I have a couple/three bikes with headsets that are "indexed". The worst of them - until last night - was the one in my Colnago Mexico; this headset has been in the frame since 1994 and I don't believe it's been serviced since then, either. When I got it all apart (with the intention of retiring it and installing an almost-NOS one in its place) I was floored to see absolutely no evidence of wear on any of the races. I was expecting divots for sure, but was pleasantly amazed.
I also used the last of the blonde shellac to give the black bar tape a couple coats to extend the color-fastness. In between coats I cleaned the headset parts and re-installed them with fresh Phil Wood grease. I also made a somewhat sad replacement at the front end with an eye to allowing me to use this bike more often.
Because I was shellacking the bars I removed the brake levers. I wanted to give them a quick polish with aluminum polish, but I had also decided that for now, I would have to remove and store the custom leather hoods produced by our own @
rootboy. I've noted that my hands have had a tougher time this summer gripping the lever hoods on this bike because the leather hoods are that much more thicker than the gum ones and they don't provide that vital bit of squishiness my aging paws are requiring more and more.
I decided to finally use a pair of Campy-copy hoods made by Robbie Fellows a long, long, long time ago. I got these after some back/forth between us bitd regarding drillium and such. He was going for an amber translucent look and this was a test shot he gave me. Looks brown from a distance, but up close it's translucent dark orange. Pretty cool, but more importantly squishy and smaller. I finished putting everything back together this morning and took it out for test ride and I can now go no-hands ridiculously slow without fear of losing my balance and there's no play or shudder when braking which means I got the headset final adjustment bang-on.
I wonder if I can get another 25 years of use out of this headset? Gonna give it a go
DD