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Old 11-04-20, 09:22 AM
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rustystrings61 
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Join Date: May 2013
Location: Greenwood SC USA
Posts: 2,252

Bikes: 2002 Mercian Vincitore, 1982 Mercian Colorado, 1976 Puch Royal X, 1973 Raleigh Competition, 1971 Gitane Tour de France and others

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Depending on how long a stem extension you want, I will simply say "Nitto." Thanks to Chas. Colerich/verktyg, I now know to (1) make certain the top locknut on the headset doesn't have a top flange smaller than the actual steerer diameter (a little Dremel action can open that up!) and (2) run a brake cylinder hone in the steerer tube to remove any corrosion and smooth things up. Those things done, most Nitto stems will slide right into place on a metric steerer, no sanding required. I am currently running Nitto Technomic stems in two vintage bikes with Nervor metric steerers, one a Swiss Allegro, the other one your bike's slightly older 60 cm sibling. The virtue of the Nitto stems is they are made for handlebars that are still extant standards, either 25.4 or 26.0 mm.

The Sugino crank is a good choice. My first TdF I bought used in '98 or so for $75 had stock Sugino cranks and updated Campagnolo Record hubs with tied and soldered spokes. Still kick myself for selling that one.

It's worth dialing in the fit. Mine, the most battered and scabrous example out there, came to me as a stripped frameset with BB and headset after spending a decade or more that way on a hook in a basement in the Pacific Northwest. It's built up as a fixed-gear, and the only semi-correct parts are most of the headset (a previous owner put a Zeus locknut on it) and a pair of Stronglight 93s slightly modified for single ring use. The rest is a joyride through many decades' worth of parts bins. No matter. It's gotten the bulk of my mileage for five years now, and remains a keeper. There really IS something about how this model rides. It would be interesting to get all the frame numbers, lengths, angles, fork offset, trail, all of that. Nothing else in my collection has quite the geometry of my TdF.
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