Pulling bikes apart and putting them back together again can be fun, especially so when the result is more of a frankenbike than the original. Paul Wakefield created a freaky Colnago town bike from a Master Piu frame, but he had some divine inspiration.
Back in 1986, someone in Colnago’s marketing department was obviously having some fun with parts they had lying around, when they stuck a pair of townie bars on their sublime Arabesque racer, and called it the Gentleman Sport model.
Colnago certainly wasn’t the first to turn a drop bar road bike into an Urban Racer — we’ve been modifying and customizing bikes since they were invented — but an Arabesque with porteur-style bars just looks so wrong and so right at the same time.
During the mid-80s in the UK, Paul Wakefield had just taken up cycling and was reading every bike-related magazine he could get his hands on. One had a review of the Gentleman Sport and he remembers how he was struck by the combination of forms.
About thirty years later, Paul found himself in Texas and had acquired a Master Piu with shabby paint. Already riding and racing a Colnago Tecnos, he was considering a sympathetic restoration in Saronni Red, perhaps built up with black Record 11-speed…
He began by chemical-stripping the frame and started sourcing components. During the process, he was browsing a Neo-Retro Velo Facebook page and came across another raw Colnago, and decided to leave it in its bare steel state.
Shortly after, he took his Tecnos riding over some of the bigger climbs in Italy’s Abruzzo region and spotted a few steel-framed townie-styled road bikes tackling some of the monstrous climbs and descents — and began to rethink his Master Piu project.
Paul decided to assemble a ‘neo-retro’ ride that was practical and fast. He had to work around some components: downtube and bar-end shifters weren’t ideal, but he managed to track down a rare pair of Veloce Flat Bar brake and shifter levers.
He preferred Campagnolo’s UltraTorque system rather than PowerTorque, which meant another search, but managed to source the cranks from Hungary. Other original parts came with the frame, just leaving room for a stem cap from the local brewery; Real Ale in Blanco, Texas.
It’s a perfect blend of fun and fast, wouldn’t you agree?
Big thanks to Paul’s son, Joe Wakefield, for the photos.
