Pogue - ditto on the return. Next thing I know you'll be drawing so much you won't be riding. Ashland coffee this Sunday?
As to modifying bikes: My personal taste is to either do the bike as per the dealer's showroom floor, or, advance about three or four years of ownership and do what would be 'usual' upgrades over multi year ownership. My Magneet is probably a prime example of how I like them done: Stock frame, crank, seatpost and stem, changed the (missing when I got it) Campy Valentinos to SunTour Compe-V/V-GT, upgraded the brakes to Weinmann centerpulls/sidepull (rear), changed the steel wheels to 27" alloys with quick releases, added mudguards and front and rear carriers, bags.
About what I'd have done had I bought the bike new in 1969, liked it as much then as I do now, and slowly let my love of long haul touring evolve.
Modifications are to each one's own taste. However the safest idea is to always stay period correct and keep the original parts.
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Syke
“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
H.L. Mencken, (1926)