In the summer of 2012 I decided to restore my mum’s old bike from her childhood – an iconic Italian „Graziella“, more than 50 years old and in terrible condition.
I completeley disassembled it to the last screw and thoroughly cleaned every single part. The ball bearings were especially important and very tricky, as they are case-less on this model, which made the reassembly much more diffucult. The backpedal brake was equally difficult to clean and reassemble but quite interesting to examine.
All the chrome parts were cleaned with tinfoil and coke: This trick helps getting rid of rust without further damaging the remaining chrome. The frame was completely sanded, painted with two layers of white base coat and spray painted metallic blue.
I had to redo all the wiring and fortunately got the old dynamo up and running again. The bike’s unique frame lock was cleaned, oiled and now works perfectly in keeping the handlebars locked – also thanks to the fact that we found the small key that operates it.
I had to buy a new seat as the old seat’s frame was in a very poor condition. It was quite hard to find a seat post with the right dimension, the old one was also barely usable and worn down. The tires were even more difficult to find, I had some white-walls in mind but thex simply don’t exist in this small size and so I went for some white unicycle tires.
The result speaks for itself. An old-timer with a classic yet modern paint-job that turns heads whenever I take it for a spin.
