playing.

Marko

Marko lives and rides in the upper midwest of the States, Minnesota specifically. "Cycling territory" and "the midwest" don't usually end up in the same sentence unless the conversation turns to the roots of LeMond, Hampsten, Heiden and Ochowitz. While the pavé and bergs of Flanders are his preferred places to ride, you can usually find him harvesting gravel along forest and farm roads. He owes a lot to Cycling and his greatest contribution to cycling may forever be coining the term Rainbow Turd.

View Comments

  • @George
    By god you are right about this being the south side. The mini-switchback just before the summit is a dead giveaway.

    Also, there appears to be a peleton followed by the team car caravan in the lower right corner, just abeam of the gentleman's elbow. The riders are tightly bunched, not strung out as on a descent. Thus the group are on their way up. In which case it can't be the 2007 Tour for the reasons others have noted and the photog is, dare we say, a COTHO.

  • @Nate, @George, @Brett
    Yeah, cheers - well done. The riders are going up for sure (I looked at the higher-res original Roadslave sent me) and as pointed out, the riders are going up, there are team cars there, etc. Also, I am 100% it's at the top where Bugno wheel bashed a spectator for stepping in his path and after further investigation that is most certainly on the South side.

    The photog is a sniveling carbon dispensary who doesn't know his ass from his elbow. What fuck knuckle. 100K for a photo that the "artist" doesn't even fucking know what it is.

    Please give me back a world where a top-end bike costs less than a car, where we had frames built in the country where they were designed, and photographers either sat on the back of a moto or fucked off and left us alone.

  • @frank
    I might also point out that this is the better side to climb it from; the Telegraph really breaks your rhythm if you come from the other side.

  • @frank
    Frank,
    "the Telegraph really breaks your rhythm if you come from the other side."
    Not for me it doesn't. What breaks my rhythm is the monstrous size of the fucking mountain.

  • @George
    You have to find the correct rhythm. On a beast such as this, it's typically, "ow, ow, ow, ow"* at approximately 60-80 beats per minute.

    NOTE: On a V harnessing day, ow == yes. However, if I had written, "yes, yes, yes, yes" above, people would not have been thinking about riding things other than bikes.

  • Nice. Much as I like Brett's Bosomworth (I've a restored SLX built by Eddy Bosomworth in around '89) I would prefer it with Record alloy cranks. I built a few different iterations on mine, and settled on chorus carbon 10s, with a Record alloy crank, Ti Chorus post and stainless cages.

    It's been nigh on impossible sourcing nice 40 or 42cm classic silver bars and a 110mm quill (or 120mm) that's not exorbitant...

    I've got a '91 Gazelle Champion du Mondial AA Special that's a similar blue / chrome scheme to the Serotta - I'll try find a picture.

  • Brett :


    minion :
    @Brett Remember your own sins before you start chucking rocks, Mr Roubaix with the disco bunny bar tape and (eugggrh...HTFU) zertz.

    Yeah, yeah... I've repented. Roubaix, as you well know, is sold; much like you sold the sweet 853 Condor with Chorus and bought a plastic bike with (eugggrh) Ultegra!
    @frank
    @roadslave
    I'm leaning more towards l'Iseran, with more switchbacks near the top than the Galibier, from what I can glean from a search of images. But I'm probably waaay off... Oli, this is right up your alley!

    Yeah I'd buy that bike back in a flash if it was for sale. Lets not trample all over the plastic ultegra bike though, at least till one day before I've had it for 2 years and I go from full replacement insurance to depreciated rates...

  • @Brett
    This could be the post troll of the year but it was Centaur, not chorus. And I weep for that bike on a daily basis. I will be prompted to defend my current plastic Ultegra bike though, if only for the fact that its what you do with it, not what it's made out of, that really counts.
    F#%*ken wheels on that thing were worth more than I ended up selling it for. To me anyways.

  • @Marko

    Just saw a '97 Serotta Colorado frame on e-bay for a reasonable price ( red, with a Kinesis carbon fork) and wondered how you've gotten on with this build, now 2 years on.  Did it meet your expectations?

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