01.01.1986, Wednesday - 1986 Bianchi Corsa

Name: Bianchi Corsa

Type: Travel Time Trial

Mileage: >7000km

Built: 1986

---

History

My Bianchi accompanies me the last decades. I rode it to school, lend it my little sister and restored it to new shine.

In a summer a long time ago, on a typical saturday, my father and me were in the garage, fixing something on our families car, when we heard the then typical "Alteiiiiiiiisen, Alteiiiiiiiiiiiiiisen!" together with a hand bell rung. "Alteisen" is a german term for scrap metal, "Schrott", but more polite. So, my father send me to direct them to our yard, so the scrap collectors could take away all our excess metal waste. I did as I were told and not before long, they drove before our garage and started loading the metal pieces. There were a lot of car brake disks, I think more then eight, and these are quite heavy. Just this moment I saw the Bianchi laying atop the pile of metal oinn the trucks bed. I called to my father that I want to trade the brake disks against the Bianchi. First my request was met with confusion - they were already loading the brake disks, but my father understood quickly and the scrap collectors too. So while one poor soul continued weighing the disks on the bed, the other guy handed the bike down and I received it, grinning like a child on christmas.

So after I got right-hooked by a car driver in 2020 and my Intec was out of service for the next months, I decided to restore the well used Bianchi with 2x6 drivetrain to a 2x10 (I wanted 3x10, but 2x10 was available at a friends.)

Sadly there was an incident with the front fork: I asked another friend to give me an evaluation, if it would make sense to work even a bit on the bike. He stripped the frame down and looked at the fork and in his opinion, it was bend beyond repair. So he threw the fork away, before he tried to inform me about it. So I'm running a "Reparaturgabel"(repair fork) instead of the original one.

And so it happened:

But it was even better then before!

Now, it had decent STI, instead of stem shifters, a decent Deda handlebar, very fast Mavic CXP Pro and very smooth rolling Continental GP Urban. Before the GP, I ran Schwalbe Blizzard. But even with 35mm width, the GP roll way smoother then the old Schwalbe Blizzard. And with A Shutter Precicsion PV8, a Racktime Light-It and Force 32 fenders, it was ready for every long ride.

---

The white handlebar tape changed to black.

Remodelling into a "travel time trial"

Somewhen in 2022 I started to play with the thought to remodel the Bianchi with tribars and a bullhorn handlebar.

It should not take long to implement it.

Fixing the broken drivetrain and changing to 2x11

Since then, I modified it further. Now it has a bull horn bar instead of a drop bar, and a tribar extension was added. The drivetrain changed from 2x10 to 2x11 and the STI from Shimano 105 to Sensah Team Pro. Front and rear derailleur (both defective sadly) changed from 105 to Ultegra.

Improving the Bianchi further

The silver fork that replaced the trashed original one started to detoriate - the chrome plating started to spall, rust appeared and in general the fear that the "repair fork" would break down increased.

So I bought a 1" steerer Columbus carbon fork, a matching Tange headset and Ultegra front brake. The Dura Ace brake levers were bought some two years earlier on the flea market at the Freiwillige Feuerwehr Eberstadt.

To be able to shift like on a real time trial bike, I bought some 2x11 MicroShift thumb shifter for the tribar extension.

So in a weekend shift, working on the Bianchi, I exchanged all these parts.