We’ve got a special Readers’ Rides today. It’s Chris King’s personal Cinelli Supercorsa. Chris has owned this since the mid-70s and rode it for 20 years straight, including a bike tour from Seattle to Santa Barbara. It features an early Chris King headset using salvaged grade 9 modified bearings and yeah, it’s got some beausage! Let’s check it out with words and photos by Jacob Olsen from Chris King below…
This bike is on permanent display at the King HQ in Portland, OR. It was Chris’ primary road bike for over 20 years, from 1972 –1995. He put a lot of miles on that bike, including one early tour from Portland to San Francisco in 1974. It’s a bike that catches the eye still, and why is that?
They say that form is temporary, but class is permanent. In the bike world, we take that to mean that styles come and go, but good design lasts and lasts.
Chris’ Cinelli features an early King headset, unmarked but distinctively King. If you didn’t know, you’d guess that it was one of ours. That headset was installed shortly after the company’s founding, in 1976, and if you turn the bars on the bike, you’ll feel it’s still buttery smooth.
In fact, with some fresh bar tape, tires, and a little grease, that old Supercorsa, with its Campy Record components (except for the SunTour Cyclone rear deraileur), Weinnman tubular rims, Ideale saddle and Silca Impero frame pump, could still be rolling today.
Chris put that bike into our permanent collection to remind us what timeless design looks like, and this is the core of sustainability. Every piece of a bike can be designed and manufactured with durability and longevity in mind. Sure, it should roll fast, engage quickly, spin smoothly, and be lightweight as well, but most importantly, it should last for life. Stylish, but also durable, eye- catching, but also well made.
We make parts to outlast the bikes they go on.
It will always be tempting to save money, to buy a cheaper option, something that’s “good enough,” but then we think of the waste that generates and realize it’s cheaper to buy the right thing the first time. Put another way, the price of a bicycle component is right now, but the cost of it is permanent…
Check out the modern component offerings at Chris King.
We’d like to thank all of you who submitted Readers Rides builds to be shared here at The Radavist. The response has been incredible and we have so many to share over the next few months. Feel free to submit your bike, listing details, components, and other information. You can also include a portrait of yourself with your bike and your Instagram account! Please, shoot landscape-orientation photos, not portrait. Thanks!