romperrr 

Digging the rake on the fork, looks low-trail to me. Those wheels sound great, always loved Miche parts, and those drilled rings? very nice. Love the build overall. Here's to many, many happy miles

VintageSteelEU

Are these Dia Compe ratchet shifters? If yes, what's your opinion about them? I'm asking because I'm slowly completing parts for a build with late 70's ' early 80's Superbe derailleurs (and hubs, if I get lucky). There seems to be a model of Superbe ratcheting shifters from the early 80's which are not the usual Power Shifters (which I think can't be used on braze-on downtube shifter bosses), but these are not easy to come by. I understand Dia-Compe shifters are a copy of the Suntour shifters I'm looking for, so I thought I could just go for Dia Compe until that happy day when I come across the Superbe ones without having to sell a kidney.

Positron400

Yes, those are the Dia Compe ratchet shifters. I love them. The ratcheting mechanism is awesome and i much prefer them to the microshift w/o the ratcheting. I can wholeheartedly reccomend them. Unfortunately, i cannot comment on the suntour shifters as i have no experience with those. They were quite cheap, 60 - 70 € for the pair if memory serves. I had them in use for a year and like 8000 km. No issues so far.

SJX426 

Got a great deal on a Park ts-2 stand! Disassembled for thorough cleaning..

VintageSteelEU

I'm using Power Shifters on one bicycle. Considering the fact they are 40+ years old, they work quite well. The problem is that apparently they might not be entirely compatible with braze-on shifter boses (from what I've read, haven't tried that yet) and the frame I'm working on has braze-ons. And even if they fit, they are quite chunky and I'd like something more sleek.
From what I read the later ones (apparently part of Superbe gruppo) hed finer teeth on the ratchet. And it seems they were made in the early 80's, so that would fit the age of other components. They also look nicer (very similar to Dia-Compe ones, if not identical) than the Power Shifters. Thanks for letting me know DIa Compe ones work well for you

JacobLee 

I scored two bicycles this year with custom touring racks that were, thankfully, still attached! One, a Bruce Gordon Hikari came with the standard issue, blue BG racks, and the second, a tandem made by John Cutter in San Luis Obispo, came with even cooler bespoke racks. Both have fender eyelets on the rack that allow you to run shorter struts, and the Cutter racks even have threaded inserts for mounting through the fenders. Both bikes have been getting used in wet weather, so I finally scraped together some fender bits and every ounce of patience I had and got to mounting! I'm glad I didn't spend a bunch of money on the perfect fenders for these, because there were lessons learned, and these were perfect as rough drafts!

The BG got the chromoplastics that came with the bike. I quickly realized that the downside of this design is that the struts have to enter the brackets on the fender in a perpendicular fashion. I imagined myself executing perfect compound bends, but I ended up just grabbing and yanking until it looked decent. I'm no metal artist.









Meh. The Cutter was a second draft. I had some aluminum Planet Bikes that I had previously installed on a 700c cross bike. The mounts on these racks follow the radius of the tire really nicely, so I was able to make them hug the 26" wheels pretty nicely. I also had some short, individual struts which I learned from the BG were crucial.







If anybody has any advice for second drafts of these, I'm all ears!

SJX426 

The aforementioned TS-2 stand facilitated the next day's trueing of the Bianchi Wheels along with the gliuing of the rims. Tires were also glued.
Last step is to put another layer on the rims and then mount the tires, hopefully today.
Then it will be ready to ride for the first time.

I have Spin Doctor truing stand I have used for a couple of years, maybe 10. The TS-2 is a huge improvement due to its stability and overall design. With the SD, I always used the QR to ensure the hub stayed in place. The TS-2 Simply has V notches the axle slips into and then you clamp it with 1 knob. Much faster to check dish with a dishing tool. However, I found I did not need to as the stand is very well aligned. I don't know how the alignment happened with taking it apart but only fraction of an inch correction was needed of the collars on the tie rod.

Since this is an older version, all chrome, it has the calipers without the plastic covers. Upgrade calipers were ordered to get them. I did not find how to order just the covers.

Mr. 66

ascherer 

With the two builds I had on my plate mostly done I’m trying to catch up on various tweaks and general maintenance and cleaning on my fleet. I started with the Shogun, which got a 700c wheel set (VO rims and high-flange early Dura-Ace hubs) that had been on Mrs. ascherer’s Motobecane. I swapped in a longer axle and dished it to accommodate a 7-speed freewheel. After that the VGT Luxe that was on it didn’t want to clear the big cog so rather than fuss with it I put on a long cage Arabesque rear derailleur. I did a little bending on the front rack to clear the cantis better, and applied some fresh bar wrap.


I really should screw the adjuster down and re-tighten the cable.

Next up is the Falcon which gets a Record headset to replace the Shimano that’s on it - nice, but out of place - and a vintage coiled cable housing for the rear derailleur.

Positron400

That long Cage Arabesque is a beauty!

ascherer 

Even nicer when I get it in focus.

steine13

The Motobécane I bought a few weeks back came apart without violence. It appears all it needs is a good cleaning; the bearing surfaces look good.

As a bonus, the drive side BB threads were deep enough to "read" from the outside past the fixed cup, making it possible to determine it is a left handed thread. Came right out, too.

Now I have to figure out how to set it up... 27? 700?... I'm probably going to start as-was with 1 1/4 Paselas to get a feel for the bike, then decide. High of 17 F today. No real hurry...


​​​​​​​

VintageSteelEU

That's a very nice frame. Grand Jubilee? You basically have everything to build it up there, except the wheels. Congratulations on nothing being seized or corroded through

steine13

@VintageSteelEU
It's a 1981 Grand Touring. Sorry, I should have given a bit more information.

Temptation is everywhere, and this particular instance was on the Enabler™ thread; I posted my acquisition here: Show us bikes bought via the "eBay/Craigslist Finds" thread!

This is becoming like a part-time job; I need to harvest the serial numbers -- all twenty of them, this thing is full of stamped digits -- and post them on the appropriate thread, and I should also make a build thread for it, it's a nice example of a bygone aesthetic.

Not perfect, of course, the paint is scraped in places, and some genius put a kickstand on the chain stays.. for some reason, the tops are hardly affected but the bottom is somewhat flattened. The while thing begs to be turned into a 650b, and with the stays pre-dented, why not?

The size is 23" -- 58 cm and change center-to-top on the seat tube, and 57-58 cm top tube, I generally like more height, but that's as much length as I want to deal with. The frame with nothing but the headset cups and the dropout adjusters weighs 2370 g; the fork is 880 g, making the whole thing about 350 g heavier than the 1997 Cannondale R200 I moved on to make room. At that differential, I'll take the steel and hope for a lively ride. So far I've only done a ten-miler locally to check it out.

And the bike came with strong wheels; Normandy hubs and Weinmann concave rims that run pretty true.
Here, I'm not kidding about the serial numbers:


cheers -mathias

Straightblock

The older I get, the more I realize that I need to make adjustments if I want to keep riding racing bikes. After many years and several thousand miles with Cinelli 65 Criterium bars and a brief experiment with ergo bend bars, I installed Soma Hwy One bars, with Tektro RL340 levers replacing Shimano 600 EX non-aero levers. A 20 mile shakedown ride felt good on the hoods and in the drops, only needing a minor lever position adjustment before I do a final cable trim and bar wrap.

rccardr 

Nice.
Bet you have better braking power as well!

52telecaster

Those are excellent riding framesets. 888? At any rate 700cx35 should fit easy. Room for fenders as well on the one I had. Much easier than converting to 650b on that bike.

VintageSteelEU

Still have the big project going on. Not sure when I'm going to finish it, probably will take a few months before I start building it up. The frame is Motobecane C5 with Columbus SL tubing. Most likely from 1980. It needs repairs to the seat tube (which would require paint removal). It was also extremely rusty, so I decided to strip the paint anyway (nearly crying when doing that, because the few good remaining bits were beautiful Motobecane metallic / candy red) to see if restoring the frame is even viable. All the dark spots you see in the photos are essentially pitting from rust. I still have the difficult to get to bits to remove the paint from, but getting there.
I have a nearly full Ultegra 6400 group which I was planning to use on this frame (with Miche gunmetal grey seatpost to match other components, Cinelli 1A stem, Cinelli Campione Del Mondo handlebars and 600EX non-aero brake levers), but my plans have changed when I managed to get NOS Suntour Superbe RD (first version from the late 70's). It was going to become Motobecane C5 Superbe until I realised I can forget about getting the first version of Suntour Superbe crankset. They are simply too expensive and all I've seen are additionally pretty well used. Can't justify the price. There is also basically no chance of me finding Suntour Superbe stem (made by Kusuki) or seatpost. So, after long deliberations, it's going to become Motobecane C5 Superbe Royal. I've managed to get SR Royal RY5-ESL crankset and will be hunting for some other SR parts over the next few months. Just got Superbe FD in a very decent condition, so making some progress. Still will be getting Superbe 4700 brakes and levers and Superbe hubs. So it should build up as a fairly light and nice late 70's / early 80's bike. I might have to sell a kidney to get there though




And a small project today was the bad boy below. Suntour Vx-S, as far as I can say it was never used in its 44 years since leaving Maeda factory. Just cleaned it up and put some fresh oil in a few places. It's also a proof that I should consider some therapy to treat addicition. I have Vx-S on my Grand Sprint and after tuning up it works like a charm. It's also in a decent condition. No play anywhere, shifts well and it's nice and clean. No reason to replace it whatsoever. But when I saw another one, I decided I can't possibly let it go and justified the purchase by thinking I will replace the one on the GS. Then I thought some more (very bad habit, I'm afraid) and decided I don't need to fix something that's not broken. I just need another frame. And build it up as a bit less flashy, Suntour based 70's Randoneur bike. Not sure what for, because I have a Motobecane built up as 80's Randonneur with mostly 600EX SIS components. Rides great. But have to say that since I've put Suntour components on my Grand Sprint and got used to friction shifting again, I found riding it more and enjoying it more. This one will have to go in a few months, so I guess since I have quite a few parts for another build, I might as well. I should probably do a clearance sale of components to avoid more temptations in the future.

Positron400

Thanks, that made me chuckle - Very nice projects you have going on there

VintageSteelEU

Well, I'm at the stage when I'm going to need a catalogue of parts I have because I don't even remember what I have. And try to get rid of the ones I'm definitely not going to use and I bought just out of curiosity. Like Suntour New Skitter. Or Compe V. I feel like I'm becoming a hoarder and that's definitely not great.
If I had more space for storing bicycles safely, I could just keep building them, but realistically, there's room for 3. The other option is to move somewhere with a lot of storage space and fully commit to restoring C&V bicycles for the rest of my days.

That C5 is going to hurt my wallet for sure. It will be beautiful if I manage to complete that build, but I can see it blow a substantial hole in my wallet.

ascherer 

Tinkered with the San Remo last night and today. Installed a Campy Record headset, wider Cinelli bars, a more retro-style Zefal bottle cage, and a few general tweaks.

Positron400

Is it common to run the brake cable behind the handlebars? I usually route them in front. Or like the bar-tape personal preference? Either way, looks gorgeous! How's the brakeing perfomance with those centerpulls? I am contemplating switching from side to centerpull.

Schweinhund

[QUOTE=Positron400;22791077 How's the brakeing perfomance with those centerpulls? I am contemplating switching from side to centerpull.[/QUOTE]
I call them u-brakes on a plate, they work phenomenally. The reason they went away wasn't performance, it was weight.

1990 Rockhopper - brakes are incredible

1983 Fuji The brakes will launch you if you really dig in.

Positron400

Excellent - thanks. Now i just need to figure out how to make it work on my mixtie frame shown below

Schweinhund

Nice bike,
The brakes are gorgeous...