The Tange Passage headset arrived last night (late in the evening) while I was out, so today's task was to install it. Seating the crown race was a little trouble, but the rest went in easily. This is obviously a budget (yet proven) headset and could benefit from more bearing balls or a cartridge type setup. At $11 or so, I'm not expecting that, and it will serve its purpose well. A nice satin black finish (Levins et al are glossy), which should play well with the dark greys and matte blacks this bike will have attached to it. Also of note: the stack height is just 30.2mm, hence my need for additional keyed washers.
I re-weighed the frameset, with seat post binder bolt and under-BB cable guides, and we actually dropped weight. 3,405g which is over 30g less than with the old headset! It's still a healthy frameset weight, but it, to me, further solidifies in my mind that it's on par with the 620's frameset weight (if you were to stretch this 420 out in the rear, etc). Good stuff.
Super grey outside, so not as cheery a light source. Still, the enthusiasm of the yellow shines through.
Close up to see the satin of the headset finish and more importantly, the honesty of my touch-up efforts. Time and disregard (poor storage and weird ownership) left their marks on this frameset; but patience, cleaning, polishing, and yellow touch-up paint have brought forth a vastly-improved look--united indeed.
A little visual bumble bee coloring here. It's a lower end frame with lower end components to be put on it, but I like this thing and we're gonna church it up even more than we already have. I'll be picking up some wheels for it tomorrow (good price), and that will really help things move along.
