saddlesores

not sure why you need to limit your search............bb7's work well and are super easy to adjust in about a minute once you've mastered the "business card" technique.

if you must, buy a touring fork with extra braze-ons and canti studs. classic deore v-brakes should fit your tires and fenders.

bwilli88 

I have an 81 Centurion Pro-Tour that works for me, also have an 83 frame and fork + parts for sale.
the 81 as I built it and have upgraded to flat bar Ultegra stuff since.


The 83 as I previously built it. 83 Centurion Pro-tour

phughes

Personal preference. Isn't that valid anymore?

saddlesores

yessir, and i took it that OP would prefer selecting from the larger variety of disc bikes, but for


my reasoning.......don't limit yourself if not necessary. he can pick up any suitable disc bike, complete or frame only, keep the rear disc and go with a v-brake on the front. many folks just wouldn't consider that as a possible option.

unless he's pulling the rear for transport, it's unlikely he could damage the rotor. pad rub issues can be overcome with learning new techniques. this won't help with multiple wheelsets, unless v-brake arms are long enough and positioned correctly for different rims (or he goes without front brake).

plus........with a rear disc and the right hub, he can use the same length spoke on both sides.

phughes

I let the person decide, for whatever reasons they have. There is nothing wrong with rim brakes, we have been using them for years.

blurcovenky

Among the many suggestions, my 2 cents. Try the Handsome Devil. Handsome is a Minneapolis based company, the are relatively small but very reliable making value for money bikes I recently bough one. They are on sale now.
I bought a frame and built a bike with parts I had, they have complete bikes too. Jesse the owner is super helpful.

Noonievut

I left enough spacers above the stem as I dial in fit.

Tourist in MSN

Looks like you found what you wanted.

biker128pedal

Nice. Wish I had known enough about those breaks with brifter brakes. I’d have gotten a Cross Check for an all arounder.

Noonievut

They’re okay. I guess because cable pull or something they’re not as easy to use and set up as typical rim brakes on road bikes. I’ve had to set them up very close to the rim so when I pull the levers there is room to do so without contacting the bars. This means it’s harder to loosen the noodle and release the brake to get a wheel off

ted_major

If you set them up with a little more slack to make it easier to get the noodle off, you can use the inline barrel adjuster to take up the slack so you have good brake performance and easy wheel removal.

Tourist in MSN

If you are unhappy with the brakes, you can get some longer arm ones and travel agents, a few of us described travel agents in more detail earlier in this thread. You would need more muscle to brake with that setup, but that converts the cable to longer pull so you would have more clearance. And if you did that you would have more room if you wanted to add fenders later.

It looks like you used in-line cable adjusters, which is good.

phughes

Get some Tektro RL520 levers. They are for V-Brakes, no travel agent necessary. They also have a quick release which makes removing a wheel a lot easier. Cane Creek makes a pair as well, but they Tektro is what I would go with.

Tourist in MSN

He is using brifters.

robow

You must admit, it would make for an interesting handlebar configuration now wouldn't it ?

phughes

I missed that.

Noonievut

I think I had these years ago on a commuter bike with downtube shifters. I believe they were set up with long reach calipers, not v-brakes. That set up was awesome from what I recall. This bike is an ongoing project, which is part of the fun...I started with parts I already had, but over time I’ll try and solve problems and improve on things based on the riding I’ll be doing. Long term: maybe GRX 10sp derailleurs and crank, with a cassette offering easier gearing, and maybe downtube shifters and brake levers like these ones. Just thinking out loud!

Tourist in MSN

Some people prefer downtube shifters, but that is a clear minority.

I have one bike that I built up with a Campy brifter for the rear, but for up front I was not sure what to use, fitted a vintage downtube friction shifter for temporary use. That was over a half decade ago, temporary is slowly becoming permanent.

And I have a vintage bike in storage, I really love the feel of the ride on that frame, but it has friction downtube shifters. Every few years I get it out, take it for a ride a few times and get disgusted with the friction downtube shifters, put it back in storage.

I have bar end shifters on two touring bikes and my folding bike, I prefer them over downtube. Rear is indexed, front on two of the three is friction. I am less bothered by friction for the front than the rear since four out of five times when I am shifting I am shifting rear only. But I really want indexed shifting for the rear.

It is all personal preference.

phughes

Yep, everyone is different. On my LHT, when the indexing on the original bar ends failed, I flipped the rear over to friction and loved it. Of course I grew up with friction. I then ordered the Silver friction shifters from Rivendell and installed those. I love them ad haven't looked back. It works well for a nine speed, though I don't I would want to use it on a 10 speed.

BobG

Same here. I installed Rivendell Silver friction levers on Gevenalle Audax brake lever mounts and have never had the desire to go back to clickety-clicks! (9 speed cassette)

RH Clark

Why not 10? Will the silver shifter not accomplish it properly? I use Microshift friction on my Surly LHT with a 10sp rear. I greatly prefer the friction mode to the click mode. I switched to friction and all shifting woes went away. I was thinking about a set of those silver shifters, thus my interest.

Tourist in MSN

With several references to Rivendell Silver Shifters, I had to google it because I was clueless.

What am I missing here? They look like a resurrected friction shifter like any other friction shifter from decades ago. Most communities that have a bike coop or bike charity has buckets of vintage friction shifters for a few bucks at most.

Why not get some vintage friction shifters if you want friction shifters? And if you change your mind, you did not spend much on them.

In Post 69 above I mentioned that my rando bike had a Campy brifter for rear, but has a friction downtube shifter for front. The Huret shifter came from a bike charity for a few bucks. The bolt had the wrong thread so I used an M5 bolt. Of the ones in the bucket I picked Huret because my first derailleur bike had Huret Allvit. And they looked unique.
https://velobase.com/ViewComponent.a...m=104&AbsPos=5



Also in Post 69 above I mentioned that I had a vintage bike with friction that I did not ride very much, that uses early 60s Campy shifters. These were original to the bike. (Bike was re-painted, fenders added later.)



The downside of Huret shifters is that they use an odd shifter cable, I had to file the head on a standard cable down to fit it into the Huret shifter.

phughes

Just a thought, speculating. I don't know, I've never tried it to see if I would like it. The comment was regarding friction shifting for a ten speed cassette, not the brand of shifter. The Silvers would work as well as the MicroShfft levers in friction mode. I prefer the Silvers to the MicroShift. If you like what you have in friction mode, there is no reason you won't like the Silvers.

phughes

The Silvers are sort of an updated version of the old SunTour shifter that had a "power ratchet." The Silvers are sort of a refined version of the SunTour shifter. They are not a simple friction shifter. I loved the old SunTours, but they are not easily found. The Silvers are available, and had everything necessary to install them in my MicroShift bar end pods.

BobG

Tourist, I tried an old set of Campy levers on my Gevenalle mounts first but the Campys were designed for 5 speed freewheels and didn't have adequate arc for 9 speeds. Probably the same for Huret. As phughes says the Suntour styled Rivendells are more sophisticated. Quite smooth, they make the clicks superfluous.

I don't know the answer for RH Clark's question about 10 speed use but Rivendell says not compatible with anything above 9 speeds ...