seypat

I'm guessing this bike is going to ride very similar to a ...............................Confente. No worse, anyway.

SJX426 

@AdventureManCP - The cyclical noise is likely a spot that has lost its adhesion
The bike typically taken out for my rides (Pinarello Montello) has a spot that has only one layer of glue on the tire side. I leave a space opposite the valve stem without glue on the rim to facilitate removal. Did that a couple of weeks ago and it worked out great. When I start a ride, it is there but by mile 10 it is gone.
Rolling a tire is the least of my concerns, flat dominate! If the tread is checked on the tubulars, I would not ride them. they will fall apart soon enough.
Currently I am running Compass Elite on that bike. The De Rosa has Vittoria Corsa G+. The Corsa G+ is a superior tire of the two. I ran a clincher set before converting back to sewups on the Pin. The Colnago has the Yellow Jersey 3/$50, now 3/$60 tires. They are the budget tire set and the performance bears that out.
The key spec I look for is thread count, then "rubber" composition/tire construction. I don't think tread really makes any difference on narrower tires. The contact patch is too small.

Road Fan

The seatpost grooves going into the frame is a bad thing, in terms of water ingress. Vintage classiness is secondary to preserving the frame integrity, and to stressing your knees or perineal region. One of the baselines for saddle height is to put your heels on the pedals (without toeclips, use some spare MKS's) and pedal backwards. Your knee should straighten at bottom on each side with no knee locking, excess pressure on the pedal, hip rocking, or a feeling of reaching for the pedal. Knee locking and pedal pressure are signs of saddle too low maybe a few millimeters, and the other issues are signs of saddle too high.

Get that adjusted like this and see where your grooves are. They should not be in the seat lug. Remedies include a smaller frame (noooo!), a different 2 bolt seatpost with no grooves like a Campy Record nearly identical to your Super Record (yes but $$), or a different saddle which does not ride so raf above the saddle rails. Examples of such saddles include Selle AnAtomica (one of my faves), Brooks Swallow (expensive and hard, but great once it fits), or some of the Specialized racing saddles used, like the Toupe series, the Avatar, and the Alias. Take your saddle to the bike shop and see what they have (new or in the take-off box) which is lower. Another consideration is shoe/cleat height. The heel method is mainly correct for riders in conventional road shoes with hard cleats. Many more modern shoes are walkable, which might have a bigger sole build up. This is an excuse to raise your saddle above the one that works here, by the difference between the shoes. LBS might be able to advise, but most likely say "we would need to do a fitting." If you just added 5 mm to allow for walkable shoes, that might be the right amount.

After you get a baseline fit this way you can go to a real fitter and get "optimized," if you're into that, but I'v always reverted back to the classic heel on pedal settings, adjusted for actual saddle and for my setback preferences.

Road Fan

The cyclical noise could be from the tires, or it could be the spoke to rim interface, a few spokes not up to tension or just plain loose. I'd suggest squeezing all your front spokes and tapping them with a tool, searching for loose ones. Gently tighten any loose ones until any dead-sounding ones start to ring when you tap them with a small screwdriver. If you tighten them too much that could cause the wheel to not run true. If you are good at truing wheels, no problem.

smd4

I’d say the frame is still too big, but if you like it, definitely get another seat post without the grooves.

Miele Man

One way I've loosened a stuck seatpost was to grease the part that was above the seat cluster and then loosen the seat binder bolt and then ride the bike around the block. After a few road bumps I could feel the seatpost move.

Cheers

AdventureManCO 

Thanks for your detailed thoughts, this is excellent.

No way I'm going with a smaller frame! I actually thought that a 54 might have been a bit too small for me, but I'm really digging the ideal standover height. Compared to a 56, I like the standover better, but the stem rise is a little worse. I can compensate for the stem (although you lose that racy look a bit), but it is hard to get 'more' standover room, so I'm liking the 54cm.

I totally get the issue with the grooves going down past the seattube as a rain collector. My hope is that this bike wasn't ridding much in the rain, or that the grooves don't go down too far (haven't tested to check). When I pulled the stem to raise it just a bit, it had grease and moved easily, so that gives me hope that the seatpost is similar. I am going to spray some nutcracker or other loosening spray down into those grooves and let it soak for a long time.

Right now I'm doing a lot of tubular research to see what might work well for replacements. I'm open to suggestions. While I am in goathead territory, I'm up for recommendations that make no sense. I've got bikes to be used for everyday riding, commuting, etc. It's fun to have a old school race bike! Any 200g race tubulars around?


The saddle on this bike seems to have a lot of stack height, so I also like the suggestion of finding a more flat saddle

AdventureManCO 

Oh, this is a great suggestion! I prefer the natural way, versus applying exaggerated force. I have a sneaky suspicion that my lack of thoroughness might also be a culprit here. I loosened the nut on one side, but didn't touch the actual binder bolt. Maybe it is actually not stuck at all. I'll be very happy if my lazy attempt at a half-baked seat adjustment didn't actually loosen the post.

AdventureManCO 

All my other bikes are bigger, so I hope this one is not too big

I've seen grooves on seatposts go down the tube pretty far. If need be, I'll replace the post (but keeping it). I'm not throwing anything on the bike away or selling, so if anything changes, it will be reversible and kept. Seat might be one of the first things to go.

The Golden Boy 

The "Secret Sauce" I've always read of- 1:1 of ATF and Acetone. Google it- it's supposed to get better results than PB Blaste, Kroil or other commercial solutions.

SurferRosa

Wo. When I spend two hours on one, I think that's a lot of time.

himespau 

That (plus heat plus massive amounts of leverage) worked for me to get out a BB that had fused to a Ti BB shell. Now I've got half a mason jar of the stuff I'm not sure what do do with I suppose it'll come in handy the next time I have a similar issue.

The Golden Boy 

Go big- Red Bullseyes.


(I just think the Bullseyes look cool- several years ago, someone was selling NOS Bullseyes for $33. I thought I'm not paying that for frickin' pulleys... then I realized it was for less than the inflationary rise... so I picked up a few sets. I don't really think they make much of any performance difference- I just think they look cool- they're a little more clack-y, and work great on friction and Accushift- I've heard they may not be the best for SIS shifting- and I've got a purple set on a 7 speed XTR system and it works super. But the reds are classic.)



1985 Trek 620 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

1990 Miyata 1000LT- Rear Derailleur by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

AdventureManCO 

Ha! Maybe if someone would lend me their Confente I could do a more scientific comparison for everyone's benefit!

AdventureManCO 

That is what I used to get the stuck stem out of my PX-10 - that was such a crazy experience I should have documented it. I had it inverted and was using a steel rod and pushed it down with a bearing puller. Weird, but it worked. Unfortunately some of this solution dribbled down the front of the headtube and grazed across the 'Peugeot' logo with the lion and instantly turned it to raw faceless aluminum. Whoops!

AdventureManCO 

To be fair, children. lol

AdventureManCO 

GREAT news! Seatpost came out, and rather easily actually.

So no, not 'stuck' like we think of stuck. The nut on the other side of the binder bolt does nearly nothing. The bolt really needs to be loosened for the seatpost to move (biggest DUH moment so far).

Good thing I'm in HVAC - we use mostly standard sizes, which is exactly what was called for. 3/16.




As you can see from the above picture, the grooves in the seatpost only went down past the seat tube about 1/4", which is awesome - it means that with a flatter saddle (the current old school one is TALL), I'll have to raise the post to compensate and it will bring the seatpost grooves above the tube top, and look better as well.




I tried really, really hard to keep my twisting action small so as to not create the telltale 'zigzag' in the post since I didn't know the condition of the seat tube rim, and I think it worked. There is some very small marking, but it will, as they say, 'buff out'





Most of the discoloration on the post was the grease. It is in good shape.





Inside the seat tube looks pretty good! If there is any rust, it is merely on the surface. Inside that little hole (to the toptube), I looked really carefully and saw some surface rust, so I might eventually get a little pipette and some evaporust and tackle those little areas.

AdventureManCO 

Just for fun, and for all my fellow weight-weirdos out there, I wanted to see what the post and the saddle weighed.

The post seems good. I think we'll be able to lighten up a bit in the saddle dept.

AdventureManCO 

I've never heard of these - were they popular or well known? I was surprised a bit at the heft of the originals, they feel like solid rubber.

madpogue 

Actually, the _standard_ for this would be M5. All the Treks of that era I've worked on have had an M5 binder bolt, threaded directly into the threads on the NDS ear, with no nut. And the bolt shouldn't be long enough to allow a nut to be threaded on the other end. Sounds like someone lost that original bolt, and substituted a 3/16 bolt and nut, since an SAE bolt would not have threaded into the threads of the NDS ear.

Rooney 

I have a 79/80 Trek 710 that takes a 3/16 SAE binder bolt, no nut necessary. Same with a similarly aged 613 frame I had too. Based on other threads I've read this seems to have been standard at the time.

jet sanchEz

What is ATF?

AdventureManCO 

Automatic Transmission Fluid

AdventureManCO 

I decided to pull the rear tubular off since it blew around the valve stem. And 'pull' off is relative...it practically just fell off haha. I'm actually surprised it didn't just roll off the rim at 5mph

I was reading up in the 'Totally Tubular' thread and remember reading something about how the valve stems can get damaged if the tires aren't glued properly because the tire can roll around on the rim and basically pinch the stem until it gets a leak. That is probably what happened. Because there was no glue.

Okay! So, let me know what you guys think about your favorite tubulars. I decided to weigh it and I think it was probably a pretty nice tire, so shame it died. It came in at 236g - anything similar offered today?

The Golden Boy 

Bullseye pulleys were among, if not THE first sealed bearing pulleys. They made some claim of saving an outrageous amount of energy... personally, I think they had a sugared up 4th grader give them those specs. But beyond any real world benefits (which I think there are some), if you had red anodized aluminum pulleys showing- it meant you forked out $16 for effing pulleys. And that means you're boss. And again- back then- $16 was like $50 now- so that's throwing down pretty large for status flex.

Do a google image search for "bullseye derailleur pulleys" and notice how many Campagnolo derailleurs you see.