Slow On the Tarmac

   Throughout the summer I kept an eye on craigslist and eBay listings for a large carbon fiber bike frame for my 6’3” neighbor Bob. In late August I contacted a man in Doylestown about a 61 cm 2005 Specialized Tarmac Comp. The bike was missing the major components, but had the original Specialized seatpost and saddle, as well as a new Easton stem. A nice pair of wheels built with Shimano Dura-Ace hubs and Mavic Open Pro rims, was also included, but I was warned ahead of time that the rear hub was cracked.

   The seller was asking $400 and explained that he had bought the frame for the high-quality SRAM Red components, which, except for the bottom bracket, he had stripped from the frame. I told him about my intentions for the frame and that I had seen some newer Tarmac frames listed for not much more than he was asking for this eight-year-old version. I also asked for a close-up picture of a couple noticeable scratches.

   I was surprised when he countered with a $250 offer, and considering all the parts that were included, I quickly arranged to take a look, with cash in hand! Since my son Carrick has class at the community college’s new cooking school in Lansdale, I was about halfway to our planned meeting on a Wednesday afternoon. As stepped out of my car at the "neutral site" parking lot, Mike said he knew I was the right guy when he saw the Colnago decals on my car windows.

   The Specialized frame is an interesting aerodynamic shape, and the paint job of black with silver accents looked pretty slick. I noticed the seat post clamp was a bit chewed up and would need to be replaced, but the scratches were fairly minor and were already touched up adequately with black paint. Mike pointed out rusty barrel adjusters (you can see one of them in the picture above, just below the downtube to the right of the "D") that he thought would be easy to loosen with some WD40.

   We shared our disappointment in the beautiful Dura-Ace rear hub being so damaged and wondered how the previous owner may have done it, considering how unaffected the rim and spokes appeared to be. I told him how my wife and I both managed to destroy wheels (incidences separated by nearly 20 years) by propping them against the rear bumper while loading our bikes, then forgetting to retrieve the wheel and backing over them. She wrecked the rim and spokes, but my damage was very similar to what we were seeing on this wheel.

   Mike told me that he had picked up the bike in downtown Philadelphia and ridden it back (despite the damaged wheel) down the Schuylkill Trail to his car. Considering he was about my height, Mike must have been stretched out quite a bit on this huge bicycle frame! He made me very comfortable about buying the frame by sharing as much information as he could and clinched the deal by telling me that if I had any problems, I could contact him for a refund.

   Bob was excited to see the frame, and I told him that if he was hesitant to buy in any way, I would be keeping it myself to build up and sell. However, he was happy with what he saw and the low price. He liked the prospect of looking for higher quality parts to customize his ride, since we were well below his budget so far.

   Finding a set of Specialized handlebars and a nice set lightly used Look pedals was relatively simple, but I was surprised at the short time it took to come up with a component system. Only a week later, we found a full Shimano Ultegra group (picture below) that was a take-off from a new bicycle. We liked the idea of the stealthy image the black parts were going to give the Tarmac, and I set out on a bit longer search for a replacement wheel.

   In the meantime I visited the local Specialized dealer to order a new seatpost clamp and bought a couple new barrel adjusters while I was there. However, Bikesport is my go-to shop for repairs, and I dropped off the frame there to have them work on removing the rusted parts, since (despite Mike’s prediction) they would not budge after I soaked them in WD40 and attempted to extract them myself.

   The wheel situation didn’t turn out much better, when I discovered upon further inspection, a hairline crack around one of the spoke holes. I removed the rim tape and found the crack was even worse on the inside. Open Pros have been a standard racing rim for years, and I was disappointed to miss out on the funds we could reclaim by reselling the part.

   During my somewhat fruitless search that following week for a matching Dura-Ace/Mavic wheel, I saw the high prices on similar items and found it might be possible to sell the one good wheel and to buy a complete wheelset of very good quality. Eventually I was able to sell the remaining front wheel for close to $100, which allowed me to purchase a wonderful set of Mavic Aksium wheels (photo left) with a very good set of tires already installed!

   I have been having conversations with Peter at Bikesport, and I am getting the impression they are having a frustrating time with the rusty barrel adjusters. The hollow bolts (because the cable feed through them) sheared off during initial attempts to remove them. Peter is alternating picking at the broken pieces with a set of jewelers tools with sessions of soaking the parts in solvent to help loosen the tiny shards of metal. He said there is light at the end of the tunnel, but because of the head tube being in close proximity, getting into the right angle is difficult - a lot of knuckle scraping has happened, apparently. Hope he doesn’t charge by skin loss!

 So that is where things stand, in limbo, for the time being.