As you know, we love giving old bikes new life and then taking them just about everywhere. *Cough…gravel bike* When this old Bianchi, in the legendary ‘Celeste’ colour came up online, we couldn’t help but start dreaming up an ATB (all-terrain-bike) life for it. This italian-handmade Bianchi Record 746 was crafted in 1976, making it almost 50 years old! It was originally birthed as a ‘road bike’, but we planned for it to do some tougher work than that 😉 The frame is made of steel, and we love that – steel is such a reliable, and resilient material for bicycle frames. Steel flexes, providing you with a supple ride, especially when paired with some voluminous tires and we love how easy it is to repair.
Check out the patina, this bike has been well used and yet the frame doesn’t show any signs of potential failure…no cracks, dents or alignment issues.
So many of these old steel bikes have off-road and gravel bike potential. When searching for a conversion like this, a factor that catches our eye is a bike that was originally designed around the 27 1 ¼ inch (630mm) wheel diameter because these frames can usually fit the 700c (622mm) tire size which provides you with almost 4mm more tire width. We were able to get this bike up to 700×32 tires to be able to handle some rough stuff like trails and gravel.
Being an old road bike, this frame has a pretty aggressive geometry of 73 degrees on the head tube and seat tube angle. That means a responsive, and sharp ride feel…not the most chill like you’d get with slacker angles, but it’s a quick and zippy feel.
Paired with these nice, wide, old mountain bike ‘bullmoose’ handlebars, it stabilizes the handling well. Old Campagnolo thumb shifters on friction mode keep things easy to use, the rest of the parts are a mish-mash of early 80s Campagnolo road stuff and it all works just fine. Double chainring crankset up front and 7 gears in the back.
Enjoy the pictures and we hope it gives you some ideas for your next ‘gravel bike’.
Old bikes die hard!
