The Ricci Project

Our eldest son acquired an old steel frames Ricci road bike off my brother a few years ago. It's quite a nice lightweight bike - although the frame is a bit rusty and creaky. The bike is probably from the 1980s imported from a bike shop in Redruth, Cornwall by a friend of my brother. It has a Campagnolo C Record groupset, however the bolts connecting the 2 chainwheels had worked loose and my son cycled on it and bent one of the chainwheels. As he's working in Vietnam at the moment I thought I'd fix it for him. So I managed to find a new Campag Centaur chainset on the internet for £52. The C Record one was 51/39 (I think) whereas the new one is 53/39 - designed for 10 gears, rather than the Ricci's 6.

My local bike shop said they'd fit it for £20, but advised that a new chain would be a good idea as the existing one was worn and may not be big enough. Of course that meant that a new freewheel was a good idea and as 14-24 cog sets aren't made anymore they replaced it with a 6 speed 14-28 cog one. So the bike now is better both up and down hills with an improved range: 1.4 to 3.8 ratios* instead of 1.6 to 3.6. (But not as good as my road bike - 1.2 to 4.0). The gearing is spaced apart more, but only for the lower cogs, so it shouldn't make much difference to cadence.

I was hoping to take the bike for a decent ride today but I can't manage to lower the saddle as the stem has welded itself to the frame! I went for a quick spin on it last night though and it's pretty smooth. I might have another go at lowering it now I've lubricated the area, but don't want to break anything.
* Based on http://www.bikecalc.com/gear_ratios