Pista arrived!
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: RIDE REPORT
3/21/06 - Picked up a Bianchi Pista at the NJ Bike Show on Sunday 3/19/06. Rides great but needed some tweaking... Now it's set up with black vinyl griptape, a road seat and a front brake w/ a cross lever. I put on a pair of old school ultegra pedals and swapped the stock 48t chainring for a 42 to give it 42x16 gearing... after 2 days with the fast but hard-to-get-going-from-the-stoplight 48x16 it's an improvement. Oddly enuff the bolt spacing appears to be 130 not the usual bigger track width, and the bike -- tho it came with a singlespeed chain, did not come with track width drivetrain.

Flatted out the rear tire so I just swapped wheels - thru on my suzue hub/mavic open pro combo with 36 spokes and a 25c duraskin. Mad improvement. Fin tuned the seat position to spare the fam jewels and adjusted the handlebar tilt, then tightened up the headset. It's now awesome and rides ten times better - tho it rode great already. Frame is very quick in traffic.

Been riding it nonstop since to work etc. and am itching to take it on it's first longer ride now that it's got a more manageable 42x16... I did ride it to grab a cup of coffee a few towns over and got the usual stares from non bike people who must've been surprised to see a chrome bike with no gears.



- Elvis