The Avanti Project

2009-11-17T02:57:00.000-08:00

THE EVOLUTION FINISHED GABBA GABBA HEY

2009-09-17T00:43:00.001-07:00

Here is the Evolution all finished in satin black with new green decals, pretty sexy I reckon.

This is the decal sheet as retraced by Lee at Black Robin
( cheer pal ), let me know if want some.
Contact Lee at lee@blackrobinclothing.com if you have some decals or graphics you need done for your restorations he's the MAN.

Sure looks a lot better in black, than that tri colour paint option, man what were they thinking back then?

GIRO AND EVOLUTION CATALOG PAGE 1989

2009-08-19T01:52:00.000-07:00

THE GIRO AND EVOLUTION BEFORE RESTORATION

2009-08-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

THE GIRO

The Avanti Giro showing it's nice lines, the first Avanti to be made of Reynolds 531c tubing as far as I know (although I could stand to be corrected on this). It came with a full Shimano 600 Groupset and Wobler rims, all and all a pretty nice package.
Frame weight; 2.186 kg, not bad for a 60cm frame (seat tube height)

THE EVOLUTION

Yeh this is one cool bike, or I should say it will be when I have finished painting it in it's other colour option...satin black, this one is definitely my pick for a future classic, so hang one in your garage now.
(and if it's this terrible colour, come and see me about painting it satin Black).
I think this is a second generation Evolution model, with straighter front forks, if you check out the catalog photo above you will notice some pretty crazy frame angles, obviously to in an attempt to slow the steering down, so all the weekend tri riders wouldn't end up with a face full of road. Not a bad idea but not liked by the buying public I guess, as this 'year two' model looks more 'normal' with it's straighter forks.
I also am pretty sure these were only made for a couple of years, as they only pop up in one catalog that I have seen.
The Evolution came with a Suntour Accushift Plus group set, which as far as I can tell is a Suntour SL group with the cool "Gripshift" shifters on the tri bars, look I know it's a real gimmicky gadget, but what can I say, for some reason I think this is a neat bike, especially the series 1 with it's 74" 78" frame angles. Mark my words a future classic for sure.
Going to have to get my self one of these....
Frame Weight (she might be pretty but she ain't no light weight); 2.106 kg

2009-08-03T02:47:00.000-07:00

The Avanti SLX
Well I have finally finished the first bike in the Avanti project, after a few trails and tribulations.
Still I think that it should be pretty smooth sailing from now on, as I have put a few good systems into action which will speed things up, so stay tuned.
I picked up three new bike to restore from Avanti last week, and will put up some photo's and details of them over the next couple of days.
Anyway the SLX came up really nice, and really looks the part and everyone at Avanti seemed pleased with the result so that was all good.

The SLX finished yay

2009-08-03T02:32:00.000-07:00

Stem DNP shifters, they worked ok to.

Still have to find some dust caps, steel cranks look pretty flash.

Bare frame, just back from the strippers, paint that is....

2009-07-19T02:33:00.000-07:00

THE SLX 10 SPEED
Some new shiny bits...bling!
I found a couple of NOS (that's new old stock, in case you didn't know) parts for the SLX resto, a crank set and brake set, these will really sharpen the bike up in the final build up.
Below is the redrawn decals, they are to small for anyone to use here, but if you need some. let me know, and I will email a bigger file.
I have got the bike all painted in it's new colour matched silver, and am waiting on the new decals from the signwriters, before applying the clearcoat.

The frame in the raw, back from the paint stripper's, and ready for a new coat of paint.

2009-07-07T04:41:00.000-07:00

Road Bike
#2
1985 Avanti Super Sprint

This was Avanti's top road bike for this year.
Made of double butted Cromoly Tange 900, which is comparable to Columbus SL
and a group set, which although, obviously put together with a budget in mind, was none the less well thought out, and looked pretty good too.
Nice easy frame angle's, with a can't miss colour combination of red, white and black and a affordable price must of made these very attactive on the show room floor.
I especially like the Sakae SXC crankset which really set's the whole bike off.
I am looking forward to restoring one of these, I think you will be surprised at how good it will look finished.

2009-07-06T22:25:00.001-07:00

THE AVANTI PROJECT

Let me tell about the PROJECT.....
About a month ago Chris from Avanti contacted me with a proposition,
Would I be interested in restoring a few classic/vintage Avanti bikes for them to display at their Auckland offices in a Museum type presentation.

Well of course I accepted the offer, and after the numbers were worked out, I headed up to Auckland to meet the guys involved, talk bikes, and see what they had.
We decided to do about 10 bikes, starting from their first BMX from about 1983 to the first of their Alloy PRO series road bike circa 1992/3, maybe a couple of ex race bikes with good international race histories if we can find them, and a couple of interesting mountain bikes to round the whole display out.

Now before I carry on, I must confess that prior to this, I didn't have to much interest in Avanti bikes, you could say that these just aren't my bag, being more of a 50's lightweight guy.
However since going up to Auckland, and meeting Ian Wills, who is overseeing the project, picking up all their old catalogs, and really studying them, I started to get really excited about this whole thing.
I could see, reading through these old catalogs a real development of ideas, a single minded purpose, and some interesting innovations along the way as well.
This was turning out to be more than a bit of fun for me, I had now put Avanti into their historical context in my mind. Restoring these bike's is important to New Zealand's overall bike/cycling history.
Imagine if Jones Cycles, Leader, Comet, Mitchell, Bosomworth, Morrison or any one of our other manufacturers had keep a collection of their bikes, those bikes would now be taking their rightful place at any Museum in the country as part of our collective history right now.

So now the real question is what model's and from what years do we do?
We had talked about this in a loose kind of, this or that would be cool kind of way, but now it was time to get down to specifics.

This is my list
Now if anyone who reads this thinks I have got it wrong or left out an important model
TELL ME.

The Road Bikes
#1
10 Speed SLX
The Earliest road bike we had, is the one featured in the photos below, this one dates from before the 1985 catalog, and is from the period of Avanti's first entry into the 10 speed market.
We all agreed this would be where we would start the Avanti road bike story.

Yes I am going to restore this beauty back to all of it's reflector wearing glory.

Once we have retraced the art work for reproducing the frame decals, they will be made available for you to download and take to your local signwriter,so you to can restore your own Avanti, hey hey!