And, like 3-cup monte, I always seem to be losing.

Looks good in the still photo, I need to set aside time to watch the video.


Getting everything attached to the bike, and ready-to-ride, are two different things.


In particular, getting this bike to shift correctly has been challenging. It really was not happy changing between the gears, especially going lower (higher tooth count). Taking a cue from advice given on my other (Atala) project, thinking about closing the gap from the top of the derailleur cage to the bottom of the sprocket. I noticed that the ‘claw’ I am using, not from the replacement SunTour BL (which did not come with a claw) but was on the original RD, seemed rather long in the measurement between the axle and upper pivot bolt (C-to-C). So, I rummaged around in my boxes of parts and found a leftover Campagnolo (heresy!) claw which measured shorter. Bolted it up; it was shorter alright, but the tang for the RD stop was too short and the whole RD swung too far forward, where previously, it seemed too far back. But it shifted somewhat better, even if, swinging so far forward, the chain was a bit slack on small-small. Back to the drawing board… I dug up another claw, no name on it, also short in “drop” but with a longer tang. OK, that shifted better still. With the RD still pivoted too far back, I took it off again and ground the tang some, and now it’s much closer to having the parallelogram parallel to the chainstay. After that and checking with the hanger alignment tool (first, each time I changed claws, I had to do that again, and furthermore, these things seemed made of soft metal, bending rather easily), now it shifts pretty well.

Note that in the photo, there’s a dork disc. During the process, I was so unsure of the shifting, with <1/4 turn of the low gear screw between not wanting to go into first and going into the spokes, I broke out the dork disc and cleaned it up and installed it. Yuk! If during a shakedown ride or two, if the RD behaves, I might remove it although that’s about 0.73mm of thickness removed behind the freewheel, so that means adjusting the RD yet again. Oh, in another topic I was dealing with the rear axle’s spacing and I shifted things around for a 5mm spacer on the DS of the axle — too much, chain could fit between the 5th cog and the dropout. So, it came apart again and I swapped in a 3mm instead… much closer and the chainline looks to be in the close-to-ideal range.

BTW, the Suntour BL replacement turns out to have a wee bit of the parallelogram wobble that the V-Luxe did, although nowhere near as much. The good news is that, once the chain is in tension on the installed RD, it seems to stay in place and the cage remains vertical and it shifts fine. Hmmm, in the future, if sourcing a SunTour I might pursue NOS (eBay prices are wild!)? Then again, this might work out fine and I’ll wager other forum members have put a a million miles on theirs with no issues. On my other project bike, the Atlas, the Nuovo Record I stuck on there, “PAT 74” has no such issues after half a century (but no clue how many miles if any).

I’d like to think that going over the bike with every bolt checked for tightness, and I might venture out and see how it rides.

That zip-tie on the chainstay is an eyesore, the only solution might be to get a clamp-on stop like a Campagnolo that has a secondary loop to stabilize the housing.