As soon as I start selling off parts to make moving a bit easier down the road, I go and pick up another project.
This one was listed on the local CL. I could tell even from the poor pics that it was a good buy at $150 even as a single-speed conversion. I was surprised how nice the frame itself turned out to be and a little ashamed about the quality of some of the parts I ended up hanging off it. The TSX tubing was apparently the next step after SLX with rifling in the tubes for extra stiffness. The frame is fully chromed underneath the blue paint. There's a bunch of chips that show the chrome and primer and a few pinpoints of rust left over.
The only original part left is the Chorus headset. It came to me with the stem, bars, seatpost, and saddle that are still on there. This bike originally came with 8s Ergo's, but is now running 9s Shimano that I picked up for cheap or had sitting around. There was a Chorus crankset with a nearly used-up inner ring (thanks to the single-speeding), a wheelset with nearly used-up rims, and a Chorus cartridge bottom bracket that I proceeded to strip, and then drill out (a fun afternoon), before installing a new one. At least the threads are English!
One thing I really like is how easy it was to feed through the internal brake housing on the top tube and the RD cable on the DT. Either there's an internal set of guides or I just got really really lucky feeding things through. None of the usual fishing around with a bent spoke.
It's a real shame I have to move soon, too. If that fork wasn't unicrown this would be my new favorite. I am still tempted to move my 8s Campy off the Gios and keep this one instead.
Pics for those who like to leer/point out all the little things I missed
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