Saturday luck:
Took wife to catch Jeff Golub play blues and jazz in the East Valley. We each won 2 free tickets to a concert next month! Yay!
It was late afternoon and Mrs. WNG wanted to check out Goodwill because it's 50% off Saturday. Place look picked clean. I walk over to the bike section for fun. There is NEVER anything worthwhile. I see a road bike, dirty as heck. But see a familiar decal thanks to the posts on C&V. I made a bee line to the bike! It turns out to be a Specialized Expedition.
Looked complete and covered by a ton of dirt, with some scratches and chips. No dents though, and tubes are straight. Rims are 700C Super Champions (like jamesj's) and the wheels spun well and true. It has a dried out Brooks Professional, a Cateye Solar computer w/cadence, Mathauser brake pads, Superbe levers, 1/2 step geared Sugino AT crank, and Specialized hubs. Even a rack and a few spare spokes taped to it! Woohoo! With the 50% off, it came to $40 no tax. I wheeled it over to Mrs. WNG with a big stupid grin. She laughed. (and subsequently filled her shopping cart with her stuff!)
I'll need to hit up the Collective for advice on this one.
Advice from the Collective? I'm not sure I like the idea of being in a 'collective'; but, as an individual I'll give my impression. For $40 you've found one of the top 3 vintage holy grail touring bikes. The touring bike trinity, as laid out by Sheldon and others as the best 80's production touring bikes are in my order: Miyata 1000, Specialized Expedition, Trek 520. I think the Expedition is the rarest of these, which ups its value. Yours is an 83-84 IMO, with its clamp-on shifters; mine was an 85 that I sold about 6 months ago for 700. They are very desirable! Yours appears to be in exceptional shape. It appears to still have its Mountech RD which is rare for a reason. You can go one of two ways with it; make it your-own and ride it knowing you are riding what is one of the most sought after vintage touring bikes that is only going to increase in value, or clean it the best you can and sell it.