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 in Newbold on Stour in the Cotswolds on September 17th with admission going to Cyclists Fighting Cancer. Only an hour or so in the car, so definitely worth a visit to see another Losa I thought and maybe find some parts for my own build.
The day of the show came along, so we headed off with hopes of maybe seeing a few nice bikes but not with any great expectations (it was being held in a village hall after all) …
..how wrong could I be. It was absolutely fantastic.
There were:
 Bianchi |
 Colnago |
 Gios, Olmo |
 Rossin, Scapin, Ciocc |
 Chesini |
 Cinelli (with 57T chainring!!) |
 No Losa branded, but this Pavarin |
 & this Molinari, were Losa built |
 Wilier and many more… |
There are more pictures over at the original forum posting for the show on Retrobike.
Sadly, there were no parts that I was interested in for my own build so no purchases made (despite some multi-buy offers from the enterprising young man selling off his old toys – wrong age group I’m afraid, we were all after bigger toys 😁).
As well as the bikes, there were old jerseys which you can see in some of the pictures and also a couple of books on display that I’ve been wanting to get.
The first, “Italian Racing Bicycles” by Guido Rubino, I’ve been trying to buy at a reasonable price for months but it starts at £80 for a used copy on Amazon, with another currently selling on eBay for over £200 incl postage!! I mentioned this to the book owner as I was browsing through – “Is it? I just paid £15 for it…”
By total blind stretch of luck, I searched for it again that night when I got home and found a brand new copy on Amazon for only £12.50 that was instantly purchased – sadly Royal Mail seemed to think that a big hardback book could easily be forced through my letterbox, so my new copy of the book has a small tear to the cover edge before I even started to read it – I’m not planning on selling, but annoying all the same.😡
The second book, Bike!: A Tribute to the World’s Greatest Cycling Designers edited by Richard Moore & Daniel Benson had also been on my list, but is readily available at a reasonable price for hardback or paperback (at least here in the UK) so I just hadn’t gotten around to buying it yet. Having had a quick skim through at the show I also placed an order for that and a few days later I now have some light bedtime reading to inspire me.
I registered my interest, so we will see – hopefully the Losa will be built and the event will go ahead. There certainly seemed to be a good attendance at the show, so possibly a few more registered.
If you read this and would be interested yourself, the picture on the left is the flyer for the event with contact details.
All in all a very good day, seeing all the lovely bikes, receiving the appreciative comments from those that I had shown the pictures of my Losa frame to and the helpful advice for my build (the first of which was invariably ‘well, it’s got to be Campagnolo….” 😃)
Having finished with this bike show it’s off to the next, back to modern bikes with The Cycle Show @ the NEC before heading to the ultimate vintage bike event – L’Eroica – I can’t wait…