Rossin Extra Speciale

My new-ish city bike, as well as my first fixed gear conversion since 2007 or something, a 1980s Rossin Record road bike mildly customized by Olli Erkkilä.

I wanted something simple I could commute on through the autumn without getting my ass wet and Olli kindly slayed couple of puppies according to my wishes. All gear-related bits were cut off,  rear triangle was slightly shortened and modified, campagnolo-copy track ends and finally eyelets for fenders in front and back were brazed on. The frame's paint was very bad and it was rusty when I got it so I didn't think twice about getting the mods and powdercoating done. The only thing I'm regretting now is forgetting about any kind of front rack braze-ons.

It was raining life like hell out there this afternoon. But it only felt good, man.

Racing On Italian Steel

People still actually race on nice vintage steel track bikes in many places, like these guys in Estonia. From the performance point of view it would probably make sense to sell these bikes on Ebay and get some contemporary aero aluminum instead but hey, steel is real, right?

(Thanks to Jii for digging up the pics.)

Retro Futuristic

Back to the Square One

Going around in circles. My first fixed gear bike was a road bike conversion and my latest project is, yeah you guessed it, a road bike conversion. Bit more sophisticated this time, though, as a person with some serious skills helped me a bit here.

So I got me an old and pretty beat-up Rossin road frame. I wanted it cleaned off of all the gear-related parts, I wanted Campy-style track ends like in my Rossin Pista but I also want full long fenders front & back to keep my ass dry. Let's see how this will turn out.

Stamped

Rossin Stylin'

Back in 1986

Pic by Mr. Velo.

Future Retro // Built For Speed

Red Rossin Pursuit Pista Hotness !!!

Whoa! Just f**king awesome.

From http://fixedgeargirltaiwan.blogspot.com/.

Death Rays!

More Rossin

Rossin Crono Squadra

Pic stolen from G.S. Guccilife.

Rossin Lugz

Stolen from G.S. Guccilife.

Take A Guess?

Guess what's in the pic? Here's a tip for yo'all.

The pic comes fron tya, the unfortunate owner.

Rossin Track Bikes

ASB sent me these photos, taken recently at Liikuntamylly AKA the Helsinki indoor cycling track. 

They're all 1980s Rossin pistas, like my new whip. There's actually quite a few Rossin track bikes (as well as Olmos and Sannino pursuit track bikes) here in Finland. Some of the older dudes training in Liikuntamylly told ASB that the reason was that at some point during the 1980s someone thought that track cycling would be the next big thing and a bike shop in Turku ordered a big bunch of Rossin frames. Then, as you can probably guess, the great Finnish track cycling boom never happened, unfortunately. 

Vintage Italian Saddles

The pic above is my homage to John Prolly who loves, wrecks and haz plenty of Selle Turbo saddles as well as copies of those. Hey bro, I got sum of 'em too!   

Anyhow, while Turbo is nice & comfy, I personally think that a NOS black suede San Marco Concor Supercorsa looks nicer and way speedier. Oh, and they even reissued it recently.  

I Need That Rossin Jacket

Please readers, I know you love me so now is your time to help me out. I NEED that Rossin cycling jacket on Ebay so that I can wear it while cruising on my new whip next summer. 

However, I'm not prepared to pay 90+ bucks for it. Not even close to that. So feel free to Paypal me any or all of your money, thanks!

Ok, my size would be more like M than L but still, it's so cool.