Bikes of the Velo-Retro ride: Della Santa track bike

Chuck Schmidt owns a track bike, adapted for fixed gear road use, custom built by renowned Nevada builder Roland Della Santa.

Brian Ignatin

Roland Della Santa has been building made to measure frames since 1970. At the home page of his website, a photo from the early 1970s shows him racing in the Nevada City Classic next to future mountain bike pioneer Gary Fisher. Della Santa's most famous client is Greg LeMond, who grew up in Reno, Nevada, the home of Della Santa's frame shop. LeMond raced on steel frames built by Della Santa that displayed the marques of LeMond's various bike suppliers during his career.

Indirectly, Della Santa's most famous client is Dustin Hoffman, to whom Greg LeMond gave one of his Della Santa-built bikes. Hoffman was at one time the star of a planned feature film based on Ralph Hurne's 1973 novel, The Yellow Jersey. Although the project came to naught after 15 years of planning, Hoffman visited the Tour de France in the mid-1980s and met America's rising star cyclist.

Della Santa’s frames are known for their simple, understated elegance. Designs and paint schemes have remained constant throughout the years, and so the components on the bike are often the only way to date the production year of one of Della Santa's frames.

Chuck Schmidt with his Della Santa track bike, designed for fixed-gear road use. All photos: Brian Ignatin

In 2010, Chuck Schmidt had Della Santa build him a fixed gear frame for use on the roads around Pasadena, CA. He requested the bike look like it was built in 1970, rather than something made 40 years later. Traditional track bike geometry was utilized, and the bike's only nod to use on the road is the fork crown that is drilled for a front brake. The frame was painted by Jim Allen, who added subtle but elegant details, highlighting the simplicity of Della Santa’s finish work. Being a Campagnolo & Cinelli historian, Chuck built the frame using a traditional Campy Record Pista Group, Steel Cinelli track stem, Dual Crest Cinelli track handlebars, and extremely light weight Nisi track rims. He uses a 48 x 18 fixed gear combination, proving that the Velo-Retro ride course really is fixed-gear friendly.