Velocivixen

Finishing up the 1984 Trek 420 Mixte - only year Trek made a mixte frame (except very recently). The 420 was a "weekend" tourer, and has a very smooth ride. I ended up adding a Nitto Dirt Drop stem, Soma Portola bars, SunTour bar cons, SunTour Cyclone II GT rear & Cyclone II front dereialleurs, new chain, consumables. Rear rim was warped, so kept the Helicomatic hub and freewheel and donated the rest. Removed the Simplex derailleurs it had also.
Selle Royale "Tourist " Ladies saddle in brown. by velocivixen, on FlickrUntitled by velocivixen, on Flickr
Used SunTour Cyclone II GT RD. The Cyclone II's were included on the next step up from this touring bike - the 520. by velocivixen, on Flickr
Flickstand by Rhode Gear circa 1980's. by velocivixen, on Flickr
Half step gearing with 50/45/28 & SunTour Perfect 5-speed freewheel. by velocivixen, on Flickr
Soma Portola & Nitto Dirt Drops, with SunTour bar cons. by velocivixen, on Flickr1984 Trek 420 mixte in metallic "Mariner Blue" DuPont Imron paint. by velocivixen, on Flickr

I bought some Fizik Microtex bar tape in "Honey" (they sell the Brooks colors of Fizik in the UK). Honey doesn't match the dark cocoa saddle but oh well. Didn't want to spend a ton. Rides very nicely. Now I've gotta learn half step gearing.

non-fixie 

Thank you for the kind words. I'm afraid I sacrificed some of that simplicity, and instead of just adding a couple of toe clips and bar tape I jazzed it up a bit:

3speedslow

Big rains today. Changed the brown hoods on my 84 Super Course to black. Next up was a wheel building session with Araya rims to early 70's Shimano HF hubs. Still smooth! Have to go find a true stand and dish tool.

non-fixie 

Nice wheels, @3speedslow! I have a few wheel sets with those hubs. They look good and seem to hold up quite well.

WRT truing: I recently bought this Minoura, and re-rimmed a couple of wheels with it. And although I have no previous experiences to compare it with - other than truing wheels on the bike - I liked it.

jpaschall

Is the Minoura easily bolted to a workbench? Looking at getting a truing stand and those reviews do look positive for the price point.

That blue bike is beautiful, is there a thread dedicated to it?

non-fixie 

There's a hole that's probably meant for doing just that. I've used it free-standing, and that worked surprisingly well.



I'm afraid this is it. It's a bit of a parts bin special that I'm playing around with, as part of my permanent quest for The Perfect Cheap Bike.

SJX426 

I have an earlier version of that truing stand. To flexible. Now looking for a better one.

I noticed that one brake lever was lower than the other on my Pinarello. It may have slipped either for use or when I hit the car door two weeks ago, don't know. To move the lever, I decided to remove the HB wrap. It came off in pieces! I had to use a razor to remove what wouldn't come off. Now I have to do the other side too.

My thinking is that now is the time to try out those Campy Ergo's and a 10mm shorter stem. But first, I want to check if my Tom Ritchey rear hub can have the free hub replaced with a Campy free hub. I have a 10 speed cassette, with the right spacers.....

Took delivery of a pair of new Look Keo Classics. Really reasonable price on sale and now I don't have to move the pedals! They were a tight fit in the Campy SR cranks but I used anti-seize on the threads prior to installation, the second time!

Hardrock23

I'm putting these Tektro dual pivots on, along with the new braided silver jagwire housing that Doc gave me a bit ago. I've been meaning to do this for at least a month now. Didn't get the brakes right away and just haven't had the motivation, really. I found the Tektros on Ebay, listed as used. They look brand new, not a spot on em! Got em for a pretty decent price too.

Oh and I gotta put in new shift cables too...

DQRider 

I'm getting this beauty ready for the ABCE, or "All British Cycling Event":



This image was taken early yesterday morning, down by the Mississippi, while I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

So far I've had to tighten the bottom bracket I rebuilt last year - everything is all bedded-in now, I think - and of course the endless rod-brake adjustments continue. Otherwise just a wipedown with Marvel Mystery Oil and she's ready to go.

tiredhands 

As I work for a state organization, I got a fair bit of unexpected time off thanks to Irma and made some headway into an overhaul of the Schwinn High Sierra I rode in this year's Klunker 100. As expected, the bottom bracket was completely rusted out, but everything else seems to be in decent shape. Except for the left crank - I'm pretty happy that it didn't fail on me during the 100, but upset that the crankset will no longer be OEM.

Soylent 

Recently picked this Designer 84 in SLX. I will be building it with 1984+ SR with the scripted brake calipers and cinelli crit bars.


I also found these rims that I bought 2-3 years ago laying in my office and think I will use them for this build.

DiegoFrogs

I put a set of NOS Suntour AG Tech derailleurs on this ~1983 Ross MTB. The rear should be the OEM part, but the front is slightly older. It's a lot of fun now!

Ross Suntour AGtech Rear 02.jpg

Ross Suntour AGtech Rear 01 (3).jpg

Ross Suntour AGtech Front 01.jpg

non-fixie 

It does feel a little flimsy, and for a professional bike shop I'd fork out for a heavier one, but the price difference is huge, and for me, the amateur, I have to agree with Rainer: it's good enough.

noglider 

My shifting was like crap on my Raleigh. It's a mishmosh of components: 3x10 drivetrain: 105 brifters, Ultegra front derailleur, Sora rear derailleur. I now have it working better than ever. But I have to say, I don't like Shimano shifting as much as Campagnolo Veloce. With Campy, all I have to do is push the shifter until it clicks. If I do only that with Shimano, it might undershift. Then I have to push the lever until almost clicking or click it a second time which causes and overshift, and then I have to click back down again. I've learned a new technique which is to shift past the click and hold it and push slowly until I feel the shift.

I thought I could make this unnecessary by tightening the barrel adjuster, but that makes the upshifts (smaller cog) hesitant. So unless there's a trick I'm missing, shifting with Shimano is just slower than with Campagnolo.

noglider 

I'm also trying a third bar/stem combination on my Lemond. I'm reusing the leather handlebar tape. It's the only reusable type I know of. This time, I'm using a threadless adapter and a threadless stem. It will be easier to get some rise from the stem this way.

non-fixie 

I've recently had my first encounter with this Benotto tape, and I'm sure that could be reused. Even more so than leather. But more importantly: I also liked riding with it a lot better than I expected I would.

noglider 

I used Benotto tape extensively in the 80s. It can't be reused because it gets stretched into a new shape which it won't want to leave.

CoRide59

My understanding is that your Sora/105 combination should work fine, but your symptoms sure sound like an incompatibility issue. I've not played around with the newer Shimano indexing, but if it's not quick and sharp I'd expect something is wrong. That's certainly not how their older stuff works, nor is it their reputation.

non-fixie 

Hmmm. Are there different types of Benotto tape? I do remember removing cello tape-like stuff from bikes, years ago, that was quite hard and behaved exactly like you describe, but this Benotto-branded tape turned out to be quite rubbery and flexible.

DQRider 

I've run into this exact issue with a simple 1x6 setup on an old 105 RD - and it is exactly as you describe. I thought it might be the mismatch between the mountain-style indexed thumb-shifter and the road derailleur, but now I'm not so sure.

But the barrel adjuster certainly doesn't fix it; you can have either crisp upshifts or crisp downshifts, but you can't have both.

Makes me want to try Campy on one of my builds... but won't that be the start of an expensive addiction? Even worse, will it make me hate all my Shimano/Suntour setups?

canklecat

Gotta overhaul my '89 Centurion Ironman. I should have done it back in June when I first bought the bike, but I've enjoyed riding it so much I kept procrastinating. Per app data, I've ridden it about 1,000 miles since getting it the second week of June.

I noticed the rear wheel ticking and realized the bearings were loose enough to tick together. The hub feels smooth but it must not have enough grease. I ordered a freewheel remover and bearings from Amazon last week but got a notice that the entire shipment was lost. So I need to reorder.

Then the bottom bracket began knocking yesterday during sprints and climbs. So I really need to overhaul everything, hubs, BB and headset.

And there's one chainring bolt that keeps loosening, the one partially blocked by the crank so I can't reach the lock ring. So I need to disassemble the whole thing to redo it with Loctite.

While I'm at it I suppose it'd be a good time to replace the 42 tooth small chainring. I'm not a strong climber and really need a 39 or 40 there, along with a freewheel with 25 or 28 tooth large cog. I've hesitated to replace these because I needed to work on my conditioning first before blaming the equipment. But to be realistic I'd enjoy the bike more on longer, hilly routes with something closer to my Univega's gearing.

non-fixie 

There is. I did get a Sora brifter to work with a Deore FD, but only just. And that was before I was told that the difference in cable pull should have prevented that from working at all.

3speedslow

That's just beautiful! Nice even wraps and caps on the end. Do they have a problem staying on?

jimmuller 

Been wrenching the Tommasini's crank. Had ridden it in a while, got partway to work on it two days ago and the DS crank arm started to loosen. Stopped at a hardware store, bought an 8mm hex wrench, tightened it up, continued on my way.

noglider 

@non-fixie, I just noticed your bar-end cap. Sorry, but the tape is supposed to go on top of it. And I guess new Benotto tape is different from the old. I didn't know about it. I'm eager to try it. Where did you get yours? I was a fan. I recently put imitation Benotto tape on my McLean. It has started to come undone, so I need to replace it.

@CoRide59 and @DQRider, thanks. I have a derailleur hanger alignment tool, so I'll check how that is. The thing is, the drivetrain is quieter than ever which can only be a good sign. And when I say quiet, I mean super quiet. I sometimes listen to it when I'm riding with a wall on my right, and it's quiet.

But now I rode into work on it for the third day since the tuneup, and I think it's better. Either that or I'm getting used to the little delay I add when downshifting (larger cog). People talk about the system "bedding in," and maybe that's what's going on. My Campagnolo setup seems to have done that. I didn't like the way it shifted for a while, but now it's the fastest and reliablest drivetrain I have. It's really not expensive if you're starting all over. I got the derailleurs from one of those UK web sites, and the prices were astonishingly low. The reason it usually makes sense to use Shimano is that we usually have one of the components on hand already. Building with Campy makes sense only when you're buying everything at once. But yeah, it works great, and Veloce is the bottom of the line. I find NO FAULT with this line of components!