As I've been posting in another thread, I'm whittling away my excess fat, blowing past the need for a specialty bike, and find myself within the 'factory' weight limit for a couple of my bikes.
One is my Surly LHT, which has a set of upgraded wheels (Velocity Clyde build), and will serve for loaded touring, and probably for a bit while I work on My Bike.
Some of us get attached to our hardware, from my old beat up pickup truck, to my 2000 Kona Jake-the-Snake.
I slid out on some gravel on my first ride... a test ride... and crashed.
The guys at Chainwheel (Little Rock, AR) told me not to worry about it, but I went ahead and bought the bike anyway.
Over the next few years, a few centuries, more club rides than I could count (Hi, ABC!), and close to 40,000 miles (people on the river trail just called me Jake), I got married, had a kid, moved a couple times, and generally drifted away from cycling.
I got fat, too... but that's the other thread.
Now, years later, Jake is sitting here in my office, after over a decade cooling his heels in a garage, then a basement.
The Shimano 105 brifters are gunked up, as they do when left sitting for years. For the moment, I think I'll remove them and do a flush/lube on these and see if that gets them working again.
The nameplates have a little...character, but only paint damage. I'll either get some silver touchup paint, or just leave 'em. The black and white patterned bar tape has never pleased me, so when I do this, I'll switch back over to black.
The XT rear mech (swapped it after my first tour on the stock cogset, along with a wider ranged cob) seems fine, as does the front mech. No surprise there. I'll just clean and lube these, and make sure they're nicely adjusted. The cogs/rings/chain are in really good shape, so a clean and re-lube for those, too.
The drivetrain has enjoyed a relatively easy life, as I like to do things smoothly, but I'm a clyde even at my leanest, so the front rim has lost its wear groove. The rear rim is fine. I do have a spare cxp23 rim around, so I may go ahead and try my hand at wheelbuilding by swapping that in. However, in the meantime, the stock wheelset from my LHT (turns out it's probably stouter than I'd feared when I bought the clyde set) will serve nicely for a while, if I just decide to do that. Eventually, if I decide I've "earned" it, I'll splurge on a better wheelset.
Otherwise... it's a bike. Not much else to worry about.
The frame still looks good, but I've used it as a road bike, and I'm pretty sure it was way overbuilt for that (CX bike). Though ridden in all weather, I've always kept it indoors and cleaned it ASAP when needed. Still looks new. If I go the extreme route later, I'll get it professionally checked before doing anything expensive. The above is just an inexpensive path to getting Jake roadworthy again, possibly for a season or so. As my abilities re-improve to anything close to how I used to be able to ride, I can start looking at upgrades... new drivetrain, fork, wheels, etc.
Yeah, I could get a better bike, and have found the n+1 equation to be quite valid... but now I have to deal with s-1 too.
Jake is going nowhere. If/when retired, due to mechanical or other issues, that bike will go up on the wall, if only the frame. It's the one thing I've owned in my life that I wouldn't sell or otherwise get rid of, though I know most cyclists these days consider a bike to be an almost disposable collection of parts.
The above is what I plan. If anyone has constructive advice in that vein, shoot. If "Get a new bike" is the advice... sorry, that's off-topic for this thread. I'd rather hear from folks like me, who get attached to meaningful stuff (and most stuff isn't), and have felt the desire to do what it takes to keep a good mount rollin'.
Besides, it was kinda fun to break a few rules and ride fast with a bunch of roadies, on my funky Kona, cargo shorts over my spandex, and keep up just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Jake, pre-refresh.