For the first 5 or 10 minutes after I hopped on the Miyata, it felt like the bars were more narrow than I'm used to. They were 38cm, and I've 38s on other bikes, so I can't explain that weird feeling for the first few minutes. I finally bit the bullet and changed out the original 3ttt bars for some Cinelli 64-40s after I decided to also replace the cotton with Fizik tape.
That's sort of difficult work. It's not so straightforward like rebuilding a bb, overhauling a pedal or truing a wheel. It takes me quite a while to get the brake levers just right and even longer to tape the bars perfectly and add finishing tape. I've always found these "small" jobs can be frustrating.
Fizik now has their white colored logo on one side of this tape, which I can hide pretty easily with the wrap until I do a figure-8 around the lever. So there was one little emblem showing on the outside of each lever. I wasn't too worried about it. A little acetone took care of that, although it left behind a little smudge.
But the first ride today told me it was all worth it. My hands thank me. The cushy 2mm microtex tape feels almost like the tires got a little fatter without losing that precise road feeling I'm used to. But at the same time, I do think I've lost that more vintage look and feel of the cotton. It's definitely a trade-off.
The new Cinelli stem's clamp bolt was also a little long, like three threads were showing, which bugged me. I tried a pipe cutter first, and that clearly wasn't going to work with the threads on there. So I used a hand clamp and took a hacksaw to it. I was a little worried I didn't have anything to clean up the threads, without a nut in my bin of the same size. Afterwards, I used an iron file on the end, and maybe I took a bit too much off. But now I can sleep.
