No, I already have a nice collection of classic track bikes and 2 classic cyclocross bikes, nearly bought 2 "vintage" mountainbikes, but still no classic road bike. The several retro rides I did were all on a cyclocross bikes with road wheels and road pedals and even the wheels were from my cyclocross bikes and I swapped tyres for the occasion.
992 frames were introduced in 1992 (this is the model naming of Vitus: the number represents the year of introduction) as a successor of the famous 979 Duralinox (intro 1979).
Vitus, Alan and a couple of other companies understood that aluminium was a very suitable material to build bicycle frames with (lightweight, corrosion resistant), but at that time it was still difficult to weld. Also, aluminium isn't as strong and stiff as steel, so you need more of it to reach the same strength and rigidity. And because of standardized bike component dimensions (as far as that exists) or just because of stupidity, they just increased the tube's wall thickness and left the diameters the same. The result was that aluminium frames were just slightly lighter than steel ones of the same strength, and quite a bit less rigid. So, aluminium frames were popular for lightweight riders with smaller frame sizes.
Vitus 992 was one of the first frames with oversized tubing: the tube diameters were increased and the wall thickness reduced. Vitus also ovalized the tubes, similar to Columbus Max (steel). Also due to the integrated Stronglight headset, a lightweight, less flexy and beautifully shaped frame was born.
For me, Vitus will always remain linked to Sean Kelly, who mainly rode 979 frames and a short period on 992 and even moved away from Vitus to continue with Concorde (Ciöcc frames for the PDM team) and Rossin (Festina).
Just to illustrate how stupidly a new bicycle project can start: this Vitus 992 will be a nice platform for my Reydel Pro saddle. Both French and both related to Kelly. A Mavic SSC group set would make a nice match, but I think I will go for Shimano Dura Ace 740x components for practical reasons.
