Storing up for the winter?

   I didn't really intend to post again before Christmas, but I've had a large number of projects come in lately, and I now have rafters full of completed bicycles for sale.

   For a few weeks I had been in contact with a gentleman named Walter who had a collection of bicycles he wished to thin out. He asked, since I had various outlets for selling and a decent network of folks who regularly look at the bicycles I build, if I would mind including his bicycles along with mine. I
answered that, because his are unique and of a high quality, I would have no objections to including his bicycles.
   Two of his bikes are custom-built steel frames from Voodoo, a Japanese-American company founded in 1994 that focuses on off-road machines. The first of Walter's bikes is a cyclocross bike called the Wazoo, made of high-quality Reynolds 853 tubing. The bike is built up with a Campagnolo Racing T (triple) groupset and other high-end components that you can see in the specs listed on the For Sale page.

   The other bike Walter wanted to unload is a mountain bike called the Wanga. Its frame is also constructed with high-quality steel tubing, in this case Tange Prestige. The bike is equipped with Shimano Deore drivetrain and a set of Mavic wheels. Again the specs can be view in more detail on the For Sale page.

   Another bike in Walter's collection is a 1990s Fuji steel bike. He started to build it up as a single speed, so there are some really nice, new parts already on it. The frame also has a fresh glossy black paint job that is really well done.

   You could go different ways with this one - finish up what Walter started and slap on a single gear or fixed cog, or build it up as a six- or seven-speed classic. I'd be willing to complete the build for you for $30 – you’d just need to pay for the needed parts! Classic decals could also be added, if you'd really like the bike to pop.

   I have a couple of new projects-in-progress to discuss in the next month or so, one involving a 2006 Orbea "Mud" cyclocross bicycle I mentioned back in October as a donor bike for my friend James' Panasonic adventure bike. I recently completed some touch up paint to an area where the braze-on derailleur hanger had been removed. A clamp-on version will take its place, and I will be building the bike up soon.
   The other project features an additional donor bike, in this case a Nashbar bare carbon bicycle, with which I plan to do some custom work. The plan is coming along, but it will be cobble-themed, involving some vinyl decals of heroes like de Vlaeminck, Museeuw, Cancellara and Boonen.

   Some more extensive paintwork was needed on a Surly steel touring bike that a customer dropped off a couple of weeks ago. There was a decent amount of rust under the top tube, as well as along the seat tube near the front derailleur mount. I had to do a lot of sanding to smooth our the rust and pitting, and was lucky to find a dark green spray paint to touch up the (now) bare spots.
   The Surly had bar end shift levers and a triple chainring set-up that was toast, and the wish was to have a 36/22t version installed to provide extreme "climbability", along with some modern brake/shift levers. I'm also swapping a shorter stem and some handlebars with a shallow drop to provide a more comfortable reach.

   Finally, I've completed an upgrade to a customer's mid-1990s Masi 3v Team bicycle. The steel classic had a base component group of older Campagnolo 7-speed components, and the idea was to upgrade to a modern Campy group with Ergo shifters, a compact crankset and a rear derailleur with a longer cage to take up the chain slack.

   There were some ups and downs with the project, such as the valuable Mavic rear derailleur that we could sell off to finance the replacement parts, which was offset by discovering the bottom bracket was seized in the frame. My friends at Bikesport helped to solve that issue with some youthful elbow grease, after some soaking in penetrating oil.

   I had to get more creative with a braze-on bracket that set the front derailleur at a level too high to work with the compact chainrings. A successful experiment with a spare Campagnolo derailleur involved sawing off its existing mounting bolt (shown in first photo below) and tapping a new hole higher in the aluminum block in which to insert a machine screw. You can see in the second photo how the higher bolt position allows the derailleur to seat lower in the braze-on bracket.

   The rest of the build was straightforward with no complications. I leave you with final pix of the Masi and wishes for a wonderful holiday season!

 

   

Shop Talk

   For a while I have been wanting to reorganize my shop, not only because it always seems to become cluttered with extra parts at the end of the cycling season but also to be able to access my tools more effectively. I also wanted to display my bicycle collection more effectively and move it closer to the work space.
   Whenever I have customers visiting my shop, I end up repeating the stories about the bicycles I own. Years ago I had built a bike for a friend, and he had told me about the area in his home where he stored the bike, which included memorabilia and photos that explained its back story. For a while I have had the idea of a small photo and some text hanging near each of my bikes, so that visitors could get the background all on their own.
   The first step in my little renovation project would be to sort through all the parts and clear them out to be sold off on eBay. It was great to see some empty table space, even if I knew it was going to be covered up with bits from projects I would be working on in upcoming days.
   I usually keep a couple bikes in our sunroom, as that is a location for easy access to the side door for rides. The rest of my bikes had been hanging in the rafters, upside down from their wheels, on the far side of my basement. I had the idea that if I could find a few feet of blank wall space, I would instead be able to hang them parallel vertically, with the wheels leaning onto the stone wall.
   There happened to be about a five-foot-wide cutout in the wall just to the left of the workbench I had received from my father-in-law a couple of years ago. This seemed just like the spot I needed, but it was occupied by a low storage cabinet. I rotated one of the nearby storage shelves to form an L-shape with the other one behind my shop storage unit/table, and then slid the low cabinet back into the spot where the rotated shelf had been.
   I slid my shop storage unit/table back a few feet to make the bicycles and low cabinet more accessible. Across the rafters in the cutout space I installed a 2x4 beam so that I could screw the hooks onto which I’d hang the bikes.

   You can see that by alternating the hanging of the bikes by front wheel and back I was able to compactly store the bicycles in that space. I completed this part of the project by creating little plaques to hang from each bicycle – you can see the text and photos I used on THIS page.
   I acquired from my mother’s collection of furniture a neat little stack of shelves that resemble vintage luggage (on the right in photo below). I filled the unit with a bunch of my tools and small parts, so I no longer have to dig through the few boxes in which I used to store them. Just above that shelf unit, along the wall, you can see the hole/slot into which I slide my wall clamp to work on bikes. The floor mat is another indication of my spot for doing repairs, etc.

   The next image is a close-up of how the pipe clamp slips into the work bench/partition wall my brother-in-law Jay and I built years ago, after a big basement water abatement project. Without a lot of free wall space, it was important to have something that could be easily removed when not in use. No one wants to conk his head on a heavy metal pipe when heading over to do the laundry or grab something out of the basement freezer!

   If you turned to the left, this is the view you’d see, towards my father-in-law’s workbench and some of the signs and posters I have decorating my shop.

   A while ago, my son Carrick’s friend Alex snapped the cool photo below of the vintage bicycles I had hanging in the rear of my shop, behind the freezer. Although the image includes a bit of lumber and unwanted clutter that will be gone when I finish up my model train layout, I still like the pic a lot. The fisheye perspective is interesting, and the variety of bikes I had hanging at the time was outstanding: Vitus, Peugeot, Coppi, Tommasini and Gios!

   There is another major renovation - as you may have already noticed - to the Cycle Tech logo. 2021 marked the 10th anniversary of my business, and I wanted the design of the logo to more reflect my preference for building/working on vintage bicycles. Yes, the cycling world might be going to disk brakes, hydraulics and electronic shifting, but I don’t have to like it. I promise to keep my grumbling to a minimum!

   By the way, Cycle Tech’s previously-mentioned “Ride with Santa” was postponed, due to the awful weather this past Saturday evening. Instead, we will be heading out to Reading this coming Saturday, the 18th of December. Dress appropriately (warmly?), put some lights on your bike and come join us!

   Finally, I snapped some photos of the long-awaited completion of the Vitus 992 build. There really weren’t any complications – it was just a matter of removing the last bits of crumbling old decals, putting on the replacements and then building up the bike. Included are Mavic parts that are rare, not only because they are hard to find, but also because they are in such fantastic condition. The Vitus is now listed on my For Sale page.

I’ll catch up with you after the holidays – stay safe, and have a very

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Return of the Adventure Bike

   Yes, it's part three of the Adventure Bike Series, and there is still one to go! A customer has a Marin mountain bike conversion waiting in the wings, but my recent project was quite similar, involving a Giant Boulder SE that was just sitting unused in my garage. There are a few friends in my cycling circle who only have road bikes, and since we have a few regular routes that travel unpaved roads, I thought it would be a good idea to have something on hand to borrow for such occasions.

   The plan wasn't too complicated, and I've experimented a bit with some non-name-brand components, just to keep the costs down. This Giant isn't exactly state-of-the-art and has a good deal of miles on it, so I didn't want to throw a lot of money at the build. The bike originally had a lower-level Shimano 3x7 drivetrain, so I decided to go with simplicity and install a 1x setup.

   Although the long-cage derailleur that came on the mountain bike would take plenty of the chain slack, it wouldn't work like the modern rear derailleurs with a clutch to maintain chain tension, so I was a bit concerned about chain bounce. I installed a narrow/wide chainring to help ensure the chain stays put!

   I had experience with Microshift seven-speed levers from building my friend Kathy's vintage Terry bicycle, and I really liked the way they operated. I found that they had the added plus of a slightly angled brake lever, which keeps the shifting paddle, located behind the lever blade, clear of the bars when applying the brakes. This is important because the Giant came equipped with V-brakes, which require more cable pull to work properly - being able to grab a full squeeze of the lever is a necessity!

   Come one, come all - decorate your bike with lights (not a requirement) and join us for a ride out to Reading and back. In the community of Stowe, we'll meet at the Grosstown Road trailhead of the SRT, right near the Continental Concrete factory. The trail is now almost entirely off-road, and the sections of street we will have to travel are practically traffic-free, as most cars are diverted onto parallel Rt. 724! The majority of the trail is unpaved, so I would suggest bringing a bike with wider tires.

My Current Bike Collection - A History

 I put together this page as a reference to a future blog entry. Presented in the order that I acquired each bike, here is a background story to the machines I currently have in my collection. I used the photos and text below to create small plaques to display with the bicycles around my home:

   The story of this brand’s famous color is a bit murky, but to me, if it’s not celeste, the bike is not a Bianchi! I felt it was necessary to have a bike by the world’s oldest existing manufacturer. Since 1885, the Milanese company has supplied bicycles to legends such as Fausto Coppi, Felice Gimondi (pictured) and Marco Pantani. The 2022 Bianchi Camaleonte allows me to take advantage of the many unpaved rail trails nearby.

 

   My 2012 Cannondale SuperSix 5 is in the colors of the Liquigas-Cannondale team. The squad during that time was loaded with stars like Peter Sagan (pictured), Vincenzo Nibali, Ivan Basso and Elia Viviani.

   Because all-time favorite Sean Kelly rode a Vitus to countless victories, I simply had to have a bike by the French brand in my collection. I went a slightly different direction with this 1995 Vitus 992 in Lotto-Isoglass team colors, which is similar to the one ridden by Andrei Tchmil (pictured) in that year’s Paris-Roubaix. The Soviet star had won the “Hell of the North” the previous season, and won many other Classics during his career.

   The Del Tongo team rode bikes in a paint color that became known as “Saronni red”, named after Italian legend Giuseppe Saronni, who won the Giro d’Italia twice. The Colnago he rode to a 1982 World Championship had a scheme similar to that on my 2008 Colnago Extreme Power.

   Claude Criquielion was an immediate favorite when I first became a pro cycling fan. When I saw a 1989 Eddy Merckx Century in Hitachi team colors, just like the one the Belgian star rode to victory during that season’s La Flèche Wallonne, I had to have it! Although the team bike would have been outfitted in Mavic components, I decided to go with Campagnolo C-Record – the stuff I lusted after in catalogs when I was a teen during that era. However, I did equip my bike with the handlebars, saddle and pedals that Claude used.

   Spaniard Alejandro Valverde has been a more recent favorite of mine, and I loved the 2008 Pinarello Prince bicycles ridden by his Caisse d’Epargne team. My desire to own one of these machines intensified during a 2011 visit to the Lazzaretti bike shop in Rome, where I saw dozens of the frames with the cool, curvy fork and seat stays.