Finishing Kit

The Losa itself may have been completed (for now...) but as I'd mentioned in my last post, I still needed some essential finishing kit for myself - shoes! The decision to go for new/reproduction shoes was quite easy, as it would appear that our feet have grown over the years,...

The Losa Unveiled

Well, it took me some months to get here, but I'm really pleased with the finished result. As luck would have it, the final (for now) finishing piece had arrived and the sun was shining. So pedal straps in place, it was out to the garden for some quick pictures...

Assembly Time

So, as I have all the components I need for now, it's time to finish the build!! Before assembling, one thing to think about is that having taking months to source & refurbish the components, the last thing you would want to do is damage anything during assembly, so care...

Component Finalisation

It took quite a while but I finally managed to find myself a set of wheels just before xmas and as it turns out, they were almost exactly the same as the last set I bought - Mavic MA40 rims again however NOT totally anodised black this time and with C-Record...

Stalling at the Final Hurdle

So a bit like the delays I had at the start of this build project with my original struggle to find a frame, I'm now having a similar problem in sourcing a set of wheels to complete the build. I had thought I had this sorted a couple of months...

Cycling Books

I'd been sitting on some book tokens for a while and finally got around to spending them not long ago, buying quite a few cycling related books. Although not my normal reading fare, I love to read books about cyclists, cycling events & endeavours and have thoroughly enjoyed quite a...

Frame Preparation

There has been a variety of preparation work happening gradually over the past few months in parallel with the component sourcing, I've not needed or wanted to rush anything - it has of course also had the delay caused by my little "mishap" when I was removing the steering column...

L’Eroica Gaiole – You Have To Go!!

If you have any interest in vintage bikes, you have to go to this event in Tuscany - even just to watch - it was fantastic. L'Eroica Gaiole is held on the first Sunday of October, however the village of Gaiole in Chianti is taken over for the whole weekend...

Classic Italian Cycles

While searching for more information about Vanni Losa I happened across a posting on Retrobike advertising an upcoming show - 50 years of Classic Italian Cycles - where they mentioned that as well as the standard Italian makes there would also be more boutique marques - including Losa! It was to be held...

First Components

As I'd mentioned when the frame arrived, one of the first things I did had been to quickly assemble the frame with some spare parts from the man-cave so I could work out correct sizing for some of the components I needed for the build. While at this point I'm...