1980 Cinelli MX-1
1980 Cinelli MX-1
A Cinelli MX-1.
An Italian BMX frame, made out of Columbus cromoly tubing and built up with Campagnolo BMX parts. This was a cool bike in 1980 and the ensuing four decades have only made it better.
First off, before you get too nostalgic about this bike be honest with yourself and remember that nobody had one of these when they were a kid. Nobody knew a guy in the neighborhood who had one. You never raced a kid who had one. This was the expensive frame that hung from the ceiling at the bike shop, unsold.
V bars, Cinelli stem, Zeus headset
“CMX 1”
Columbus tubing
These Cinelli framesets were light, strong and great looking, so it wasn’t a problem with the product. The problem was that Cinelli is Italian and late ‘70’s BMX spoke English. Italy just wasn’t on a kid’s BMX radar screen and most parents would balk at the extra cash needed to buy Italian. A kid who had been saving up his or her money to build a racing rig was going to buy a Redline or a Mongoose or a CW or a GT or a Hutch or a PK Ripper. If mom and dad were involved, they were going to buy a complete bike from Raleigh or Schwinn or (god forbid) Huffy!
Campagnolo BMX crank
Gold anodized Campy BMX hubs
Most of these Cinellis were ordered by bike shop owners (who were older than the average BMX’er) who loved Italian road bike stuff. Probably sold Cinelli road bikes and lots of Campagnolo parts to their adult (road bike) customers. But road bikes and BMX were very different.
In 1980, a high-end BMX bike was typically sold incomplete. A rider would select every individual part, making trips to the bike store after every birthday, with handfuls of Christmas money, with allowances and lawn-mowing cash to carefully curate the most spectacular racing bike the neighborhood had every seen.
These MX-1 frames were probably $40 more expensive than the Redline hanging on the next hook. A persuasive salesman could argue that the Cinelli was worth the extra cash, but $40 was another 10 weeks of allowances to save!
DiaCompe brake
Cinelli Unicanitor
I suspect this MX-1 has a story similar to other Cinellis… This frame hung in a bike shop for years and was finally purchased. As parts were acquired it got slowly built up by a bike racing aficionado who no longer raced BMX but wanted a fun project bike to build.
The gold anodized Campy parts group probably took multiple years (and multiple Ebay auctions) to assemble. There’s a Cinelli stem and a gold Zeus headset. Of course that’s a Cinelli Unicanitor saddle. This bike rolls on Araya tubular rims with 40 year old Panaracer BMX sew-ups. The Italian theme continues with a Regina freewheel and chain, but a DiaCompe MX rear brake puts a stop to the whole thing.