Originally Posted by
Danhedonia
Consensus seems to be that touch up is vastly preferable to repainting. And my Dad agreed. "I loved that blue." I HATE the reflective tape, the rust worries me, and my sentiment is all about where the frame went and with whom. Would it still be sacriligeous to have the paint matched and - shall we say - restored?
I guess step 1 is the tear down and touch up of the frame?
I'll add my voice to the choir of not repainting. To get the reflective tape off, just carefully work at it with fingernails, a plastic scraper, and applying "Goo Gone" from the hardware store to remove the glue holding it on. After you're done, wash it and get yourself some Meguiars Ultimate Polish and Meguiars Ultimate Wax from the auto parts store. Polish the paint (being careful not to destroy the original decals), then do any touch up you want to do and finish it off with wax. I'm sure it'll sparkle when you're done. Also get some simichrome polish for the aluminum parts. If there's any deep rust that the polish or simichrome doesn't take care of then go back to the hardware store and get yourself some Evaporust.
Since you have a cartridge BB, probably the only maintenance needed is regreasing and adjusting the hubs and headset, lubing the chain and freewheel, checking the amount of friction in the brake cables, and replacing the brake pads. Most "real" bike shops can probably do that. Find an old messy bike shop to do it if you're not going to do it yourself...you probably won't get knowledgable mechanics for this work in a Trek or Specialized chain store. The tires look pretty good, though being 14 years old they may be dry-rotted and unsafe. If you're planning any high speed descents I'd definitely replace them no matter how good they look on the outside.
The handlebar-end shifters on the bike were a quite popular upgrade to downtube shifters. I'd keep them if I were you. The brake-lever-integrated shifters you referred to (we call them "brifters" here) are convenient, if delicate, but may not work with your non-indexed drivetrain. They are generally expensive, will definitely be fussier to get working properly and will require regular "tuneups". Perhaps something to think about down the road if you really want them but most folks here are perfectly happy without them.
Edit: Oops, I posted this at the end of page 1, didn't notice there were two more pages of posts. I've mostly repeated things people have already said. Oh well.