Building a 1988 Vitus KAS in honour of Sean Kelly

We managed to get our hands on the groupset of Sean Kelly’s 1988 Vitus KAS time trial bike through a friended mechanic.

Unfortunately for us, Kelly kept the frame so we went for an alternative to build a replica of his last KAS team bike, using some of the original components from his time trial bike.

Collecting all parts before starting the build.
Collecting all parts before starting the build.

One might argue that it is not exactly the frame Kelly was riding, but we decided to go for the Vitus 979 aero road version with integrated cable-routing since the groupset was originally mounted on the time trial version of this frame.

We found the frame in France, equipped with a modern Campagnolo Chorus groupset, but the chamfered bottom bracket proved the frame to be Mavic-ready. The previous owner clearly chopped the fork tube to fit the low Campagnolo Chorus headset. So we had to do some magic and trim the headtube to get enough thread clearance to fit the higher Mavic 310 headset.

Halfway the build and it already looks stunning!

To be continued …

 

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2 Comments

  1. Thomas Frank
    May 26, 2017
    Reply

    Hi –
    I am Thomas from Germany an I builded up a KAS labeled Vitus FKC 9 too.- which is nearly “tout de France” only Concor saddle is from Italy, till today I haven*t found a French Rydel. Only this and the headset has to be changed in a MAVIC 310 – but in 25.4 it is hard to find
    if you more interesting my KAS Vitus and about other French lightweight frame sets – here can find pics of some of them under “gridno27” https://www.pedalroom.com/bike/hommage-to-the-great-irish-kas-vitus–30591

    • Stefan
      May 29, 2017
      Reply

      Hi Thomas, thanks for sharing. Really nice build! The Mavic 310 headsets are indeed hard to find. We have no spares at the moment. Same for the Rydel saddles. And… wow! What an amazing collection you have! Glad to see there’s someone out there with the same taste! I really love the TVT92 bikes you have. We’ll post pictures of our other bonded aluminium and/or carbon bikes in the future. We have 2 original Lotto Isoglass team bikes, an original Hinault from the La vie Claire waiting for restoration at the moment.

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