Andy_K 

That happened a few years ago with my Serotta while @lascauxcavenman was riding it. Apparently he pulls on the bars more than I do because I hadn't noticed it. That turned out to be an issue with Cinelli's bar sizing being just an approximation. I never was able to get it properly tight and ended up having to use different bars.

philpeugeot 

It's been a minute since I last posted here. I acquired some bits to install on my clunker:

Front and rear Blackburn racks ($30) and

crash-damaged Planet Bike fenders from the co-op (free). I also installed a used chain (also from the co-op, free). I had trouble getting the front fender to clear the tires so I ended up bending the metal tab fork crown attachment to increase clearance. I have to say I'm pretty proud with how it turned out; there is no longer any tire rub, and the metal tab conforms to the front rack attachment, so it looks pretty clean.

Another issue I ran into was that the front rack interfered with the brake caliper quick release lever, so one of the brake arms wouldn't engage. Most members here would probably source a new caliper, but I decided to just leave the quick release unlocked. Now the front brake works fine.

I also transferred my old Kirkland handlebar bag from last year's challenge. It came together pretty well, save for a few modifications. This is what the finished product looks like:

I took it out for a quick spin to the local Ace Hardware, and I have to say, not all is well. I've never ridden a bike with clips before, so it was pretty annoying getting my shoes to slip into the clips. The gearing is pretty high; I normally ride with a triple with a bailout gear. I may need to source a triple somewhere. Also, the drivetrain is horribly rough. The chain doesn't seem to sit well with either the freewheel, chainwheels, or derailleur because it kept skipping around. I'll have to look into that. So far, I'm $70 and about 2 miles into the challenge. I hope I'll be able to figure out all the kinks by the next ride.

jdawginsc 

Is that how the bike came equipped (with the double)? Someone must have dumped the triple at some point. What are the drivetrain components?

That would be a great bike to update after the challenge. Planning on keeping it?

Mr. 66

Some progress, I'm at 55 miles for the Mondia all has been going well. The only quirk, I thought no the cable has slipped some at the rear derailleur.

No more progress with the Gitane, however I did source a front derailleur. So I will now sing the the song, "May your Simplex be unbroken" a 1971. Ah shoot, no picture, I thought 💭 took a picture of the ghost derailleur. It was all white with oxidation.

I've got the Paramount assembled, it's not ready yet. I'm still working out the drivetrain-chain-triple-derailleur combo. The 14-32 and 28-44-52 is not playing friendly.





Lastly I found a Bottecchia Professional (perhaps) with some not anodized Campy calipers with a drop hanger bolt. I don't think I'll have time for it in the Clunker Classic but if the schedule opens up.

jdawginsc 

Wait, your four “clunkers” are a beautiful Mondial, root beer Raleigh, potentially a Gitane, Paramount and now potentially a Bottecchia????

That’s impressive “junk”!!

rustystrings61 

I DO so wish my life would settle down! Today I was finally able to get out and ride! I cheated and loaded Champagne Charlie into the truck and drove to the launch site of innumerable local cyclists, the local Y’s parking lot. From there I rolled through the last and most gracious of Greenwood’s mill villages, built to support the Harris Plant c.1950, and on to fabled Hodges. I made a slight detour to Jackson Station, the long-shuttered late night legendary blues joint where I learned everything I know about playing electric blues guitar. It’s sad to see it so dilapidated, but the men who ran it are all passed on and the place lives on in Dan Harrison’s book, so …



Champagne Charlie looks good compared to the old train depot that was Jackson Station

From there I toddled on into Hodges, but I took 178 instead of 185 just for variety’s sake. I admired the old garage and stopped for a moment to cool off near the gazebo before heading back to town.



I used to think this was the old fire station but now I realize it was probably a garage.

Hodges has seriously upped its beautification game!

I encountered a pack of local riders paused to regroup, waved and said hello and rolled on. They soon caught me, and I was amused to see a carbon fiber Trek wearing a Brooks B17. We rolled in together and I thanked them for towing me 1n and headed for the relief of air conditioning and a cool beverage.

I got in 23.3 km today, so I am now at 67.6 km total - maybe I can sneak in an evening ride or two this week …

philpeugeot 

Yeah, came with that racing double, definitely not original. Drivetrain components are Suntour VX derailleurs. I for sure will be holding onto it, probably throw on some T.A./Stronglight cranks and centerpull brakes.

jdawginsc 

I have a Sugino VP 48/38/28 170 if you want it. I probably have a BB that might work with it.

No charge. Just send me your address.

philpeugeot 

jdawginsc thank you for the offer! I think I'll decline though, I probably have a triple lying around somewhere that I'm currently too lazy to dig up. I'll just make do with what I have for now.

jdawginsc 

Okie dokie. If you change your mind, I will send it along.

Mr. 66

Thanks! I have to admit though, there are not enough buyers at Bikeworks. If one or two buyers miss a weekend sale it makes a huge difference on what's available. Those guys don't buy what I buy either, they buy good stuff lol. I'm pretty sure they threw out a PX-10 frame in size 52 last week. I couldn't buy it, I just picked up the Mondia, the Paramount, and a small rusty Carabela, poor PX had no love. Right now, I think I'm the only person that buys the French stuff. Other people buy Italian but not encrusted stuff that I do.

Here is a picture of the Carabela, I'll post just to promote Bikeworks's sales.



The Carabela was a frame only purchase, it was rusty and was kitted with black Dura Ace.

I'm away from the rusting mass, out of town and visiting California. I'll have some pictures of the Schwinn on Thursday.

Note: The Raleigh, difficult as it is, is not part of the Challenge.

Andy_K 

Threw out a PX-10? Apparently I need to recruit a buyer in Seattle. I've been through the Bikeworks warehouse, and it's a truly remarkable stash. I saw a Hampsten there that would be in my garage now if it had been a little smaller. I haven't seen nearly that quality of bikes at the non-profits in Portland.

Andy_K 

I finished applying the paint to my Centurion Elite over the weekend. It's killing me waiting for it to dry so that I can start putting parts on it to see how it'll look. I'm going to try to wait two weeks, but it'll be tough. I ended up needing a second can of Rust-Oleum, which really eats into my budget. I was hoping to have enough left for decals, but with the extra paint and $8 for bar tape I'm up to $91 and I still need to account for the cables I'll be pulling from my bulk stock. I guess the decals will have to wait until after the Challenge unless.... @Narhay, can I claim paint as a cleaning supply?

Speaking of cleaning supplies, I also soaked the original parts in Evapo-Rust this weekend. None of them were significantly rusty...just a bit of surfaces rust around the nuts and bolts on a few of them. Now most of the parts are shining like new. (Why was the chrome on Japanese bottom brackets so nice?) The one sad discovery is that one of the adjuster screws on the Cyclone rear derailleur is bent. Hopefully it's in the correct position already! I also noticed that the rear drive side dropout is bent in quite a bit. I wish I had seen that before I painted it. I'll be able to space it back out to 126 and align it properly, but there's a visible bend near the bottom of the seat stay that I guess is permanent now.

jdawginsc 

Dang. That Bikeworks is a treasure trove.

...we have no coop...this my jealousy is warranted.

molleraj

It's been a few days but I passed 100 miles on the Capri Cordova last week with 16 and 31 mile long rides, bringing me up to 120 miles total. I might be able to get one more ride in Memorial Day weekend. Surprisingly the bike has held up fine the whole time. I will upload pictures soon.

Smokinapankake

Finally got some miles in after overhauling the BB. Took my son with me, my usual 12 mile route up to Barker Park:


We visited the amphitheater there:


Then up to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, at the Pioneer trailhead for a pic:


then down to Centennial Park for a drink of water from a freshwater spring:


and finally, back home. No other expenses for this bike yet, so total remains steady. Mileage is slowly going up, though…

Miles: 31.2 + 12 = 43.2
Money: same as last post, 79-something.

It was a hit one today; weather forecasted at 89F and it must have been every bit of 85!

Im not counting the rack because once this challenge is over the rack comes back off and this bike will probably get sold. I don’t like drop bars or downtube shifters or skinny little 25c tires! With that said I’m sticking to the mileage rules of 100Km, not miles. That means only 19 more miles to go!

zukahn1

Well i got a ed from the thrift store for free a Trek 29er rattled canned and dirty but basically in good working order needed some pedals and longer stem that had in my parts bin so $20 and about 3 hrs on this so I guess I'm in for round 2. Should be able to get the miles in over the next week or so. Went for the rat rode do as little as possible approach on this one it will likely be e get going back to the thrift store ounce get 100miles and put on top of a at least one pass.

Andy_K 

My only update is that waiting for rattle can paint to dry is extremely difficult. I'm starting to think having the frame in the room where I work every day was a bad idea. It's just sitting there, taunting me. The paint looks pretty good, but it's got some texture on the surface that I want to sand smooth. It's not going to take much. I think I'm getting better at this.

I wanted to wait a week before I do anything to it. I failed at that -- I swapped in the proper seatpost, removed the BB cups I was using to protect the threads, and put on water bottle cage bolts. I also pulled the masking tape off of the fork crown and held the fork in place to get a sneak peek at how the chrome is going to look (spoiler -- it's awesome). Yesterday I was convinced that I could feel that the paint isn't dry (it felt kind of tacky). Today, I've kind of convinced myself that I don't feel that anymore. Sunday will be a week of drying time, I think I can hold off doing anything else to it until then.

jdawginsc 

I had to look back to the thread to remind myself what model it is. Any lug-lining to be done?

Andy_K 

Yeah, I've got some silver Sharpie paint pens that I'm going to use to try my hand at that. I've never done any lug lining before, so we'll see how that goes. This bike had very nice lug lining and pin striping from the factory. I have no chance of pulling off the pin striping, but I ought to be able to trace the outline of a lug.

Mr. 66

Interpeted as, Woohoo! Andy_K is going to try pin stripes!

jdawginsc 

Andy_K Warhol!

philpeugeot 

I got in roughly 20 miles today. Biked to Foster City along Bayshore Trail. Some parts of the trail are still closed, so it was annoying having to switch between riding on pedestrian paths and roads.

Picture taken from Seal Point Park; Foster City, San Mateo-Hayward Bridge in the background.
Some updates on the bike: I removed the pedal clips and Blackburn bottle cage. The gearing isn't actually too bad, the large freewheel certainly helps tackling minor gradients. The drivetrain is still clunky even after applying a liberal amount of oil on the chain. I believe a new chain is in order; it may be too wide for the Suntour Ultra 6 freewheel. I plan to clean the freewheel and chainrings and install a new 8-speed chain over the weekend. Until next time, happy clunking.

rgvg

So this is the frame that will go with my wheels. It was $20CAD for the frame and all the bits on it. The seatpost and stem were too short so I replaced the seatpost and am trying out some stems. The cranks are okay but I would prefer smaller. If I can find a rack for it I think I should put one on as it makes the bike much more useful for carrying things. I would prefer a slightly bigger frame but this should work well enough for 100kms.

Mr. 66

Been super busy, I haven't made the time to make the changes (new freewheel) for the test ride. Here's how it looks now.