Originally Posted by mycoatl
Thanks tacomee, but it's not too heavy for me so I'll be keeping it.
It's funny you mention the Randonee--I was seriously contemplating buying one with my dividend and 20% off coupon, but right after I decided it wasn't feasible this year (I'm a law student, so $ is tight), I saw this beast on CL and made the call.
I've been cleaning the bike and really dig it. The only items that shows any wear are the middle chainring and the brake pads. I'm just going to get it all tuned up and clean, true the wheels and throw new rubber on, replace the stem to lower and extend the bars a little, new bar tape, and new brake pads. Probably another hundred or so into the bike for all that and it'll be ready to tour.
One question, though. I'm trying to decide between replacing the quill stem with another quill stem or a threaded to threadless adapter. Any thoughts?
There's no point in going to threadless. Threadless was invented to make things more convenient for manufacturers. It just so happens to be marginally lighter and stiffer as well. On the other hand, unless you've got a lot of uncut steerer, threadless gives you a lot less height adjustment. On the gripping hand, you only need an allen wrench to adjust the bearing preload.
All in all, it's a bunch of minor differences that usually don't justify the expense to "upgrade" in either direction.
In fact, most of the differences that get hotly debated here are trivial and most of the "facts" used in the arguments are suspect at best.