Hello again,

I bought a vintage bike recently, and some of the parts are pretty worn- the cassette and rear rim,chainring , The brakes. Without sounding too naive, what do you do when parts get worn out.? This also applies to newer bikes.The B.B is also worn and rusty,-and because there is a stronglight vintage triple crank,here is the diffculty finding a b.b that fits. So what should I do - keep the frame and continue to repalce parts - or replace the bike. Is it accepted to ride a bike till it is unrideable or to change it? I realize that there is a lot of personal choice involved- I held on to my Kona Hahana for 11 years and repalced everything but the frame- Mainly out of stubborness.
I would welcome any feedback .
Thank E.

If it's nice enough to have a Stronglight triple, it's nice enough to fix it. Yes, parts wear out; replace as necessary.

Are you referring to the frame?-(nice).
While we are on the subject of replacing- any suggestions for replacing the mafac racer brakes? Which were the top road brakes of that era? Will a modern brakeset have the correct reach?

Elad,

We rejoice at old bikes and replace what we must to get the bikes back on the road.
You can still find Mafac Racer brakes, I've seen new ones on ebay often, and a lot of the
online shops still have them.
Not sure where you are in Isreal but you might be interested in this:

2nd Annual Classic Bike Show & Swap Meet
Yarkon Park, Tel-Aviv
26 June 2008 @ 4:00

I bet you could find much of the vintage parts your looking for.

Marty

Wow. Thanks Marty - how did you find that out? The point is that I am putting a lot of effort into maintaining the bike. I replaced the brake cables and shifter cables.lso replaced the atom cassette which was worn. Went to 5 different bike shops till I found and old 5 speed cassette.I had the B.B regreased. The problem is what happens when the chainrings go? The crankset is a stronglight 49d triple. Where will I get the correst BCD,. As for the brakes, I worked on hem for hours and they stiil work less well than my old 105's.
Anyway I agree, in trying to do everything to restore the bike.
Thanks,Elad

Generally riding a bike until its unrideable is a good way to permanently ruin whatever parts could have been repaired. Most folks would tell you to stop and repair the bike before it get to the point where its unrideable.

Things that typically need repair/service are the Headset, the BB, the Hubs and the drivetrain. For the most part on vintage bikes these parts all have loose ball bearings inside them that periodically need to be re-greased and at some point in the bike's life will need to be replaced with new ones. Its just normal wear and tear. Other parts don't typically get serviced/repaired but simply thrown out and replaced. Like Brake and Shifter Cables, Brake Pads, Cassettes and Chainrings.

If you can post some pictures it will help determine how far gone it is and what should be done to bring it back into service.

Elad,

We have a member at Classic Rendezvous who is from Ramat-Gan and he posted it.
you should look him up.
https://search.bikelist.org/ search for string AMIR and list to search is Classic Rendezvous.
That should bring up more than a few post either to him, or from him.
then go to the Classic Rendezvous web site and sign up for the list (emails) I'd suggest digest
form since it's multiple emails to the list rolled up into one email. Oh, and read the rules, Dale (listmeister and owner) is known to boot people off for infractions.

You can get rings for the 49d crankset, I see those on ebay often. Before you give up on
the bike see whats out there. Write to CR list (proper sign off ! ) and post here, we have a
very helpful community.

Marty