Alandalf

I just bought a new road bike so undoubtedly I'm being pretty paranoid here. There are scratches on the brake levers, crank and rear derailleur. They are all 2008 Shimano 105 components. Could anyone recommend a good method of repairing these?

Thanks

bobotech

Learn to ignore them. Its a bike, not a Ferrari or Lambo. Scratches and mars are a sign of a bike that is used. You are the only one that will probably notice the scratches and slight mars.

Your bike will still look just as awesome all cleaned up and polished even with a few little scratches and dings.

bghill1

Not what you wanted to hear but so much truth in this.

Camilo

Most aluminum parts are anodized. That means that if you use normal abrasive methods to buff out anything (like deeper scratches), you'll go through the anodizing to plain aluminum and the color change will be obvious, even with silver-appearing anodizing.

About all you can do is shine things up with a very fine polish made for anodized aluminum parts (maybe stuff made for car wheels or motorcycle parts?).

Just clean the bike and ride it. A non-new bike can never be made to look new again unless it's pristine to begin with.

aramis

For black stuff just go to the auto parts store and get universal black touch up paint (5-7 bucks usually) in a little bottle.

But don't worry too much, it's sometimes better when the scratches are there when you buy it, then you know that you didn't do them and don't have to worry too much about any more.

TiBikeGuy

If you are really paranoid then by all means get new parts. However, if you are like the rest of us who really ride bikes, as long as the parts work, we clean it and ride it.

CraigB

You bought it new with those scratches? Did you get a discount? That kind of damage is usually an indication that the bike has been dropped, at the very least. Might not be more than that, but at least that much. I hope you took a good look at the derailleur hanger to make sure it wasn't bent.

Retro Grouch 

There's "perfect match" and there's "not exactly".

Perfect match is all but impossible to attain. Not exactly draws your eye to the blemish and looks worse than the untreated scratch. If it was my bike I'd leave well enough alone.

triumph.1

Scratches in aluminum can be removed by varying degrees of fine grit wet/dry sand paper depending on the severity of the scratch. I've used this technique on motorcycle restoration for a few decades when cleaning up covers with large scratches. It is time consuming and tedious, patience a must, but effective. On a bicycle, I'd live with the scratches.