1995 Guerciotti Cyclocross bike

1995 Guerciotti Cyclocross bike

I loved bike racing from an early age. The sport drew me in with the seemingly impossible speeds, the great distances, by the individual heroics, by the somewhat hidden teamwork, and by the battle against the weather and geography that was stage setting for each race.

I also really loved that cycling seemed to be a gritty niche sport that wasn’t paid much attention by most Americans. As a midwestern teenager who followed bike racing in the 1980’s, my perception was that I had secret knowledge of a most glamorous European blood sport.

Now, can you imagine what cyclocross did to my secret-sport obsession? The discovery of a niche within a niche sport?  Bike races that took place in the winter?  A rabid fan base hailing from an even smaller pool of countries (Belgium, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands)?  Oh boy.

Alan aluminum fork

Seat tube close-up

Made in Italy

Cyclocross chainring guards

If I wasn’t scouring news stands for Belgian cycling magazines or mail-ordering year-old VHS tapes of the cyclocross world championships, I was visiting Flanders Brothers bike shop in Minneapolis or Grand Performance in St. Paul to drool over the Gios, Guerciotti, and Alan cross bikes.

These niche within a niche racing bikes were built with small but significant differences from summer road-racing machines. They had to have clearance around the tires so mud doesn’t accumulate. Knobby 28 to 34mm-wide tubular tires would be glued to the rims to provide some traction off-road. Gearing would be slightly lower than what would be fitted to road racing machines, but sometimes a single front chainring would manage the gear options buttressed by two chain guards. Lastly, the brake levers would be reversed, affording the racer a little bit of control as he slung a leg over the bike, ready to dismount and run up a muddy hill or leap over wooden barriers placed around the race course.

Head tube detail

Guerciotti detail

Dura-Ace 7400 components

Turbomatic 2 saddle

1X drivetrain from 30 years ago

This Guerciotti is a special niche racing machine, built out of small-diameter aluminum tubing by Alan of Italy. It’s just for cyclocross. Despite the similar appearance, you can’t take a bike like this on a long-distance tour. There’s no place to hold a waterbottle, and you can’t install a rack to hold your bags. Only cyclocross. The gearing is too high to make the bike much fun at a commuter’s pace, and the tires would make road racing with this bike a chore at best.

This bike is set up just like the winning bikes at the 1995 cyclocross world championship races or like Jan Wiejak’s bike from the snowy national championship race in Massachusetts that year. Shimano Dura-Ace 8-speed components with only a single front chainring. Spinergy Rev-X carbon wheels that shed mud (and snow) well and were surprisingly robust for the rigors of cyclocross. We have Shimano Deore XT cantilever brakes on this bike to allow for the wider knobby cyclocross sew-up tires, Modolo handlebar and stem combination and a Selle Italia Turbomatic saddle which just a little bit more “give” than other racing saddles of the time.