Another Trek for the thread vault: my 1983 560 in the 25.5" size
I made the four hour round trip to Eugene late last year to pick this up. Over the years of fawning over the Trek catalog scans, the 1983 560's color scheme has long been a favorite of mine, so I was excited to see one come up for sale sorta close to me, and for a reasonable price. The test ride was short, and the rear tube lost air in the process. Still, I was going to buy it pretty much no matter what. Paint was in great shape and the seat tube decal was pretty good as well. Plus, how I am going to say no to that color scheme?
The frame being 64cm instead of 65cm (aka a full 25.5") would present fitment challenges with standard stems as this is a road/race bike and I wasn't about to turn it into an upright cruiser to make it comfortable for me--not if I had anything to say about it. I went through a few builds with it including one as a "for sale" build. The 'for me' builds used traditional stem and bar setups and looked good enough, but the hoods' elevation made for much too aggressive a standard riding position. It rode fine but was not comfortable. The 'for sale' build employed Soma Highway 1s (good) held by a 120mm Modolo Xtenos stem (awkward-looking). The metallic black paint, while gorgeous, absolutely does not play nice with black componentry as the black components are darker yet still too close in shade. The 560 was just a bike with decent components that just...rode.
No one else was interested in the bike, and I "wasn't done with it" in my mind, and I wanted something bike-like to work on after not doing so for a number of weeks (this is recently now). I wanted another crack at it, but it would mean taking some parts from my '84 620 (that was in pieces at the time) and perhaps even keeping them. The goal was all silver components and 32mm tires to take advantage of Trek's generous tire allowance on (some) race bikes for 1983 (the 970 also had this allowance). Simply, I wanted to make a pretty bike, free and easy-going, using components I had, with indexed shifting and decent braking. And it needed to fit me comfortably while still looking fast/good. I confirmed that the ideal fitment was possible and the build was greenlit.
Brevet wheels to 7403 hubs, Rene Herse 32mm tires, 7410 cranks, 7700 down tube shifters and derailleurs, a 110mm Technomic stem, and 42cm Highway 1 bars. I ground off 1.5mm of spline at the ends of the 7403's freehub body as those full-length splines interfere with 9- and 10-speed cassette 1st position cogs and I was tired of dealing with it (modern 8-10-speed freehubs do not have the splines go the full length of the body). The Soma handlebars were a beautiful gloss black, but that did not look good at all with the silver stem/everything else. So I had to remove the paint, and let me tell you, it did not want to be removed. I tried increasingly aggressive grits for a while before hooking up the "death sponge" paint removal wheel to the drill and burned through some rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, then walked the sandpaper grit from 180 on up to 3000, finishing with super fine steel wool and Mother's polish. I beveled the rear pads of the 7402 calipers in the rear. The slots technically reached, but with pads on and cable set properly, the caliper arms swung them high. So it's super cheaty, and I'm mulling a few solutions, but leaving them also works, and since the pads are Kool Stops against machined brake tracks, stopping power is good. This all was one of the bigger (second biggest?) efforts I've done for this "level" of frame, and it wears almost exclusively Dura-Ace, save for the BL-L331 levers. It's what I had that was of the polish I was seeking, and man did it turn out well!
It also rides as good as it looks. It's always been a lovely descender and steerer, and now it feels great to spin along on the flats or get out of the saddle to accelerate or climb. Tight, lively-yet-controlled, smooth, strong. A perfect "simpler times" bike for this guy. Hope you enjoy it's composition as well!
