Sweet, if you could tell me what brand and color number or name, wichever it uses..that would be killer. I wanted to touch mine up badly for some time now.

the stays near my rear dropout are bare right now

The nail polish is Mehron brand, color is simply called "black". The color matches perfectly. If you are gonna repaint an entire stay, you would probably want to brush very carefully so you don't leave streaks, and coat it with clear nail polish to get the glossy finish to match. I've never had to do this, but am told it works well.

edit: this paint seems pretty fragile (maybe just age?) it comes off in chips rather than scratching off in fine lines like on my steel trek...

mine chips as well, that was my problem...huge areas have chipped off, so I want to fix it as much as possible, then clear the entire thing.

Looks pretty similar to mine except for the seat and pedals. Mine had a fairly uncomfortable Vetta seat that I swapped for a Koobi Silver which suits me well. I also ditched the stock pedals/toeclips for some $20 SPD mountain bike pedals (VP, model ?); these aren't very heavy and actually work quite well.

Are you still riding on the stock Matrix tires? You can pick up some fairly decent maxxis tires (I've ridden on some $9 maxxis detonanator's all summer) if you look around on the web.....

mine had the following things done to it:

seat replaced (stock seat from 2001 motobecane)

pedals (same VPs as jemoryl mentioned) These pedals annoy me...sharp edges, need I say more.

wheels: broke the originals in a crash, bought some generic rim shimano hubbed wheelworks wheels

cassette: when i bought the wheels i had to go to freehub, so I now run a 7-sp shimano cassette

chainrings: i hate ovaltech, so I went for a 105 53t ring, and a 46-t sugino ring...they had to have lots of spacers to work right though. The granny is stiill an ovaltech though....mostly since I never use it.

I also put on a longer stem...the one i had had the shortest stem I ever seen...it was stupid short.

So a 7-speed shimano cassette is spaced okay? It'll work with the SunTour shifters? Good to know.

By the way, I measured the dropouts and they are indeed 126 mm.

My rear wheel is definitely NOT stock, it's a Mavic SUP. I don't think my handlebars and stem are stock either. The drops curve back around for a lower set of flats. Is there a name for these bars?

My tires are Continental Ultra 2000 700x25. They came with the bike, but it looked like the fabric was starting to rot, although the rubber is fine. I put them on anyway, and they seem to hold up fine, though not sure how long that'll last

Where do you have sharp edges on your VP pedals? I've not noticed anything like this.

Mine has the stock quill stem: it is a plain jane 110 mm model (58 cm frame).

the shimano cassette is off in spacing, but you can compensate by trimming at the shifter.

Thing is suntour cassettes use teo different spacings on each cassette or freewheel.

I really am considering moving my old hub and freewheel onto that wheelset...might swap both hubs over if I can get the bearings redone on them, or just buy new freewheel hubs.

The actualy SPD binders have developed a razor edge on mine, the front part is especially nasty. I have about 5 or 6 small scars on the back of my leg to prove for it.

However, they are pretty nice pedals, but I trust my M-505s more, so the VPs stay on my commuter....they are fine for just cruising around, but if I wnat to go fast, I just cant put my faith in them. I find no matter how i set them, they never hold onto me as tight as the actual shimano pedals.