VintageSteelEU

The only times when I had to deal with spontaneous upshifting it was due to poor quality / worn out shifters and they were of a friction variety. I'd guess that Altus comes with indexed shifters and the mechanism has worn out somehow or is damaged perhaps? But without getting my paws on them, difficult to say. When the cable is loose, are the levers moving / clicking from gear to gear or just loose? If somehow these are friction thumbshifters, it could be that they need tighteing up. As for the derailleur, I'm guessing the parallelogram spring is intact (since the derailleur still moves the cage back to the highest gear) and I'm assuming limiting screws are adjusted correctly. Check if they are, especially the one marked as L, but if that's OK, my guess is that the shifters are shot. What with the front derailleur (if present)? Does it behave in a similar way?

VintageSteelEU

Yikes! Good thing this didn't end up in an accident. I'm putting mine on the stand after the first 200km I've made since building the wheels (I got them used, so I have no idea what mileage they had on them before), so I'll examine them closely. But I think in the future I'll try to avoid vintage rims and go for new Ambrosio Excellence and Excellight instead...

bikamper

I still don't have the new parts for my Ural though I finally got a response from IMWA and my go to parts guy, so it's all on order and hopefully be here in the next ten days. In the meantime, I dug out one of my Phrench Phart Velo Solex mopeds and got it ready for our local car and bike show.


All it really needed was a wipe down, some 2 stroke in the tank, and air in the tires. Is it a bicycle? Is it a moped? Dunno, doesn't do either very well but it does put a grin on your face as you putt down the road.

repechage

thinking Cornelo, there were a few “very close” to Colnago club cut clubs about that were near miss to Colnago, too close actually.
‘the straight stem work to the “petals” is the tell.
and yes, does have that post mfg engraving appearance and the sides of the head lugs are too plain, no cresting “wave”.
Colnago Sport bikes did have plain lugs.

not totally declarative but useful-

https://saarf.london/2013/02/19/how-...-fake-colnago/

billnuke1 

Some were serviced before they are getting washed…it’s been raining here in Central Florida for a while…


Purty paint! One of the more ridden bicycles from Cape Cod! Really dirty! The impetus for this whole exercise! Plus, it’s really nice out here again!

It’s been a real blast working on and riding these bicycles this last week or so! The riding and my life style has been so drastically changed down here that I’ve been only sporadically working on my bicycle and working mostly on my neighbor’s single speed, big box store, cruisers and three wheelers… It’s been a little a year and a half since moving down here and I’m getting my new together. My old interests are re-emerging!
Yay!

billnuke1 

Love these old school paint jobs! Da fade! Metal flakes on the Fuji.

Lil’ bit of effort here…

What can I say about this paint job! Lot’sa offers to buy just for the paint job alone! My last GT…sigh…

Fireworks!

capnjonny 

What got my attention when I saw the rather scruffy looking single speed conversion sitting in the shop at the Bike Exchange was the head badge on what looked like a very early Raleigh. I guessed sixties or early seventies. I am not a very big fan of fixies and this one had all the hardware stripped off and a flip flop hub installed plus some flat bars. I do know that deconstructing it like that can result in a pretty light bike and this one weighed in at 24.5 lbs. not bad for a High ten frame. Wanting to do something interesting with it I looked around and found a 700c aluminum rim with a Shimano 3 speed hear hub and similar style front wheel. I proceeded to build it up as a 3 speed urban comuter. After assembling everything I took it apart again and was thinking of repainting the scuffed and rusty frame. Then I thought maybe instead of hiding all the bruises I would enhance them and go for the rat rod look. I removed all the braze ons, sanded all the rust down to cleen metal, coated the entire frame and fork in Naval jelley then cleaned everything and coated it with linseed oil and buffed it. The result is as you see here. If the rust comes back it isn't going to hurt this sturdy frame and the new oner has only to apply another coat of oil occasionally. As shown the bike with 32 mm tires weighs only 26.4 lbs. not bad at all for a larger frame and probably 5-6 lbs. lighter that other comparable machines. One nice feature is that you can make the rear cog smaller or larger if you want more low or high end performance.

RCMoeur 

Today was more hauling bike chunks rather than assembling them, but that is an important early step. Today was accepting a whole truckload of bicycles and parts for the Rusty Spoke co-op from another nonprofit (Grey Matter) and all the attendant loading, schlepping, and unloading. Loads of fun.



All unloaded at the Spoke - tomorrow, we rummage through the loot to see what treasures lurk within.

Rooney 

I hope to get this wrapped up on Thursday or Friday. The wheels need to be trued, the hubs adjusted (or overhauled, depending on how they feel), and the shifting and brakes dialed in. I can probably take another link out of the chain, but I'll wait until after clicking through the gears. Now that I see this photo bigger than a phone screen, that saddle could be more level.

tz250

Solved! Yes, it is supposed to “click” into gear; i flooded the assembly with PB Blaster a few times and overnight it loosened up. shifts fine now.
Thanks to everyone who chimed in…
robin

merziac

I would encourage you to flush the PB out of there now that its done its job. I'm not sure but its pretty nasty stuff and I can't imagine its ok long term on plastic.

The company says it may be ok but can soften some plastics over time, I wouldn't trust it for the long haul.

It is a fantastic product and helps breakdown rust before scrubbing. soaking, Evaporust and polishing.

RCMoeur 

In my experience, brief flushing treatments such as Clean Streak, WD-40, PB, Liquid Wrench, etc. allow the shifter to start working again because they penetrate, soften, and reactivate the original solidified/dried grease enough to allow the mechanism to start moving again. However, when the volatile fractions of these treatments eventually evaporate over a span of weeks or months, the old grease re-solidifies and the shifter is again clickless. Some people are happy re-shooting the old shifters as needed. However, for a long-term fix, one needs to get the old gunky grease completely out of the shifter innards, which I do with many many passes in an ultrasonic cleaner and solvent (I use citrus cleaner). This requires removing the shifter from he bike and some patience and determination (e.g. just because it's working again doesn't mean it's actually clean), so it's understandable that many people might not want to take these steps. But in my extensive experience it's the only way to really fix the problem, other than replacing the entire mechanism.

tz250

oh! ok, good idea, thank you!

bwilli88 

Post shipping from Cambodia and removal of others from storage cleaning and tweaking.

Nemosengineer 

As The Pedal Turns... Another episode of the Rossin build, a nice place to sit, lube for a tight post, and I copy my own cockpit.

I received the Campagnolo Nuovo Superleggero seatpost, it weighed in at 304gr. and was in nice condition. After a quick sand and polish I assembled it with the last of my titanium Brooks Swallow saddles. all up weight of the assembly is 649gr.

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

The Rossin has a very tight seatpost tube even after all the usual prep work, this called for my "secret seatpost sauce" for final installation. Here Is the recipe, 50% anti seize and 50% wheel bearing grease, still a tight fit but no galling on installation.

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

The Serrota has been a really good fit for me so I transferred all the contact points over with allowances for the 2cm. larger frame, so far so good.

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

That's all for now: Mike

SurferRosa

Polished a couple Cinelli stems to go a little longer on some bikes. They feel so pure in the hand like this before applying the Mother's.

merziac

What a great idea, thanks for sharing, another one of many things staring us right in the face.

I don't know how we got away from using good old axle grease, especially when the going gets tough, its never a bad Idea so long as you know what you're doing and don't get carried away.

Classtime 

What started as the realization that the steel crankset on my PA-10E with its simplex braces could not adapt to smaller than the 45 teeth, turned into an angry dismemberment. My Bikesmith cotter press failed removing the cotters as did my old tried and eventually true methods. The grinder however did not let me down.

I just lost it!

Removing the front derailleur broke its clamp and after removing every last piece from the frame, it still weighed a ton. The frameset is now in the crawl space to be discovered in the distant future by some archaic-ologist.

RCMoeur 

Today was several hours in preparation for some serious weeks of wrenching, as the Recycle Your Bicycle program prepares for a busy fall rehabilitating nearly a thousand bicycles for foster kids and teens.

We mostly finished setting up the workshop area, and then began to unload hundreds of donated bicycles from two semi-trailers.

Pro-level bicycle Jenga time!!!



Pedals stuck in spokes stuck in handlebars stuck in frames stuck in accessories stuck in cables stuck in everything else, all in magnificent 3-D. Whee!!


After the untangling, uttering, and unloading, we started on a few prep tasks. I extracted a pile of sun-tortured saddles from bikes for recovering,


and found a few other items for immediate addressing such as this apparently-experimental Suntour freewheel that saves weight in a unique manner.



The bikes are lined up and ready for washing, triage, repair, gussying up, and being put back into service by foster families.



The fun has just begun!

repechage

we live in so much danger.

I liked the PA-10. Did not buy one as I really wanted cotterless cranks. The tubulars that were part of the spec were the draw.

leftthread

...

repechage

that badge is associated with 1970.

Nemosengineer 

Sometimes a project needs a course correction. The Ambrosio bars and stem seemed to dominate the view from the saddle and appeared clunky to me. Nitto to the rescue, a 90mm Craft stem and a 40cm Nitto B125 NJS track bar (same bend as the Cinelli 65 crit bar) did a good job cleaning things up. The Dura-Ace 7703 mechs and crank were installed and everything went well. More fine tuning of the cockpit has been happening, pedals were temporally installed so I could spin a bit and I believe I have a good match with the Serrota at this point.

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

: Mike

VintageSteelEU

I guess Suntour was again ahead of everyone else, testing Biopace-like setup, but on the freewheels

Jokes aside, don't think there's much point in trying to fix this freewheel, but possibly it could still be cannibalised for spares: smaller cogs, pawls, springs etc. A bit of a hassle though.

VintageSteelEU

I like the bend on these bars. Some time ago I got a bicycle equipped with Kusuki Medallion handlebar with a similar bend and I was initially sceptical (I'm used to Cinelli Campione del Mondo). Right now I find it way more comfortable than CdM.