Kontact

The brake lever set up is hardly that abnormal in the C&V context.

dddd

Agreed, certainly not, just not the way that Rando and C&V riders often set up their bikes with the ramps level and with the hoods continuous with the ramps.

As I mentioned, down-sloping ramps to the levers is perfect for aggressive "honking" from the hoods when sprinting, or when attacking steep rollers, leaving the top of the bar at comfortable height for recovering after such efforts.
I should note that adding auxilliary "safety" levers allows for braking from the bar top, making this position safe for tucking behind a peloton (where sudden, hopefully brief, braking might be needed).
On my large Steyr where I fitted a much longer 115mm stem, and on my even larger Nishiki (where I couldn't lower the stepped stem quill any lower so kept the long, original .833" stem), using auxiliary brake levers allowed these longer reaches to the bars to be comfortable by giving said "recovery" position with ready access to good braking effect.

I somewhat dislike today's common combination of short-reach handlebars and integrated levers, mainly because the range of reach is narrower, making the positioning of the handlebars more critical unless the topography and group pace allows one to comfortably assume a semi-casual stance all of the time. So anything that extends the range of reach and drop is a good thing in my view.
And in the vintage-bike realm, I find the shorter drop of the Cinelli 64 bar more constricting, and the tighter radius of the drops painful on the palm area of my hand (requiring thicker padded tape).

If the fits below perhaps look odd, note that both bikes have slack seat tube angles, which makes for shorter reach (though reach as shown is not short for this "mostly leg height" -proportioned of rider.
So the auxiliary levers make for a wide and comfortable range of brake-accessible grip reach.

Kontact

Still not pointing up at the heavens, new lever position on WCS bars and safe stem.

Kontact

For that saddle positioning, you have not just dealt with the slack seat tube but gone twice past the correction to sitting right over the crank like a triathlete.

I don't know why C&V people don't set up their C&V bikes like they were ridden when new when it comes to brake levers and bars. Probably because we are all old.

Kontact

The somewhat final version. The lightly used Modolo stem had thread damage on the bar clamp. Replaced with a Cinelli 1A a friend gave me and half a beer can shim. The Cinelli will also go lower into the steerer.

As shown with these wheels it is right at 20 lbs.

icemilkcoffee 

About this 'classic' setup is- how do you avoid putting pressure on your carpal tunnel nerves when you are riding on the hoods? I notice in the old photos, a lot of the riders seem to just hook their thumbs around the hood. That seems to be a lot of weight on the thumbs, base of thumb, or thumb webbing:

Do you just somehow get used to using the base of thumb as weight bearing points?

Then again, I do see that they rode (and raced) on the tops quite a bit too:

Kontact

I don't see how grabing the hood with just the top half of your hand puts any special pressure on the carpal tunnel. Most of the weight is on the web of the thumb. But the combination of Cinelli deep drop bars and Modolo hoods is certainly much more extreme than the C-Record hoods shown in the rest of your pictures. Those are much more like modern hoods in having a more gradual transition from the bar.

But I do think that many modern riders treat their hoods like bullhorn bars and use neither the tops nor the drops. Which is too bad. I don't know if it is the need to shift constantly or concerns about steering control or brake access. And certainly many riders are too far forward and have to support a lot of weight on their hands, making it that much harder to move their hands around. Classic fit should allow for a fairly light touch on the handlebars.

Chombi1 

I'm surprised thst there's no dedicated forum for CF C&V bikes like this. These older CF round tubed, aluminum lugged bikes definitely have a beauty of their own.

smd4

Looks pretty nice, but I’d probably shorten that RD cable housing a bit.