gaucho777 

Pictures first:

















I've been sitting on this for some time now just making minor tweaks and hoping to find the correct hoods (7401s not 7402s), but I decided I better post up some pictures while it's still fairly clean. This was my race bike as a teenager, a team bike given to some riders of the Junior team of the Conejo Velo Club based out of Thousand Oaks CA. I believe we received these bikes in late '89, so I'm calling this a 1989 Park Pre Team. (They were originally equipped with the first generation Shimano 105 group. Velobase indicates they first appeared in 1990, but I believe the team bikes were equipped with some very early versions of the parts. I remember it was the first time I'd seen any 105 parts, but I digress.)

A little bit of history about Park Pre. Park Pre, short for Park Precision, was co-founded by Cozy Yamakoshi in 1989 (along with his friend and mentor Mr. Park of Korea). Cozy's sons were junior racers on the Conejo Velo Club, which no doubt played a role in their sponsorship of the team. As some of you may be aware, Cozy was the lead project manager & designer at Western States Imports, the company that brought out the Centurion and Diamond Back lines. After leaving WSI/Diamond Back, Cozy co-founded Park Pre. They are primarily known for their MTBs, but did offer a small selection of road and TT bikes as well. My understanding is that the Park Pre name was subsequently sold to an Italian firm in the mid- or late-90s. They continue to make carbon Park Pre frames out of Italy and sponsor a pro team on the Continent, but it's the same company in name only.

This is a full DA 740X build, including the elusive stem and seatpost. I made several embellishments because I did not like the way the gray anodized parts went with the rest of the build. The shifters and brake levers were stripped & polished, as were the Shimano 7401 pedals. (The pedals were in extremely rough shape, as you can see in the "in progress" link below, but are quite presentable now, IMHO. I didn't bother trying to get a mirror finish on these since it was sort of an experiment. Eventually, I will strip & polish again with a less scared pair of similar pedals.) The bar tape got a little blue trim at the top. In addition, all of the engraving on the components have been filled with matching blue paint. Lastly, notice the bit of paint flourish at the cable ends (on top of super glue).

This bike was in fairly rough shape, after having been raced, abused, and then neglected for a couple decades. After I restored my Look, I needed another project and turned to this Park Pre. I started a thread about my in-progress build here (gosh am I slow, this was over a year ago ):
https://www.bikeforums.net/archive/in.../t-695663.html

It took a long time to cobble the parts together, the last of which being the 7401 levers. Unfortunately, I paid through the nose for the wrong set of hoods. (If anyone has a source for white 7401 hoods, let me know.)

I would also like to publicly thank Roger M for gifting me one DA 7400 brake lever band/clamp, the last little bit needed to finish this project.

I've been toying with the idea of commissioning DD to do some of his drillium work, but that's going to have to wait since I'm going to be moving on to the Ron Kit titanium next.

Build list:
Frame/fork: 1989 Park Pre Team (Tange Prestige), with Tange Fusion fork
Crankset: Dura Ace 7400
Headset: Dura Ace 7400
Bottom Bracket: Dura Ace 7400
Brake levers: Dura Ace 7401 (stripped & polished)
Brake calipers: Dura Ace 7400
Shifters: Dura Ace 7401 (7-speed, stripped & polished)
RD: Dura Ace 7400
FD: Dura Ace 7400
Stem: Dura Ace 7400 (100mm)
Seatpost: Dura Ace 7400
Pedals: Shimano/Dura Ace 7401 (stripped & polished)
Hubs: Dura Ace 7400
Freewheel: Dura Ace 7400 Uniglide
Chain: Dura Ace 7400 Uniglide
Rims: Araya gold tubular
Spokes: DT Swiss double-butted
Tires: Vittoria Corsa Evo CX
Bars: Nitto 176 "Dream Bar"
Saddle: Selle Italia Turbo (reproduction)
Tape: Fizik MicroTex
Bottle Cages: King Stainless
--
weight: Frame only: 4.27 lbs.; Frame & fork: 5.62 lbs.; Complete bike: 20.90 lbs.

gaucho777 

For posterity, here's a before:

Michael Angelo 

Turned out nice

bikemig 

bonus points for showing pics of the bike with a nice view of the lake. The gruppo looks great; so does the bike. That looks like a fun project.

lotekmod

I really like how the brake levers turned out. It never occurred to me that they would polish up so nicely. It would be a great way to out some of the scratches on mine. Thanks for sharing!

PS- Love that neon splatter paint!!! There will never be any doubt in the future what decade that frame was from.

shadoman

Absolutely gorgeous.
That fork is dead sexy.
Excellent gruppo choice.

devinfan

Looks AMAZING. Beautiful job and a fantastic frame and paint job to boot. The gruppo is perfect on that bike. The only thing is, as nice as the turbo is I kinda miss the flite, but I'm sure that's just me.

BluesDaddy

Oh dude, so totally RAD.


Seriously, love it.

bigbossman 

That "lake" would be the San Francisco Bay.

dphi 

Looks great and I appreciate the write-up, always nice to get that kind of back story.

toytech

Very cool!

gaucho777 

Thanks for all the nice comments. And thanks for all those that hate the neon splatter and are holding their tongues. I wasn't always a fan of the paint, but it's definitely grown on me.

No, it not just you. I miss the flite, too. It was in my original build plans. Went so far as to buy white leather and made a failed attempt a re-covering it. THEJAPINO's saddle recover thread made it look so easy, but I botched the job and destroyed the foam padding in the process.

tjcough 

Gaucho, I see you mentioned that you polished some of the components. How did you go about this? I have a set of cranks that are in need of a good polish, and I love the way yours turned out. Any help would be much appreciated.

gaucho777 

^ Just about everything I could say is covered here.

ultraman6970

Interesting brand, did not know it. They are still in business and that makes it more interesting.

Like racing bikes, like this one. Congrats but this one deserved modern campagnolo 10 IMO, just to keep it 100% italian. Something from the past, something modern mix.

Johnonaschwinn

I love the paint. Nice bike

gaucho777 

The existing Park Pre out of Italy is the same company in name only.

Campagnolo 10 is not always the answer. Besides the fact a) Park Pre's were always built with some form of Shimano, b) I try to avoid mixing East and West, c) didn't want to alter the frame, and d) I was going with a period build, I don't do brifters.

Tell me more. I don't know much about the men behind the torch. Who is this Fairly fellow?

gaucho777 

^Thanks for the Fairly link. (So, not a fellow at all. ) That makes sense, since it's also my understanding that the original Park Pre bikes were made in Taiwan.

Chombi

Very nice bike and clean restoration!......but it's the splatter paint treatment on 90's bikes that I can't get to like no matter how I try. I wonder if there's a way to remove just the splatter from the base color coat.....
It will be a lot of work, but, can it be carefully chipped off with a finger nail or a scraper??
Heck, who knows, maybe the paintjob style might come back many years from now....
Chombi