South Salem Cycleworks: Mondonico 63cm 70th Anniversario bicycle

Hi, Nate Taylor here. Please reach out to me at nate@sscycleworks.com for inquiries on parts availabilities and shipping estimates.

South Salem Cycleworks Museum:
Owner Michael Wolfe's 63cm Mondonico 70th Anniversario Bicycle

Owner Michael Wolfe's 63 cm Mondonico 70th Anniversario Bicycle

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The frameset:

Columbus ELOS pinned-lugged tubeset with American paint & chrome.
63cm seat tune
61.5cm top tube
20.0cm head tube
41.0cm chainstay
110.0cm wheelbase
7.0cm bottom bracket drop
1” threaded steel steerer
With pump peg and chain hanger.
21.5lbs weight with pump and pedals
Anniversary frame #65, built in 1997

Components mounted on the frameset:

San Marco Rolls saddle with Titanium rails, Mondonico embroidered
Campagnolo Record Titanium 27.2mm seatpost
Campagnolo Record 9-speed ergoshifters
Campagnolo Record front braze-on derailleur
Campagnolo Record Carbon square taper 175mm 39/53 crankset
Campagnolo Record Italian-threaded 102mm bottom bracket
Time Titan Magnesium pedals
Campagnolo Record chain
Campagnmolo Record rear derailleur
Campagnolo Record 9-speed 13-26 cassette
Campagnolo Record dual-pivot brake calipers
1999 Campagnolo Record 32-hole front hub with a Mavic Open Pro front rim radially laced with DT Revolution 15/17/15 spokes and DT alloy nipples.
1999 Campagnolo Record 32-hole rear hub with Mavic Open Pro rear rim laced cross-three with DT Revolution 14/17/14 spoke on the driveside; 15/17/15 spokes laced cross-two on the non-driveside, with alloy nipples
Campagnolo Record quick release skewers
Rox rim strips
Michelin Airstop threadless tubes
Vittoria Open Corsa EVO-KX 700c x 23mm tires
Campagnolo Record 1” threaded headset
Cinelli 101 13cm stem
Cinelli Contact bar, 42cm center-to-center.
Cinelli Cork handlebar wrap
Avocet 50 Altimeter
American Classic cages
Silca frame pump with Campagnolo steel head

About the bike:
I started South Salem Cycleworks with my wife and a partner, Jim Scott in October of 1991. The location in the Sunnyslope Shopping Centre was that of the former Bicycle Doctors South, which I had managed the previous year. They had decided to consolidate back to the West Salem store, which I’d worked in over the years, but had no desire to return there.

We had a very limited budget, and the costs of opening were far larger than anticipated. The shop sign alone had to be individual letters, not a mere sandwich box, and took a big chunk out of the budget.

I’d hoped that Cannondale and Specialized would continue to be an offering from the shop, but Cannondale had a long relationship with the Bicycle Doctors and refused. Specialized kept us hanging for nearly a year before declining to sell to us. I had purchased one of the first Cannondale tandems in the mid-‘80’s while working for the Bicycle Doctors, and had been a key salesperson there. Cannondale did let us sell tandems in ’93.

Miyata was the first line of bikes we picked up, a brand I’d sold in the early ‘80’s, and Keith Seed was the outside rep. And we soon picked up Univega with Doug Dye as the rep as well, as The Bike Peddler was more focused elsewhere. Joe Dobson, the owner, who’d sold me my Motobecane Grand Tour back in the mid-70’s, even sold me the Univega neon display light.

Both Jim and I bought Miyata Titanium Team bikes, commercially pure titanium bonded with aluminum lugs, to best represent the shop. Neither my custom Eisentraut nor the yellow Cannondale SR1000 with Mavic components were good representatives for the shop. We sold a number of Miyata Duplicross tandems, mountain-style frames and components, and rented a pair of them right up to emptying the storefront in 2018.

In 1993, SunTour went bankrupt and Miyata closed its distribution here in the United States as well. There were other brands, such as Bridgestone, that left the marketplace at this time. Miyata centralized their inventory to a warehouse in Utah and offered it at huge discounts. I bought a Miyata Team from that offering, a ’93 that had an oversized top tube with an aluminum fork. I was going to build a sunny-day commuter bike with it, as sometimes I would do detours to get a 25-30 mile workout on the way to work. It was the best riding frame I’d experienced so far.

In ’95, Cannondale opened us up, and we had to fill a pre-season order, not only of bikes, but of clothing and helmets as well. I declined the helmets, as they were at least 3-year-old models from Bell, but had a Cannondale logo on them. The following year Cannondale also opened a shop in Stayton where they sold new Cannondales at 10% off, and in ’97 I could not put a pre-season together based on what we’d sold the previous year.

Univega was a good, solid brand put together by Ben Lawee. But aluminum frames were king, and without the decals stating Cannondale, they were a hard sell, but we made do with more utilitarian sales.

In late ’95 we were hurting, as the lease at Sunnyslope had increased annually and unexpected additional costs of “shared operating costs” of the mall took us by surprise. We’d signed yet another lease by the time the building at 4071 Liberty Rd. South down the road became vacant, and the mall management was not interested in letting us go.

However, a long-standing business in the mall was way behind in their rent payments, and the mall had agreed to let them move to a smaller location in the mall. The management put their money on the other business, and let us go, allowing them to move to our location. The other business went bust before moving, but we’d made the move to the stand-alone building down the road.

We didn’t have much in inventory at that point, but the new shop had been the site of the Budget Decorator. It was a labyrinth of small rooms, and I despaired of designing both the repair area and floor display, as both would get half their previous footage. Walls were taken out to increase visibility, but half of the 4,000 square foot building was an add-on with a bathtub roof. We suddenly had a huge amount of storage room, but the sales floor became more and more cramped as the years went by.

We spent 1996 renovating the building’s interior. Grandfathered as a commercial zoning, we could not alter the exterior, and the expensive sign from the mall could not be used, which I stored in the back with hopes of a variance. But the landlord did not want damage to the exterior of the building either.

Near the end of ’96 Enron had gone bankrupt, and my partner, who had invested in it heavily, needed his investment in the shop back. The shop didn’t have that kind of money, but fortunately, my stepfather at the time loaned me the funds, which I repaid during the summer months for many years.

We picked up Bianchi somewhere about that time, and I was excited to sell Campagnolo-equipped bikes that were made in Italy. The outside rep for Torelli, Darren Lupher, approached me, encouraging me to bring in some Torelli frames. I didn’t think Salem had a market for relatively expensive Italian frames and declined the offer.

In 1997, he appeared with Bill McGann, the founder and owner of Torelli, who somehow convinced me that I could sell Italian frames from my shop. I hesitantly placed an order of 5 framesets, one of which was of the dimensions of frames I currently rode. The Mondonicos had a west coast measurement tour that fall, and to my surprise, I had enough interested customers that I rented a van to take them to Tacoma, where Spoke and Sprocket, run by Jim Couch and Jim Finell, were a host. I was too new a dealer to warrant such an event.

Antonio Mondonico spoke little English, but both Mauro, his son, and Bill McGann were fairly fluent in both Italian and English. I succumbed to having a frameset built, and at the time Nemo was the top Columbus tubeset, but Antonio refused to build as large a frame as mine out of Nemo, using ELOS instead. He indicated that my top tube would be 15mm longer than anything I’d ridden, but still dictated the use of a 13cm stem. Already nervous, I was concerned that he would be building a frame for a top 100 rider category racer, not for a shop owner as myself.

For a while Mondonico was partners with Paolo Guerciotti. This is an old picture of the Guerciotti-Mondonico framebuilding shop. Later Antonio set up his own frambuilding shop in the back of his house.

It arrived the following spring, and after building it and riding it, I regretted all those years spent riding frames that lacked the ride quality and control that I experienced riding it. I rode some challenging centuries on it as well as more social Saturday morning rides, and never ceased marveling at the exquisite feel of such a frame. A customer rode “Reach the Beach” and back in one day one year. I’d joined others in riding this event, but always had someone give me a ride back. The following year, I took the 70th and rode back as well. I’m sure I was tired, but I don’t recall any discomfort on the bike.

Here's Antonio Mondonico building bikes in the back of his house in the 1990s.

I was born with congenital hips dislocation, and in 1967-68, I had experimental bone grafts done on each. I’ve been told since that the operations were performed by the most advanced orthopedic surgeon in the world, even though done in Los Angeles Shriner’s Hospital. It still meant I had a leg length discrepancy of a ¼” and when I began riding with toeclips and straps, I added a ¼” shim between the cleat and my Detto leather shoe.

Here's Antonio Mondonico apply flux to a bike tube, getting it ready for brazing.

By the time I met Antonio Mondonico, I had realized the discrepancy was in my femur, and at that time, one could order a crankset with different lengths from folks like Rudy at Ochsner International, and that is how my 70th Anniversario has 175/172.5 crankarms.

Photos of the 63 cm Mondonico 70th Anniversario Bicycle: