Getting the tiny Venture Invader ready for its first test ride, I need at least a front brake. The original non-aero levers have poor leverage and they've gotta go. I grab a set of Dia Compe Vx levers out of the stash (recycling bin - $0!). They've got the shortest pivot distance I've measured on anything at 17.5mm, so at first I figure that'll be nice for small hands. But there's more to it than leverage for junior levers, and I don't notice the obvious problem until near the end of the challenge. They'll have to get changed again.
The Vx levers need a weird little ferrule that I don't have, but the ferrules taken from the non-aero levers sorta fit and they stop the housing from pulling through the brake.
The old brake reach is too long. Swapped for a set of Dia Compe sidepulls
(off my first adult bike, damaged and dismantled - counting +$5 for the set at co-op pricing). I think a little about going overboard with these - weaken the spring bend to work better with sprung levers? upgrade to
Silly
Little
Retrofits braking with nylon bushings and spring liners? - but don't get to this. Maybe post-challenge.
The frame gets respaced to 135mm, clamping the frame in a bench vice by the old bottom bracket cups and using the string test for alignment.
The rear tire is a Panaracer Pasela without much wear but a slash through the tread.
It gets a boot made from ripping apart the layers of a worn out Gravelking (and a more permanent fix later). I'm able to reuse one of the tubes from the bike, and put the latest of 7ish patches on a punctured tube
(counting the cost of the latest patch - +$.50).
Pedals are a plastic platform set
(out of the recycling bin - +$0) that'll work nicely. The rear wheel gets 7 loose cogs and a bunch of spacers
(dismantled cassettes from recycling - +$0). The chain comes off my main bike freshly worn past the .75 mark
(let's call this 1/4 of new, +$4). The stem shifters that came with the bike are missing part of the mounting plate, so I use the single speed trick of running a cable just through the derailer to put it in low gear.
The first test ride is terrifying. Even in low gear it gets going pretty fast and I'm balancing way up above the seatpost, and the saddle is too uncomfortable to sit for long. The headset is severely pitted (both the crown race and the cups) and it's all the more unnerving for it. Round trip is less than 2km and my plan turns to trying to do about that distance every day of the challenge.
After the first ride we're at $29.50 and 2km.