Classic Bike Rebuild - Shop advice needed
 

I have a custom 1985 Rob Roberson frame with an almost complete C-Record group. Hasn't been ridden in 20 years and it is time to resurrect it. Rob was a frame builder in San Diego in the mid-80's. He now works for Joe Bell, who also did the original "rad red" paint job. Plan is to strip it and have Joe/Rob repaint it, source missing parts and build it back up to ridable, or for hanging in my office :-).

Any good bay area vintage bike mechanics anyone can reco? Any other resources that can help?

thanks!

I'm in the south Bay, so these may be a little far for you.

Try George Slough at Slough's Bike Shop in San Jose or Dave Prion at The Bicycle Outfitter in Los Altos. Sadly, Shaw's Lightweight Cycles in Santa Clara is closed. Terry and Jerry would've been able to help you out, I'm sure.

SteveE

Steve Howard, owner of Livermore Cyclery (go to the one in Livermore, not the one in Dublin). Top drawer shop and service, and Steve loves C&V stuff.

Chuck Tyler, owner of Dublin Cyclery. Another top-drawer experience. He's a C&V fan, too.

Steve and Chuck are both incredibly knowledgable and incredibly pleasant to deal with. You will not go wrong with either one.

Perhaps a quarter-notch down, but closer to you, is Matt Sharp and the crew at Sharp Bicycles in Lafayette. Good people, they also will know their way around your machine. Sharp's is also walking distance from the Lafayette BART station, if that helps.

Thank you both, just what I was looking for! I am very happy with Cyclesports in Oakland - they just built my Parlee. But this calls for someone with a particular passion for C&V.

What exactly do you need done by a shop? I'm a mechanic at Eden Bicycles in Castro Valley and have a deep love for classic and vintage bicycles.

If all you need is to have it stripped of parts, come by my garage and bring a pizza. :)

What I need is basically 4 parts: 1) Strip it and send out for painting 2) identify what parts need to be hunted down to restore it. 3)help find said parts 4) rebuild

bigbossman - I wish I had the time! Between 60-70 hour work weeks, family and some riding my time to wrench is pretty nonexistant. And I put the "in" in inept, mechanics-wize

DRietz - Deep love is what I am looking for - PM me or I'll shoot an email your way.

Now this gets into philosophical C&V discussion, and I hate to preach and tell people what they should do with their bikes. But, if you have not ridden the bike for 20 years, I would suggest a good cleanup, wax, re-grease all the moving parts. Then ride it a bit and see how you like it. There are all kinds of pitfalls in having the frame re-painted. As they say, it's original only once. Especially if you rode the frame 20 years ago, even the battle scars will have more meaning to you.

Another problem is that once the frame looks brand new, the older parts will look out of place. Once you ride it, you may decide that you would like to upgrade the drivetrain, add some new braze-ons, etc. All of these are best decided before you start the expensive restoration project. You may also find that the frame is no longer a good fit, etc.

The drivetrain is C-Record so not sure where I would go with that :-). I get leaving it original, but what I am after is a restoration. And to be clear - I'll ride it occasionally but have two carbon bikes including a Parlee Z5 that weighs 14.09 pounds with pedals, cages, etc. Hard not to take that out for serious riding...and yes I know people do double centuries on 50 year old bikes.

I am just not looking for it to be a regular ride, and I think it is kinda cool that the original painter can still repaint it...

How about a picture of the bike in question? Sometimes you can restore without a repaint, sometimes the paint is too far gone...

. . . and sometimes you just want to change colors. Which is okay, too.