The Vitus 979 was an attempt in the early 1980s to build a light aluminum race bike, the large majority of bikes up to this point had been made with varying weights of steel, heavy gas pipe like that found on many vintage Schwinn bicycles like the Varsity and Continental and thinner type found on many European bikes. But still, all things even steel weighs more than aluminum, and in a sport were dropping weight can chop seconds off a race split it was worth investigating.
What also made the Vitus unique or novel, was the approach in attaching the aluminum components , traditional steel bike were generally "lugged", that is the metal tubes ran into another metal pieces and they were welded together. This same concept was used on the Vitus except rather than welded into place a aerospace grade heat activated epoxy was used to essentially glue the bike together. In the pictures you can see the black anodized aluminum tubes run into bare aluminum lugs.
The rest of the components on the bike are popular hi-end parts that are 1980s appropriate for a "retro" or "
L'eroica" build.
Suntour was a Japanese company that made a wide range of components for bicycles and Superbe Pro was their top level in the mid-1980s. On the Vitus the cranks, chain rings, and shift levers are all the same group set. Even 30+ years later these components shift amazing and work just like you'd want them to.
Most people will be familiar with shifting bike gears and hearing "clicks" this is called index shifting and a mechanical limiter clicks the derailleur into the right spot every time. Index shifting was a new technology in the 1980s and many companies offered friction shifting, where you had to know and get a feel for where it needed to be, and index shifting in one component. These Suntour levers allowed you to select friction or index depending on what you liked.
Supurbe Pro rear derailleur and New Winner rear freewheel, an interesting fact about the New Winner series of gears was it was narrow enough to fit a 7-speed freewheel where previously you could only fit 5 or 6, it required a thinner chain but this set-up works pretty well. Having extra gears allows you to set your cadence to meet the conditions rather than have to choose something close but not quite right, current road bikes now often have 10,11 or even 12 speed rear clusters.
Limited Edition Cinelli "Colorado" bars, as far as I can tell there isn't anything too incredibly special about these but they are themed to make reference to the old Coor's Classic race that was run in the 1980s. The blue colored stem is just another neat small detail on this bike.
Royal Gran Compe by Dia-Compe brakes, the black colored arms are one of the harder to find colors. Dia-Compe made high-quality brake components for a number of years.
