It’s always strange meeting people that you’ve previously only known by the wonders of the internet. I’d talked to American ex-pat Buck Rogers on a popular forum many times over the years, and his enthusiasm for all things steel, Euro, and unique leapt off the page in a cacophony of “fuck yeah!”s and “right on”s. When we finally met in person this April to ride retro bikes on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, it wasn’t surprising that he echoed his online stoke in person. What I wasn’t expecting was his beautiful custom Hinault 753, kitted out to near identical spec as the bike The Badger himself rode to Tour glory back in the day. Buck tals us through the process for our latest Insider Rides.

A complete 1985 Hinault bike built piece by piece over the last 14 months. I found out about Eroica cycling in the fall of 2016 and fell in love with the idea. In Eroica, you ride events using only bikes and equipment from 1987 or earlier. Since I started riding/racing in 1987/88, it really inspired me to want to do it. As my favorite team ever was La Vie Claire with Greg Lemond, Bernard Hinault, Steven Bauer, Andy/Steve Hampsten I wanted an Hinault bike which they rode from 1984-1986. I tried to find an old one for sale but they pretty much do not exist. Oli told me that they were all hand made jobs with 753 Reynolds steel. 

On UK Retrobikes Forum I found an amazing guy in Scotland (Craig) who is an expert on this team and these bikes so we set out together to source all parts and build one from the ground up. He used to race in the late ’70’s and ’80’s and turned a spanner in a bike shop in Glasgow for YEARS. 

WHAT AN ODYSSEY it turned out to be!

Totally crazy finding all of the parts all over the world. Every part that we found also had to be nearly NOS (new old stock–i.e. from 1985 or a bit earlier but never used–still in original packaging) as my Scottish mate is/was more OCD about it than I was!!! Often we would see a part on retro bike or on ebay and ask for extra photos, close ups, etc and then order it only to find out it was not perfect so we would send it back and try again.  Really painful but every part had to be PERFECT!

So we found every single bike piece that dated from 1982-1985: The following were all Campag SuperRecord: Cranks, pedals, derailleurs, headset, dt shifters (the special ones that were retrofriction or some such bullshit–ask Craig–all I know is that we had to send two pair back because they were not the special Campag SR DT shifters from 1985 when they arrived!), and brakes.

We purposely had to go with the Nuevo Record seatpost b/c Hinault’s mechanic actually could not stand the 1985 SuperRecord single allen bolt seatpost (see what I said earlier about OCD). Rims and hubs are also from 1985 (Ambrosio tubular rims with SR hubs and SR curved skewers–not straight, and Vittoria 21 mm gumwalled tires). Handlebars Cinelli 66/42 1985, Cinelli 1R quill stem, 1985 Cinelli bar ends plugs. Freewheel is 7 speed Dura-Ace 7400. 

Buck gives her some cobble love

Once we had all the parts, the real kicker was finding a frame builder who had taken the early 1980’s 753 silver brazing course to put it all together. 

We had found a complete 753 NOS tubing and fork set with the Cinelli lugs and bottom bracket but no one would braze it for us. 

I found a gentleman in Leeds, West Yorkshire, Donald, at Bob Jackson’s, who had taken the course in the early 1980’s and passed and was still building frames. I contacted him three times, yes THREE, asking and begging him to do it but he told me “No” because he was truly too busy with normal work and did not take commission work any more. At my wits end, I asked, Craig, my Scottish mate, to try and he pulled out the stops and convinced Donald to take on the job.  

Donald brazed it and built it all up and painted it perfectly and applied the decals that we had specially built. 

Once the frame was complete, Craig assembled it all together and flew into Germany and delivered it. Absolutely perfect!