So Lizard had been in the need of a new bike for a while, long before the morning Twitch had it break down on his cross-city hungover ride. So for last Christmas I built her up an old Bianchi Brava that had had been unfortunately neglected. I got the frame, fork, and cranks from a buddy who had it laying in the back of his shop for a great deal and had a black Deep-V laced to a 9speed hub that I was willing to part with myself. First thing first it needed to be stripped and cleaned, I got to taking everything apart and removed all the paint with a little thinner and a soft wire wheel on my drill (was even able to remove a little surface rust as well!)

I wanted to keep with the Bianchi scheme and since the rear wheel was black, and Liz said she didn't want a bike that was “too flashy”, I thought a black frame with a celeste fork–while having the rear and front wheels being respectively the same would look nice. So, I sourced a Montana color that was the exact same as the Celeste Deep V front  wheel that I had built up to a Bianchi branded Formula hub, and a nice clean black to match the rear. I thought it would be cool to lay a few coats of glass beads over the paint and under the clear coat, it gave it a really cool reflective characteristic when the light hits it, while keeping it more visible at night. To be honest I used a ton of paint, after getting the bike prepped and cleaned to the bare steel I primed and sanded, and then primed 2x more, sanded, color x~7 coats, wet sanded, glass beads x4 coats, lacquer ~8x coats & then a ton of wet sanding to get any of the orange peel out. After that, I used a cutting compound and buffed it, and then a polishing agent and polished it all up with a cotton wheel for my rotary tool. The end result was was honestly pretty impressive, considering I did it in my basement and with spray cans I couldn’t have been more pleased.

After the frame was painted I needed to finish sourcing the rest of the parts, she wanted townie bars but since the bike is so small at 47cm, everything I looked at were way too big for it proportionally. So I thought, flat pursuit bars flipped backwards. I could even use the bar-end levers and would look really clean, and it worked out perfect. Also since I was planning on only running a 1×9 group and I wanted the bike to have a vintage yet modern look I thought that by using a Suntour power shifter, but modifying it to mount on the bars would be a cool way of re-purposing an old style lever (that is still loved by all) in a more modern method and style.  The rest of the group was comprised of a Sram X-4 derailleur pulling across a Shimano wide-range 11-32 cassette with a 42t Brev chainring up front, giving it a nice range around the city.  Keeping with the vintage yet modern feel I found some Campy Veloce brakes that looked super clean on the set-up. I finished it off with a set of Vittoria Zaffiros and of course a pair of GMB  straps and couldn’t have been more pleased with the build. It really came together nicely and was gratifying as hard work paying off in the end. And think Lizard was pretty happy with it too!