longhitv

Hi
I posted about a 80s Campagnolo set that I had a quick few days to decide and the Forum seemed to advise to turn it down and find better.
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...ampagnolo.html
So I turned it down.

Im 6'2
I grabbed the 1987 Bianchi Limited bike out from the dusty corner and touched up some spots and polished it up. I'm happy with it. See pictures below.

So currently I have..
1) 2012 Masi Pertenza entry level bike. I like it. In 3 summers Ive logged about 2000 km in rides around my house. I love the newer gears and sti shifters
2) I have a 1987 Bianchi Specialissima Giro with stock Dura Ace Groupset and downtube sifters. Great bike. 59cm. I feel like its a little small, but I ride it once a month for about 25 km and clean it and put away. Its a race bike. Its quick.
3) I have a 61 cm 1980 Bianchi 748 Rekord that is being painted and to go on that newly painted bike is a full NOS Shimano 600 tri-color groupsel and wheelset. Its perfect. Brand new never used. I feel like this bike will hang on the wall.
I know that's a shame, but it will look brand new.
4) Then I have this 61 cm 1987 Bianchi Limited that cleaned up very nicely.

It has a Campagnolo record Seat post that is nearly new and a very nice brown Concor Supercorsa seat that will have matching bar tape eventually.
This bike, I may want to ride a bit. It would have come with Shimano 600 sets but I don't want to put the NOS tri-color set on this. Unless you all overwhelmingly suggest I should.

I like the brifter STI shifters. I dont know much about bikes so the shop does all my work.

Id like some suggestions as to what to look for for a wheelset and groupset. I live in Vancouver, Canada, the bike scene is good so things come up. which is how I have all the above, for not much.
Should I just throw some Shimano 105 stuff on??? or what's the best groupset to put on to ride this about 40-50 km a time. No hills, I live on the flattest land on the planet.
Ideally Id like to stay with modern sti shifters and eliminate the downtube shifters.










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jdawginsc 

Plenty of options with brifters. I assume the spacing is 126 but could be moved out a bit to 128 easily.

If you really want to modernize, you could source a lower level set of Tiagra (I tried to offer a set up awhile back), or Sora which are both good quality. If you wanted a bit older and 7 speed, Shimano RSX is a cool get but the parts are a bit harder to come by. I am saving mine for a special occasion that may not ever arise.

Do you have all of the components shown in the first picture (600) stuff. That’s good old 6 speed stuff, despite the down tube shifters. Bomb proof, great braking and never misses a shift.

longhitv

All this is NOS brand new (even the tires and brand new and dry from 1989) its all going on the repainted 748 Record frame.
And the Complete Bike on the wall is my 1987 Giro with stock Dura Ace. Cant touch that one.

jdawginsc 

Got that. What about the first picture with the 600 stuff attached? I’m confused.

longhitv

First picture is the Giro with durace sitting infront of the car picture. The 1987 limited frame is infront of the Specialissima Giro, you can see the frame is all wrapped up.

I have 3 Bianchis
Specialissima Giro stock
748 Rekord being restored with NOS 600 tricolor
and a Limited frame with nothing

jdawginsc 

I’ve got it now! Updating it with the stuff I mentioned above would be fun.

RiddleOfSteel

A number of questions that come to mind is 1) what is the price range you'd like to be around for the components (or at very least, groupset)? A few hundred, closer to a grand? New only or a decent used set? Do you want your wheels to match (hubs, primarily) the groupset? Does the groupset need to fully match itself? Do you want a silver groupset (used, usually) or painted (600, and newer groupsets)?

If you're not hung up on weight and/or a 12-speed group, then the "lower-end" offerings from Shimano are a really good buy. All are painted throughout the groupset (including matching and labeled cranksets--not always a thing before) with attractive design. Claris (8-speed, R2000 generation), Sora (9-speed, R3000 generation), and Tiagra (10-speed, 4700 generation). All use the current Shimano STI/brifter body and hood design, so they look great, feel good, and work reliably. Springing for the coated Dura-Ace shift cables and housings makes the shifting noticeably smoother and less draggy--I noticed a marked difference in Dura-Ace 9000 shifting with the fancy cables and housings vs that generation's 105 (5800) with middle of the road cables and housings.

Not seeing a ton on Vancouver's CL right now, though here's a mostly 5700-era 105 group or an everything-but-the-crankset R7000 105 group. New Shimano stuff should be cheaper. Are you near any good used component bike shops? That can be an awesome thing, as I and many others here can attest to.

longhitv

I was going to buy the Campagnolo “Victory Corsa” gruppo from ~1985 for $360 usd.
I think $500 can get me a bike with everything I need on it, and I can donate the frame to a young kid.

So $300 -$350USD is the budget. A near mint Super Record set came up locally I offered $450.

But the newer modern brifters is what I would prefer

celesteguy 

If it were mine, I'd go with the current gen sora or tiagra. Even claris, honestly. The frame is in nice shape but nothing special that warrants an Italian group or a high tier group. Not that you shouldn't, but I wouldn't. Especially if you're planning more miles on this bike, just get a workhorse group and call it good. The black components of the new gen shimano stuff would look fire on that frame. You already have the celeste/silver component look covered anyway. Just my 2 cents.

Andy_K 

STI shifters are nice, and I think they'd suit that frame nicely. There are a whole lot of options available, and mostly it's just a matter of personal preference between them. I agree with @celesteguy that current Tiagra or Sora would be good, and buying new takes away some of the potential headaches. You'd save a bit of money and learn some useful skills by building it up yourself. It's really not that hard. I'm sure there's a co-op in Vancouver that would help you out.

I was going to post a couple of my vintage bikes with modern components for inspiration, but you're better off perusing this thread looking for something that strikes your fancy: https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...i-s-ergos.html

John E

I would strongly vote for barcons over brifters if you don't like reaching down for gear changes.

Steel Charlie

Barcons suck goat cajones.

I've had 105 on three bikes now - all with sti's. Still have two, one 3x9 and one 2x9. Years and miles later they are just fine. There is also a Tiagra 3x9 with sti's that has taken some heavy use and doesn't even show it.
And in closing
Not JMO but a simple fact
Barcons suck goat cajones

celesteguy 

I respect and agree with Steel Charlie on this. Not just because he's right about the barcons (if you're going to reposition all the way to the end of the drops to shift, you might as reach to the downtube), but also because he didn't use the *word* "brifter".

Barcons get touted for simplicity and reliability, but I've toured thousands of miles with STIs and never had a single problem. Like Charlie, many of my high milage STI bikes are still going strong.

To the OP, there are used latest gen Shimano groups of Claris and Sora on ebay right for less than 200 bucks.

icemilkcoffee 

I don't like to see modern black groupsets on classic bikes. The modern Sora group is all black. The Claris group is grey but a very dark grey.
My suggestion is the RX100 groupset. Unlike the tri-color 600 or 105 1055/1056 groupsets, the RX100 is polished. So it looks better on classic bikes. You can swap out the freehub for a 7 speed and narrow the hub to fit the 126mm dropout.

JulesCW 

Had to laugh at this -- the last two lines are hilarious -- you are clearly stating your opinion, not a fact -- and that's ok. Brifters are the overwhelming choice for most -- and have been for a long time. That does not mean that some can't prefer other options, nor that those options do not work just fine for them (and indeed, might be preferred over brifters by them). No one is forcing you to ride with bar end shifters. Ride on.

Steel Charlie

Fact: Barcons suck goat cajones.

One may make any excuse one cares to in order to justify the existence of the execrable things but the simple Fact is that barcons suck goat cajones.

And furthermore, brifter brifter brifter brifter

celesteguy 

Any/all credibility now out the window

wrk101

Barcons last forever. Brifters don’t.

Simple, reliable technology has been replaced with disposable.

I’ve had so many brifter bikes with dead shifters, particularly the 9 speed stuff. Then each era has its own unique hoods.

brixxton

I just picked up a Specialized Allez (early 2000's) with Ultegra Rings, Bracket, Cranks. 105 front and back Derailleurs and Claris brakes. One of the drop outs had broken. My thoughts were to upgrade my Bianchi Limited which is still stock with Suntour V-GT Lux and 600 brakeset . Downtube shifters would be swapped for brifters.
Changed my mind and while waiting for a frame am open to offers.

harrier6

One more option would be to get a new set of Microshift 7 speed brifters, then match that with whatever derailleurs, etc. you have lying around. Probably the cheapest route to functional brifter shifting.

bikingshearer 

I have extensively researched this, and can state without fear of contradiction that nary a single goat cojone has ever been sucked by a barcon. It turns out that no known barcon has ever had a mouth (who knew?) so a fortiori suckage by a barcon cannot occur on anyone or anything. While research specific to goat cojones appears to be lacking, no scientifically valid reason can be offered to suggest that they could be an exception to this.

3alarmer 

...I have a Bianchi Giro from the 80's, and I ride it all the time. I also have a Rekord, which I feel doesn't get enough love as one of Bianchi's offerings. If it is as flat as you indicate where you live, I guess I'm puzzled as to why you are stuck on brifters as your solution, to a problem that seems not to exist with your other bikes. It is pretty flat where I live, so the few gear changes I make along the rides I take (mostly for head and tail winds) are easily accomplished using DT shifters.

Brifters are great if you race, or ride with a group. I have some bicycles that use them. But I would never go out of my way to install them on a bike I ride on mostly flat routes, because it seems to be a level of complication unwarranted by the demands of the riding.

But then, I don't have room in my life for a bicycle that hangs on the wall, either. IME most of the 105 stuff I've used works pretty well, and as long as you choose at a level that is Ultegra or above, Shimano brifters seem to do OK for me. I just don't have any preference for them over DT shifters. I guess that's why I'm surprised someone feels so strongly about barcons, which seem also to work well when installed and used correctly.


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nlerner

I think the goats are the only ones coming out ahead here.

I have both brifters and bar-ends in the fleet, and one bike with downtube shifters. The ones that get ridden the most all have brifters, mostly Campy Veloce 10-speed paired with an 8-speed Shimano drivetrain (Shimergo), but I’m also using Campy Potenza 11-speed, Shimano 105 10-speed, and SRAM 1x11. The bar-ends are either SunTour friction barcons or Shimano indexed. It’s a big wide world; I like them all. And, fwiw, I’ve never had any failures with brifters, and that’s after tens of thousands of miles. I have had barcons loosen in the pod and then ghost shift, however. More than once.

3alarmer 

...I used them on this bike because the goat insisted.

longhitv

Hi Thought Id chime in since I started the thread and update
Heres how the bike ended up.

1987 Bianchi Limited.
Campy Chorus crank and Chorus brakes, Campy Record shifters, Record derailers, Campy BB
Sits beside a Copper dipped Bike I just did.
And Now I have to paint and assemble the 1980 Bianchi 748 Rekord I have.
Last picture is better. I changed out to better tires and silver pedals over the black ones.