Personal bike: Mid 1970's Pogliaghi Pista

     Here is another one of my personal bikes. It is a mid 1970's Pogliaghi pista model. Here is a link to the Sante Pogliaghi section in the book The Custom Bicycle. link here! courtesy of Classic Rendezvous. I purchased it several years ago from the original owner, Scottie Hicks. He currently resides in the California Bay area and is a mechanic at The Missing Link. It was originally purchased from Hill cycle here in Philadelphia,  new. Scott raced it at the Lehigh Valley Velodrome for an unknown number of years and then retired it as a training bike. He changed the fork to one that was drilled for a front brake, but provided the original fork when I bought it.
      I have only made minimal changes to the set up. I changed the headset to a Campagnolo steel Pista model and the bars and stem to Cinelli model 18 steel pista bars and an older Cinelli steel badged stem. I also put new tubular tires on it. The rest of the componentry is a mixed bag of Nuovo Record and Super Record. Super Record pista cranks 170mm, Nuovo Record bottom bracket, Nuovo Record pista pedals with cyclo- cross toe clips and Alfredo Binda toe straps. Super Record seat post and Cinelli unicanitor wishbone rail saddle. Campagnolo low flange Nuovo Record pista hub set laced to NISI Moncalieri dark anodized rims. A Regina track chain rounds out the drive train.
     The serial number is #11294 which puts it in the mid 1970's. There is also a stamp of 60P on the BB shell, which I assume is the size and model I.D. One odd thing is the BB shell has the "R" cut out, which is Rossin's logo. the company was sold to him in 1982 and he continued production into the 90's. So I am not sure if Sante actually made this bike, or if Rossin did. Also, maybe it is a transition period when Sante was showing him how to he built bikes. The seat lug has the "PSM" stamp, and other frame details which make me think Sante built this bike, but I will never know for sure. Any help from someone more in the know than myself?
     The frame construction is top notch. Everything is filed and thinned nicely and the brazing is very clean. Classic Italian lines and styling. one nice detail is the drop outs. They are nicely filed into spear points where they are brazed into the fork blades and chain/seat stays. The flat fork crown is gorgeous and the large round fork blades are super strong. This bike retains all of its original decals and paint which is an added bonus. I am proud to be its care taker.

  
    

Philly Bike Expo cool old bikes

1970s Pogliaghi track bike.

Frejus Track bike

Cool custom bike

Nice cache of Italian steel(early Bianchi with Cambio Corsa, early 1960s Masi, late 1960s DeRosa, and mid 1970s Cinelli)

Badged Cinelli stem on the Masi.

To ride or not to ride, that is the question.

Walking and riding around Philadelphia, you will see quite a few awesome bicycles locked up or being ridden. I'm not just talking about new Trek Madones and Sevens and other ultra modern bicycles from the not too distant future, but classic steel vintage lightweights. Just today I saw a Pogliaghi track bike locked to a street sign. It made me reflect on how any Classic Rendezvous visitor that comes to Philly and to Via Bicycle, they remark on how many vintage bicycles there are around the city. It is true, just the other day, I was photographing a beautiful Jack Taylor that a customer owned. When I was in New York City, there was also a plethora of cool bicycles, but the city is so much more spread out, Philadelphia's bicycle community is more close.

Just the bicycles that the employees of Via Bicycle ride and lock up around the city is enough to make the average bicycle collector drool. A mid 1970s Pogliaghi track bike, Schwinn Paramount track bike with campagnolo inch pitch, 4 different Jack Taylors, 1961 Schwinn Paramount Tourist, early 1980s Merckx, various Path bicycles, late 1970s Bruce Gordon, etc.

All this brings to question - to ride or not to ride. I love my bikes, as do the other employees, and feel it is perfectly acceptable to ride these awesome bikes around the city. They were intended to be used, not coveted. I am more cautious when riding some of the more exotic bicycles, but I still ride them, and lock them up. I have been asked on numerous occasions why would I ride one these bikes on the harsh city street. I always answer it is just my way of airing them out. Otherwise they sleep in my basement, hanging out in that basement air. It is also a good way to keepthe grease from hardening and going bad. I don't want my bikes to get atrophy;)

Domo arigato- Yoshiaki Nagasawa

Yoshiaki Nagasawa has been building frames since the 1960s, after studying under Sante Pogliaghi and Ugo DeRosa in Italy. His bicycles, made for the elite Keirin cycling world, are 100% fuctional at the highest levels and 110% pure art. His mastery of steel and fire is evident in every Nagasawa I have seen, this one is a perfect example.

Chrome Carlton Huffy

Here is Matthew's daily city bicycle. Matt has been working at the shop for around 6 years and has an amazing stable of bicycles- including 2 Jack Taylors, Pogliaghi track bike, Schwinn Paramount, and some other bikes that escape me know. This chrome bike is a Carlton built Huffy from the late 1960s. It would have been originally painted a translucent color over the chrome, but that paint never really stuck well on the chrome and we are now left with a nice shiny bicycle.

Matt has it outfitted with 700c Velocity wheels it a Sturmey Archer AW 3 speed hub and usually has a Schmidt dynamo front hub(in the photos he has a Phil Wood large flange hub). The handebars and Porteur rack are from Velo Orange, as well as the fenders and brake levers.
A Schmidt E6 light is attached to the Porteur Rack.
The bicycle is perfect for city riding, with enought gear range for all over the city. Maybe someday we can talk Matt into putting a chainguard on the bike.
(shameless promotion- Via Bicycle is a Velo Orange parts dealer).







add.- minor detail about Carlton's imported as Huffys in the USA.
found on Wikipedia for Raleigh-
" Carlton, which had been unable to make inroads in the USA market after a failed rebranding deal with Huffy, found success in the late 1960s by recasting itself as "Raleigh-Carlton", a Raleigh-logo'd bike with some Carlton badging, and using the US dealer network to import and distribute bikes."

So it must have been in the mid 1960s or so, the same time Huffy was importing Moultons and rebranding them as Huffys.