If I want better or easier I will ride one of my two bikes with record 10spd.

It is also not "covering part of a cassette" I am using part of a cassette. the plan is to buy a 12-26 and toss the worthless 26t.

On every shimano cassette I've seen the largest several cogs are all one unit, it might not be possible to take out just the largest cog. Using part of a 10 speed cassette is a good idea though. You could probably buy loose miche cogs and an assortment of spacers and build your ideal cassette, but it might get expensive.

I've tried to sell 3 bikes with an old white Ti Flite, and every test rider wants a different saddle. They are tricky to get right, but after that, a very good long-day saddle.

I really like that bike.

miche sells shimano splined 10spd cassettes with loose cogs for about $60. not a bad investment in my opinion as i wont be burning through them with 3 other bikes in the stable. i believe sram also has loose cog 10spd cassettes but havent bothered to look.

considering the prices of shimano 8spd cassettes i will probably stick to running 7 of 8 for now.

thanks!

This is very cool, although more adventurous than I would go. I really like the parts.. the crankset, RD, the shifters and brake levers. All of it is great and definitely out of the norm. Nice work.

Those wheels are unlike any that I've seen. Don't think that I'm mocking them, but they would look pretty cool with some wood hoops.

Love the Mistral bits! Great, unique bike!

One of mine:

thank you very much

very nice, those cranks look even better with a single ring.

What a rebel, love it.

FYI: I don't know about Sram 10s cassettes, but I've dissected many a 9s Sram cassette to make custom ratios. On the back of the cassette, there's usually 1-3 long hex head retaining screws. Their removal gives you a stack of loose cogs/spacers through the entire range. Have fun.

^^^Sram 8sp are like this too.

Yup. I forgot to mention that.

This is looking great -I don't know which of us is further along

The Flite saddle will look fantastic on this. I still have a couple kicking around, and until I retro-ized all my vintage rides with 3ttt or Concor saddles, they were all equipped with Flites. I first started riding Flites in 1994 and only in the last couple-three years began to go back to the old-school stuff.

I can hardly wait to see the finished bike - and I also agree with your wife: use the Campy crankset bolts

DD

Its funny because I grew up around slant RDs, campy ergos, and 8spd. I've had downtubes but this is my first friction only set and my first vintage RD. Too bad you were not local. We could have walked each other through our builds.

The flite will be perfect. I am used to the modern slr, I hope they are close in feel.

I agree with both of you on the bolts but I only have three (I have no idea how) and two of them may end up on my tommasini. It has c-record arms but the 7mm hole on the self extracting bolt is starting to round out. I may buy a LH crank extractor and swap it to modern standard bolts. I would buy more campy hardware but can't justify it knowing I've got the OEM stuff. if I can find someone willing to sell one bolt I may change my mind.

still not done...

my LBS let me down again. he had a customer wavering on a surly and didnt want to put my order it to Quality until he could combine the orders. here in iowa we have one day shipping from QBP and it still takes me 2 weeks to get anything from the LBS, i can get things from the UK in that time...

Dude...hurry it up! Looking big time forward to this one.

Not trying to come across as rude but by the sounds of it I'm having a hard time understanding why you even bother ordering through them, can you actually get stuff cheaper versus online? As far as I'm concerned if they refused to make an order for me I wouldn't be going back...

a $150 gift card (wedding gift) makes me willing to put up with it. in any other situation i would agree.

Fair enough! Good luck getting all the parts in...

there are still some finishing touches (cable ends, cutting steerer, saddle height) but i will let pictures speak for themselves:

Very nice. I think the levers and the wheels really work well together, visually.

Yummmmmmy

She came out mouth-watering-awesome! And the chain-length looks perfect - just enough back there to catch the cogs correctly.

The predominant black/silver theme really works on this beauty - congratulations on a fine build!

DD

PS - Sent your refund to your PP account - I received the saddle yesterday

thanks guys!

my phone recently went off to let me know funds arrived. thanks for the "trial" DD.


after i get the stem hight set i will trim the steerer and then replace the spacers with some nice silver ones. i think it will balance out well with the seatpost.

Funny, you expected this build to be really contentious, but everyone seems to love it.

The downtube shifters look right on a bike of this era, but I sure hate to ride 'em. That's as close as you'll get to a criticism from me, I think it's a great build, with a lot of attention to detail.

Hope you have fun on this plastic fantastic.

you are correct. i thought it would be too nonconventional for C&V and much to old and heavy for the road forums but everyone seems to be alright with it. the original plan for rev-x wheels probably would have garnered a little more negative attention.

why dont you think i will like them? do you have any experience with them? i also have a set of alloy ofmega downtubes that i can sub out for practicality (if you think that is best)

It's definitely unconventional but it looks rad. The road forum people tend to like nice vintage bikes. Got a weight on that thing?

not yet. i dont own a scale. judging from the weight when it was partially assembled and comparing it to other bikes around the house i would say 22.5lbs. 2+ lbs could be dropped with a decent set of modern wheels. not bad for a 60cm tange 1000 frame. if i get a chance i will weigh it as is and with a set of wheels of one of my other bikes.