RiddleOfSteel

Follow up post:

Completed the SS! Mounted the Superbe Tech RD on her and got everything else done. Test ride on my standard 3.7 mile loop was cut short as I added another 16 or so miles via a ride to the next neighborhood up north. Initial impressions were GOOD. I really like this bike.

Things to do: re-toe the brake shoes (very loud and much vibrating of the brakes under medium pressure after being fine), fiddle with the Superbe Pro shifters more than just tightening them mid-ride, swap out the ST RD eventually.

Good things list: My few years of refining my fit setup to frames paid off with this. I sit very neutrally on this frame when coasting and suffer no ill fitting when braking or pedaling (body weight shift). Really, I gotta hand it to Schwinn on this. The bike's handling is such that it nicely asks you to guide it along--no assumptions of wanting to steer more slowly or quickly than your inputs. And "OMG" on the in-the-drops while out-of-the-saddle high speed sprints--the way it winds up and sprints along with you feels phenomenal. Also, the hidden spring Superbe Pro brakes with their paired levers have an extremely light and smooth feel--I couldn't ask for better. It was what I was going for and I got it!

Compared to my '85 Peloton, the wheelbase of the SS is a whopping 7/8" (22mm) shorter (39 3/8" or 1.0m vs 40.25"). 1984 Schwinn Peloton & SS had a 73.5°/74° HT/ST and a 39.0" WB (23" frame). 1985 Peloton and SS had a 73°/74° HT/ST and a 39.5" WB (23" frame). So I see where the length differed. I will say that my '84 Trek also had a 73.5° HT and I really thought that was a great angle in terms of stability and response.

I understand modern bar/brake hood (level) fitment/setup. I understand indexed shifting. I like both things a lot. I am now considering how much I really need either as, between this and my Supreme that recently 'showed me the light', I am having an absolute ball with this most-tactile riding experience, and it's comfortable!

Enough feels, here's a picture of her (there will be better ones...):

retrofit

Rebuilt my ’80 Gios Super Record.

I originally built it up with Campy Record/Chorus 10-speed 6 years ago. About a year and a half ago I transferred the Record/Chorus group to my wife’s Serotta and hung the Gios on a hook until I scored a vintage Campy SR group. Well, that never happened.

I got tired of seeing the frame on the hook, so I built it up with a 9-speed Chorus group and Campy Scirocco wheelset.

Rides as smooth as she ever has. While I would still like to hang a vintage SR group on her, at least she’s back on the road.

gomango

Looks fantastic.

Nice work, for sure.

retrofit

Thanks!

Ed.

LOL, probably not!


Tucker's a pretty good dog - a rescue. Totally crazy when we got him - we (he and I) did a lot of work together. He's been a therapy dog for, I think, three years. Once in a while he gets the crazies, but he's pretty nearly reliable.


Got one head off today - quite the workout for my 4-months-old clavicle repair, LOL.





Looks pretty good for having been sitting for over 30 years.

Bikedued

Man, mine has not been that color for years now. If I can ever bring myself to blast the gorgeous orange pearl powder off, I may try to go stock again. I have the needed 600 group back on it now, though not the anodized chainrings, and I'd only need decals, and some white Benotto wrap to make it complete.,,,,BD

LoriRose

I've finally dismantled my first used bike, an old rocky mountain, to give it a full cleaning, new bearings, etc., thinking it will be a breeze because it was in the best shape out of my 3 used bikes when I picked it up, and the damned bottom bracket cup on the drive side won't budge. Everyday I give it a good dose of WD40 from the left side (where the cup came out easily) and then give a few good whacks to the wrench. I think I might need a longer cheater bar. I wonder how many days this will take...

I'm slowly working on my LOOK mi70 to turn it into a touring bike. Nothing major so far but I've been peeling off the decals. Sorry of that upsets anyone. I succeeded in scrubbing off all the black paint from the seat post so it's now got a brushed aluminum finish Is that a thing?? Added some nice shiny pedals and a Brooks saddle. It desperately needs new gear cables, a new BB and maybe a new chain too. No stubborn parts on this one though, so far.

My beater, workhorse and winter bike, a Bianchi Grizzly, will need to be prepped again for the winter soon. She's such a tank. I lover her. Even when her brakes rub.

Bikedued

I swear they need to make an impact socket for those things. No chamfers, so it stays on. Same thing for a Suntour freewheel tool. If all else fails, they can be split with a hacksaw. Good blades though. I think I went through 4 cheap blades before it was cut in three sections. Those cups are as hard as steel I tell you!,,,,BD

RiddleOfSteel

Orange pearl sounds awfully pretty. I'd keep it if you have it already decal'd up since you like it that much. The ivory pearl on mine is quite nice. Schwinn knew their paint--both color and durability in my experience with a handful. Oddly, I've had a hard time liking most vintage Trek road bike colors. There are a few, but when you're hunting in the 25.5" size, it's a bit limited. There's that size 1984 460 at a LBS for a great price...in that I'm-not-so-sure red-orange. That plus no room = no taste of the ultra tidy vintage Trek race geometry for me. Guess I'll just have to ride my dynamite SS...

FYI, the decals on my SS have suffered a bit in addition to the 32 years of paint chips. The Suntour stuff isn't perfect either--it just works really well. So it all matches. I have a Superbe Pro RD coming via mail soon. Broken anchor bolt/top sprung pivot piece, which I will replace. Done that on a few Campy RDs already so for the price of the SP, I thought, no problem.

Vintage Raleigh

Howdy, sorry to be a pain, I have to sand some road rash off a pair of black Cinelli bars, saw your post about lacquer and thought that might work for refinishing the bars. What did you use? Cheers!

Doohickie

I've got a couple projects in the queue.

I had my 1983 Raleigh Super Course running just the way I wanted.... and crashed it yesterday. I think the frame and wheels are okay, but the Cyclone II derailleur is toast. I think I have an aRX around somewhere that I'll use in its place. I also tore up the Brooks bar tape and the hood on the generic brake levers I had on there. So it looks like new tape and probably new levers (unless I have some laying around that will work).

I escaped almost unscathed. I went down pretty hard on my shoulder but managed to roll upon landing. I was seriously worried something broke when I landed, but after some self assessment I decided I was okay to try to ride home. The shoulder was very sore yesterday but I held off on going to the ER. It's much better today.

The other project is just putting a new crankset on my fixed gear. It's a 2009 Schwinn Cutter which came as a single speed. I built a wheel with a flip/flop hub and have ridden it fixed for probably about 5 years now. The original crankset has the chain ring swaged to the crank arm and after so many miles the swage is letting go and there's a lot of play. Should be an easy changeout to put a new crankset on.

Unfortunately, those are the two bikes I put the most miles on, so I better get crackin'.

SJX426 

After several months of the bike sitting, waiting to be ridden and new tires, I took it to work last Friday. First the tires were nearly as old as the bike. I trusted them to a certain level but they are heavy. When was the last time you saw Parelli bicycle tires? Replaced them with 27x 1 1/8 Pasellas.

I was impressed with the bike in general and specifically the tires. It is a great ride, but was flawed with oversights. The chain was clean but not lubed and squealed to the point where I could not hear if the RD was position correctly and barely was able to discern if the FD was rubbing. It was fast. Oiled the chain on Saturday for the oil to soak in.

Yesterday, with a quiet chain, I was able to hear all the other things that were going on. The bell did not ring, handlebars creaked, FD was not aligned correctly to minimize chain rub, and neither the FD or RD cables were correctly tight. Oh and the saddle clamp was too loose allowing the saddle to rotate up and down while riding.

OK the wrenching part. Bent the clapper bracket on the bell so it would ring as well as put a inner tube section under the clamp. Greased the stem to get rid of the creak. Rotated and moved the FD closer to the chain ring as well as taking the slack out of the cable. Took the slack out of the cable of the RD. Test drove and adjusted limit screws for both FD and RD.

Oh the bike:
[IMG]P1030662, on Flickr[/IMG]

OldsCOOL

My latest little repair. Neighbor's Walmart special. Obviously no adjusting of the limit screw, nor even a trial run through the gears or this may have been prevented.

[IMG][/IMG]

bwilli88 

An old Bridgestone step thru for one of the local guys, swapped out a pair of SS 635 ERTO rims for some 27"/630 ERTO alloy rims and fixed up the brakes.


and this unknown 26r for my wife

HamboneSlim

I have a gallon of Sherwin-Williams black solvent-based lacquer left over from before I switched everything over to water-based. The crank flutes were masked and sprayed, the shift levers were done by hand with a wee brush. The chainrings are anodized.
Been so long since I'd sprayed solvent-based, I had to go out and buy lacquer thinner for the clean-up.

noglider 

A friend came by to learn how to put a new chain on his bike. He asked me to look at the brakes, too, and they were binding. These were modern dual-pivot calipers, and they were not returning to resting position, so the brake pads were dragging on the rims. I oiled all the pivot points in the calipers, and it "sprang" back to life. I also trued his wheels a little.

Then we went for a ride up a big hill, for fun.

Vintage Raleigh

Interesting. I'll find some lacquer and give it a go, thanks!

Vintage Raleigh

Lovely bike

SJX426 

Thanks, it is a 1972 Bottecchia Giro D'Italia built like a Professional. Here is recent pic (yesterday) with the new tires.
[IMG]P1040289], on Flickr[/IMG]

top506

I'm kicking myself over all those Simplex bits I've given away over the years.....

Top

RiddleOfSteel

Today was a day to make a lot of progress in getting about four bikes built and or finally prepped to be sold. Two had to essentially have most of the parts exchanged between the two of them. Got one done and tuned it (so nice), with the other most of the way there. The third is all set, and the fourth one has almost the whole distance to go--starting as soon as I can get the stem un-stuck. I am always a little bummed when I sell bikes because they work so well (only way to do it, of course) and seem to silently tell me they are happy or content in their setup. Talking bikes...I know, but you understand.

I picked up a Falcon hyperglide-like 7-speed freewheel for my '84 SS because the essentially new Suntour AP freewheel looked great but shifted like absolute garbage thanks to its bolt upright, squared-off teeth and lack of ramps. The FW was $5, so we shall see how it goes. I suspect, at the very least, MUCH better.

The SS is very much a work in progress, much to my surprise! I sanded some build-up off the rims to try and cure my extreme braking vibration/resonance, and helped it only some, which although is progress, wasn't what I was hoping. Brake tracks are silky smooth though! Brake pads are new Shimano 105 units, toed in correctly. Brake calipers are Suntour Superbe Pro with the hidden spring. So incredibly lovely. No looseness in the caliper arms, so, apart from sanding/filing the pads just to see if that helps, I am at a loss. Also, the weld seam on the front rim produces a very discernable "blimp" feeling (read that on a different thread) when passed through the shoes-something I somehow didn't feel before. Dang it. Off to see how big a bump it is.

I think I have finally, also, gotten the SP DT shifters to stay put while under load without being hard to modulate. And I am switching the anodized 53/39 ring combo for a polished (must match!) 53/42 because I travel through the rear gears swiftly enough (hills and stop/start) often enough that I am tired of trimming the FD all the time. With that rub, I can't tell if I'm aligned in the back. You see this compounding predicament.

The bike is worth it, though. The serial number and the headbadge date bookend my birth month, and the bike is my age--it's about as close as I can get to being made when I was born as I can get. Frame geometry is dynamite, the feel is fantastic, the cockpit setup keeps the weight balanced--just gotta put all those smaller fires out!

bwilli88 

Started with this and fixed it up for my Sweety

here it is done

Just before I ran the cables

capnjonny 

A week ago Saturday I was at the bike Exchange hosting our
"work on your own bike" day. I didn't know it but a work party had been organized to clean up our huge pile of donated bikes and cull out the unsalvageable ones for recycling.

When I was getting ready to leave low and behold there were 2 bikes leaning against my truck, a very ratty UO 8 and a specialized Rock Hopper.

Back at my shop the Peugeot proved beyond hope. The cotter on the left side of the crank was welded into the crank arm and the frame was cracked at the steer tube. It had a very nice Schwinn comfort seat and 2 aluminum wheels that were o/k so they came off . the rest went into the scrap pile.

The Specialized was actually in nice shape. It had Kenda Flame tires that look new and a dark blue frame with good paint.

In checking it out, the bottom bracket, wheel bearings and steer tube bearings all looked good and were adjusted correctly.

The next day my wife's niece came to visit and she mentioned that she was looking for a mountain bike to ride around South Lake Tahoe where she just moved to. So now I am building it up for her.

She said she doesn't like shifting much so I deleted the front derailleur and twist grip shifters and put a Shimano 7 speed index thumb shifter on. For my money that is just about the easiest thing there is to shift and it is pretty foolproof.

I left the large chain ring on and will give her the front Der if she later decides she needs more gears . I put the cushy Schwinn comfort seat on which she saw and lusted after . I couldn't ride with it but she likes it at least for now. Completing the build I swapped the straight bars for ones with a 4 inch rise so she can sit upright. Lastly I put on some old Huffy grips I had laying around in the shop.

It should work out well . It is a nice frame and the original components were good quality. The changes I made should make it a comfortable cruiser for the paved and improved trails in and around South Lake Tahoe.

noglider 

My work-in-progress 1974 Raleigh International has proven to be a comfortable all-purpose rider. I recently replaced the pedals with some nice Shimano pedals, not pictured here. I've been commuting on the bike and hauling stuff with it. The handlebars were creaking recently, so last night, I regreased the stem copiously. There is another tick or creak I haven't tracked down.

Now that I know I like the bike, I'll invest in a different drivetrain and maybe build a new rear wheel for it. I want a wide range of gears and brifters. Right now, it has a 2x6 friction drivetrain with stem shifters. The low gear is a 42x26, which works out to a 43" gear, which doesn't make climbing steep hills easy.

I also plan to install fenders on it and then figure out how to mount the dynamo-powered tail light.

RiddleOfSteel

1) After trying out the Dia Compe 287 brake lever hoods and determining that although they are really pretty and comfy, they do not fit the Superbe Pro levers well.

Try #2 was Shimano SLR hoods and, well, see for yourselves how well they fit! Not perfect, sure, but very close. I put a piece of black electrical tape above the front of the lever to blend in more with the hoods as the hoods didn't cover everything in front. This is a very cost-effective solution if you are looking for hoods for these later '80s levers.

In the continuing shift saga, I am pretty much tired of worn out shift lever bushings not holding position under load, in spite of how pretty they are. And wanting to keep the same color scheme, and also naturally running combos in my head, my Dura Ace 10-speed DT shift group will be migrating to this bike, leaving my lovely Ross to be without her Shimano jewelry. It is sad, but she will be adorned with Campy yet again, this time with Chorus/Record 10-speed and silver fenders--promoted to rain/"winter" duty. Thus she will be my crummy weather flagship--light, fast, a companion during those darker months.

The SS will be a "greatest hits" bike--great frame geometry, great feeling brakes, cool old school drop bar look, best and most capable DT shifters, all tied together with a consistent color theme.

2) Helped find a friend a winter training bike with this nice frame for a pittance from the local non-profit. SWEET. I was at the place, shot him some pics, explained and measured, and picked it up for him. He'll pay me for that, plus a full (used) 6400 groupset as well so he can shred for miles in the cold and rain, for not much money. The brake levers and DT shifters are the prettiest of all the pieces, but they will be used which is what they are for--and he takes care of his bikes--all in good hands.

3) Not pictured but I put most of an '89 C'dale SR700 with full Suntour GPX together. Really lovely white with dark blue components (a la 6400 Shimano). GPX DT shifters are 7-speed with....7 clicks? I am rigging up a 5.0mm-spaced 8-speed cassette to test out what seems obvious to me. X speeds = X-1 indexed "clicks". It is already confirmed that each click is the result of movement in the RD. Good news for Campagnolo people????