jamesdak 

I resisted for days, I really, really did. Reading the review of these posted here is what did me in. Well...that and a really low price. Clearly a hodgepodge of parts but it was really cheap. While getting with the seller about a meet it turned out he knew about me and the bikes. Had seen some of the ones I donated to the collective and one I guess a friend got from me. Anyway, he offered it up for $40 less than the even low price. He had grabbed it for the Brooks saddle it originally had any. I don't know what the plans are for this yet other than to ride it and see how I like it. Some initial concerns over the replaced fork and mismatched wheels but no signs of any damage. Also had to make sure this wasn't one of the recalled Kinesis forks because they can sure ruin the day. Frame measures 54.5 cm square CTC. 22 lbs 6 ozs as in the pics. He had a nice Arione saddle on hand that he said he didn't need so we swapped that onto the bike. Supposed to be a major storm arriving soon and lasting through tomorrow. So, I'll just tear this down a bit, clean it up , etc. The hodgepodge of parts do all seem setup fine and it seems well serviced. The seller had just bought it himself for the saddle.


Nice 10 footer!

Hopefully that is broken spoke emergency tape and not a surprise.

600 Tricolor, wonder if I have enough tricolor parts in my stash to complete this.

Newer brakes

A lever decision will come as I decide what to do with this one.

Mismatched, gotta fix that for sure!

That top tube damage is about the worse of the paint imperfections. Most of the other marks look like they'll wash or polish off.

To bad the original fork isn't there.

Wildwood 

What to do?
I want to ride them all!

edit: Still running the 19mph test? Possible sleeper with lightweight wheelset? Looks comfy as is with raised bars that have a (seemingly) deep drop for a sweet aero spot.

jamesdak 

Wildwood Yep, planning to attack the 19mph stuff again this year. The second TKA is just not cooperating yet but hopefully it will finally loosed up soon so I can get back up to speed.

Went fully over the bike and found no surprises. Most of the mess on the top tube is just the deteriorated decals, adhesive, and dirt. I'm planning on just removing them and getting all the adhesive off. Took off the pedals and man did they weigh a lot. I'll save 1/2 lb there easily. Had some Velomax wheels on hand and the rear 130mm hub slipped in plenty easily. Was able to use a spacer on the freehub and then put on a used 12-25 7 speed cassette. Indexing just fine without any tweaks, good sign.

Degreased everything including the frame. Then I hit it with some paint polish and kicked up the overall shine a couple of notches. Still a lot of do on this. For one thing those inline brake levers on the top of the handlebars are not my style and just added weight. I want to ride it a bit though before I figure out how to rebuild it. The dry conditions I had when I came home with it are over for now though. It dumped like 3 inches of snow in less than an hour and then light snow since. Supposed to go through tomorrow. So maybe this will see the road next weekend for a test. With the wheel and tire swap and pulling off the old pedals the bike is down to 20 lbs 6 ozs. My usual Keo pedals will add back on about 8 ozs so this will still be pretty light for how it's setup. Guess I can measure for my fit and see if I need to swap out the seatpost and stem.

How it's looking now.


If I wind up sticking with these wheels I'll remove the decals. The rear rim is a replacement so right now they don't match.

mechanicmatt

The bike shop I worked in actually sold quite a few miele's. Most had just a chrome fork that was miele branded. So if you ever find a miele chrome fork, your basically there on matching original spec.

Also there spec on parts was often no spec. Just a hodgepodge of parts. Tri color is the right time frame for original stuff.

jamesdak 

Still "snowed in" so still messing with this. Swapped in a Thomson Seatpost and preferred Fizik Kurve saddle and set height for my needs. Setback is about 1/2" short of what I've been riding for years. But it way not matter much now with the new knees. They were the reason I had to keep the saddle position so precise in the past, deviation caused front knee pains. Remembered I had some Mavic Classic Pro's tubular wheels in the basement with Challenger Paris Roubaix 700 x 27 tubulars. They seem to clear even the fork surprisingly. Just a little tight on the sides but clears easily on top. The rear has plenty all the way around. 20 lbs 3 ozs without pedals and cages. This will easily be under 21 pounds when done.



Been thinking about the final build on this and am conflicted. With the black fork, black cockpit, and black brakes it seems almost like a black groupset and wheels would be a nice contrast to the orange. But I really wasn't planning on going modern on this. Especially if it winds up not finding a permanent home in the stable. That's a lot of money lost in today's market if passed on after enjoying for awhile.

Guess I'll go snowblow and then dig into the parts stash to see what is there. Bars need dropping a bit and the reach extended a tad. I've also got to see what's under that bar tape, something sticky is oozing at spots and I wonder it there's gel pads under there.

The seaatpost it came with is at least 18" long, crazy. Should have taken the ZIpp one he offered. Just felt like it was too much to take the seatpost also with how little the seller was asking.

jamesdak 

Back messing with this a bit this morning. I got new bearings in the front of the Velomax wheels so I could use them on this. The rear has had the rim replaced with a Velocity rim so I need to desticker them to make things match better. Mounted on some brand new Veloflex Corsa 700 x 25 tires on the rims. They mounted quite easily on both rims which was a pleasant surprise. I've got a used 600 Tricolor groupset coming in the mail today that has ST-7400 STI shifter with it also. If the shifters, calipers, and FD are in good shape that may be were I take this one. I am sorely tempted though to get a new R7000 groupset and mount that. The more I look at this the more I dig the idea of black parts against the bright orange frame.

The new wheel setup dropped a couple of ozs off this one. I took the bike out as it was last Sunday and liked the ride. That brown leather looking bar tape was super slick under my gloves though and I wound up going gloveless so I could keep my grip. I have sourced new grommets for where the rear brake housing goes into the top tube. The grommet on top is torn.

jamesdak 

This morning I went a head and swapped the Claris FD for the Tricolor one. I also swapped out the 105 brakes for the Tricolor ones also. Then the Thomson black seatpost was swapped for a silver one and the Giant stem swapped for a Thomson one I had in my stash. If I go this route I still need silver spacers for the steerer. Orange cable housing all around too.

Now to decide on if I'm sticking with DT shifters or using STI. Then I can get that slick bar tape and those funky auxiliary brake levers off.

Current setup with the black rims:



And I threw on some heavy RX series Silver wheels to compare. These just added almost a full pound of weight to the bike.


I do happen to have really nice Tricolor hubs around too. I could have some sweet silver polished velocity rims laced to them to really dress this up.

jamesdak 

Dang...the wrap on those bars were the messiest I've ever seen. Under that heavy fake leather foam tape was a mass of gel goo and some of those old Specialized BG bar shapers. Seemed like a lot of heavy crap so I got curious. All the stuff I removed weighed 6 ozs more than the still boxed set of cork bar tape I'm going to put back on the bike. Crazy!

jamesdak 

Well, because of this...



...I'm back inside working on bike stuff. This morning I attacked the gooey residue on the handlebars and have those as good as new, almost.

Then I destickered those Velomax wheels so they match better and put on the new SRAM 12-26T 9 speed cassette.



Next up came removing those tore up decals on the top tube. A little Acetone took off the color after heat didn't really do anything. Then a lot of time spent trying to get the glue residue off. That stuff is tough and I've still got more to tackle there. One thing I can say is Goo Gone was reliable as always. Reliable in terms of it does absolutely nothing. I've yet to find an application where Goo Gone actual works.

It does look so much better with the top tube cleaned up. Next I've got to see it the orange paint I have is a close match or can be mixed with other colors to match. I was going to build this one today but realized I had 4 cups of coffee this morning. I need to build when not hopped up on caffeine in case I run into troubles, LOL!

zandoval 

Yep...

Also note this color looks very much like Rustolium Kubota Orange...

georges1

Looks promising

jamesdak 

I just tried Testor Orange last night and at first blush it seems spot on. If the match holds up in sunlight I'll get busy touching this one up before finishing the build.

Smokinapankake

If you need a set of 6400 gear levers I have some, along with a matching pair of 6400 brake levers in pretty good nick.... And you're pretty close to me so....

jamesdak 

The Testor orange is a good match so I've been doing more touch up on this. I also took a hair dryer and plastic scrapper to it last night and go most of the old decal residue off the top tube. Once all the orange touch up looks good. I'll lightly wet sand thouse area down, put on some red paint spatter dots to match, and some clear cut, polish, wax, and then finish the build.

jamesdak 

Still playing around with this one as time allows. Probably the final coat of touch up orange on a few spots before I blend in the repairs by wet sanding. Earlier this week I bought a set of the Ritchey Zeta Classic wheels in Silver to try on this. I've always wanted to try those and I got them from overseas for about the same price it would have cost me to have some rims laced to my existing Shimano hubs. I took the Velomax wheels off this and put those on the Trek 5200 I've listed for local sale. For now this has the Zonda wheels that came off the Trek.

The whole black fork thing is still bugging me on this bike. I'm thinking about trying to mask off and paint a couple of matching orange stripes on it just the bring it and the frame into better "harmony" Something along the lines like this below, just done with orange tape.


I've got to admit, the paint touchup is looking pretty good. There was quite a bit of paint missing on the top tube. Hard to spot the repairs even close up.

So I'm thinking a band around the bottom and then an angled stripe pretty much the width and angle of the brake track. If I can pull that off.

Oh and the plastic grommets I got for the holes in the top tube were made for longer holes. I think I can trim to make them work but I'd love to find some properly fitting rubber ones like it had. Just can't find them goggling so far.

unworthy1

IF you decide to ditch the black CF fork, AND you want to also ditch the threadless HS and stem: LMK what length steerer the frame takes. I have a couple economical fork prospects I think might work, but you'd be gaining some weight if so.

Lamont Cobb

I don't know anything about this Miele brand (I heard they make great vacuum cleaners though) but judging by the other bikes in OP's collection, it must be a pretty good bike.

unworthy1

There's this excellent synopsis from Bruce Geott's website all about Canadian builders, here's a link, scroll down to "Miele" and no, there's no connection to the German appliance brand
https://medium.com/@labicycletta/map...s-df97dd17d524

jamesdak 

Today's attempt to tie the fork into the bike, yay or nay?

zookster 

Looks better than the previous angled stripe IMHO.

unworthy1

have you thought of duplicating the "M" from the Milele logo, maybe either red or white, could also try different placements on the crown or blades
EDIT: and the letterform should be easy for a sign company with plotter cutter to cut in vinyl film, a good one can "book" colors to make an outline or drop-shadow, also could incorporate the "line" that runs thru the letters if you wanted that. Cheaper than decals I'd bet.

jamesdak 

Sort of, I've got a few diffferent sets of Miele decals I'm watching. Thinking about using parts from them to match things up also. Not sure why this fork is bugging me so much on this one.