I rose early and skipped my usual morning ride so that I could finish this bike. I scrubbed the chain and the rear cassette with some degreaser, then dunked the chain in 40 wt and hung it to drip into a funnel going back into the quart bottle. I carefully unwrapped the garish bar tape and dunked it into a bucket of soapy water and let it sit. I scrubbed the brake levers and ran a recycled front cable and a new rear one with fresh housing and dialed in the calipers. I mounted the derailleurs, cranks (using a scavenged Miche left crank to replace the destroyed one), then dialed in the derailleurs with scavenged shift cables. I mounted the saddle and went to check its height - and laughed because I had without measuring hit the magic 79 cm spot for use with non-Brooks saddles.
I pumped up both tires to 90 psi and they both held. I fished out the junky non-rebuildable pedals that came with the bike and squirted some Tri-Flow into them along the spindle and was pleased to see how smooth they suddenly were. The plastic toe-clips are an atrocious joke, but I'll replace those soon. Greased the threads and fitted them to the cranks, then wrapped the bars, reversing direction so that the grubby, tattered parts that had been on the outside of the wraps were now hidden by the cleaner, fresher-looking parts that had been originally underneath. It works. I fitted the chain, which was a total no-drama process, then dialed in the shifting.
Short on time, I grabbed my cycling shoes and helmet and gloves and took it for a couple of laps around the 'hood.
This is a pretty nice old bike. The 23 mm tires weren't that much rougher feeling than the 28s I run on a couple of other bikes, but neither compares to the 32s I ran on the Cannondale. The friction shifting mode worked okay, but I switched it over to index out of curiosity - and it was flawless, like I'd spent hours tuning it.
It's not totally, absolutely complete - in addition to switching out these clips for some steel units from the stash, I think I'll dunk the toe straps and the REG bottle cage in some Evapo-Rust and clean them up. I may look around for some cheap teal bar tape to pick up the third accent color on this bike. Not sure if it will be this year's vacation bike or not, but it's about to see some miles!
I DO count this morning's test ride - 3.3 km.
The worst spot on the seat tube
The headset exterior is bad, but the working surfaces are great. Too bad about the paint on the lower head lug. Maybe I'll touch it up someday.
Totals so far -
$35 - initial purchase
$1.96 - four M5 bolts from Lowe's
$1 - MIche Monolithic crank scavenged from trash-picked bike
$6 - housing
$4 - rear brake cable
$42.96, so I think $44.96 with scavenged toe clips when I get around to it.
EDIT: The color is kinda growing on me ...