I just inherited some vintage road bikes but know nothing about them. Any information on determining their value and year they are from would be greatly appreciated!
by schell1998
I just inherited some vintage road bikes but know nothing about them. Any information on determining their value and year they are from would be greatly appreciated!
by schell1998
13 Comments
One fake colnago
One Bianchi missing original fork due to accident
One Bianchi atb
And one other mystery bike.
Maybe 200-300 per piece of you’re lucky.
They’re all worth more parted out.
Edit
The last bike is worth a bit more to the right buyer 500-600
The last one is a modified 1st gen. Vitus 979 frame. Rear dropouts have been modified to be ridden as a fix/single speed bike. Note that the Modolo Kronos brakes are quite rare.
The Paris-sport is a rebranded Alan, I believe. Bonded aluminum to the lugs. A track bike prepped for the road with brakes, early to mid-80’s. Watch the skewer on the front wheel, it’s not locked down properly . My money is on that’s a real Colnago Mexico, looks like Campagnolo, maybe not the brakes. Late 70’s – early 80’s. I don’t know enough about Bianchi to form an opinion, but that fork on the road bike does look suspect.
You want to take images with the drive side facing out so people can see the components. It helps with the evaluation. There are often telltale signs underneath the bottom bracket as to vintage and such.
The Colnago is desirable as it is the most traditional of the set but the Bianchi road bike will be by far the best riding and most practical of the lot. The Colnago has an Ofmega crankset. You can use eBay completed listings to work out values. The Bianchi Road bike has a high parts value as many of the components are very high end and have low wear. Paris-Sort in a niche east coast bike shop brand that sold a good number of track bikes. If you sell that bike sell it as a Vitus bonded carbon frameset. The frameset is unusual and might sell well on eBay. The other three more complete bikes would sell best as complete bicycles.
Regarding the Bianchi road bike, Bianchi frames from this late 1990s period had chromed unicrown forks. –search term “Bianchi Genius”
The second one looks to me a Bianchi Reparto Corse Lsx. Wich Is very valuable in good condition. It looks mostly original, campagnolo brakes etc. it’s been produced only a couple of years. Sell all the rest, keep this one for me 😂🚲
the celeste bianchi is likely around 1995. it’s sought after in the sense that there are always riders looking for steel, celeste frames. it’s not collectible in the sense that it’s after bianchi sold and stopped using campy components for a bit. I’d guess japanese steel, assembled in italy.
value is tough, in the current market where I live, if you get a celeste steel frame for like, $400 or so people are still jealous and in awe, but it’ll still sit on the market for a while. It’s really hard to price these sometimes though, you might find someone willing to drop $800+ because those of us (me) who want vintage celeste will shell when we find one in our size. you’re gonna be waiting a while for that though for sure. ebay is listing similar bikes for like 2K? you’ll notice those are not selling, I would even call that price rude for most any bianchi that isn’t the yellow/celeste paint job.
I have a less sought after piaggio bianchi from 86, it’s also the dura ace era, and i got it for 150.
I do not see any non-team edition non-special model vintage bianchi even in perfect museum condition going for more than $700, more likely $500 tops. realistically, you dont have the matching saddle or tires or bar tape. not that you couldn’t, but that’s part of the look for these bikes and yours isnt it.
The black MTB bianchi is less valuable. their MTBs are generally ignored, their vintage bikes that are not celeste are generally ignored. $200-300 tops.
As others have said, more photos would help with identifying the bikes.
A couple of crumbs.
The Colnago looks like it has an Ofmega crank, but I’m not sure. A drive side photo of the crank would help.
As to the Paris Sport labelled Vitu, Paris Sport was the house brand of a bicycle importing business run out of New Jersey that started maybe in the 1970s, run by father and son Vic and Mike Fraysse. If you do a google search, you’ll find more on Paris Sport. Vitus glued aluminum (and later carbon) frames were frequently labeled with different brands other than Vitus.
I’m track frame expert or Vitus frame expert, but I don’t think that a track frame like yours was that common. Here’s a thread on Reddit about another Vitus track frame.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/FixedGearBicycle/comments/55plkd/olympic_vitus_979_pista/](https://www.reddit.com/r/FixedGearBicycle/comments/55plkd/olympic_vitus_979_pista/)
Are any of these for sale? I’d be interested in the Bianchi road bike. Thnx
Colnago and Bianchi road bikes worth around $1k a piece form what can see.
Astonishingly well made, but very fiddly to tune. The extremely tight tolerances mean a very long service life, as long as all is kept adjusted. Those brakes are silky and feature near-infinite modulation, but servicing the brake cables is tricky (not HARD). Please consider purchasing all recommended tools, and keeping the wheels as true as possible. You will enjoy it. It’s not like owning a ferrari or maserati, as the only scheduled maintenance is replacement of rubber. Rubber does not last, does better under constant use than it does with disuse. Please consider lubing all cables and choosing a truly comfortsble modern saddle.
I’ll do it. Post drive-side photos please. If you see a serial number (most often stamped into the underside of the bottom bracket shell or the inner surface of the drive-side rear dropout), drop that in your post as well.
This was a reply to another comment but I figured I should post it to the top level. I’m pretty sure it’s accurate but the serial number (it would be stamped on the bottom bracket shell, underside) would allow confirmation.
The Bianchi road bike has a Columbus (TSX, perhaps) logo on the seat tube. The internal cable routing supports that is it’s Columbus. That routing along with very nice paint (light metallic layer) legitimize the coated Reparto Corse decal, meaning it was fabricated by Bianchi’s crew in Milan. I think I can see the “B” stamped into the top of the head tube lug on the down tube. The fork is probably OEM but it’s difficult to verify from the photo. It would have had (non-clear coated) standard rectangular Columbus decals on each blade, about an inch below the crown’s curve termination. ‘95 is a good guess. It could have the EL fork, and the OEM bike would have absolutely used Campy. It’s likely a custom build. Through my shop and race relationship with Bianchi, they hooked me up in ‘98 with an EL/OS in actual Ferrari red paint after my ‘Nago was stolen. They supplied Record components, except for a Chorus BB due to lack of inventory. They equipped their bikes with Campy through the Pantani, Mercatone Uno days and the transition to shaped aluminum tubing weirdness.
Identity: ‘95 Bianchi TSX
Value: easy $800, possibly up to the $1400 range depending on how insane the eBay scene looks