After a few weeks of a self-imposed writing hiatus, I scraped up the enthusiasm to sit down and type out my thoughts. The break was mostly due to my projects grinding to a halt because of the parts shortage, so I didn’t have much to feature here. I did have a steady amount of repair/tune-up work coming in, but nothing that really inspired interesting blog themes!
A family situation with which I was dealing also proved to be a bit mentally draining. I found that getting back into the shop for extended periods and going on long rides were great ways to release stress.
I have a goal to ride six thousand miles this year, which generally involved getting out every other day for about 30-40 miles. It seemed lately that the good weather days always ended up being those when I needed to be dealing with some issue. I really don’t want to ride in the rain or high winds, so I had been doing “make-up mileage” on the more pleasant days.
I’ve actually done three metric centuries in the past two weeks to mixed results, but was amazed how good I felt during a full 100-miler earlier this month. I haven’t really been going anywhere exotic lately, just starting from home and heading out. Those kinds of miles take up a good chunk of the day, and I didn’t feel that I needed to add drive time to the occasions.
Anyhow, this entry is a sort of sequel to an earlier blog subject, featuring my own Bianchi Cross Concept bicycle. There is another future segment planned, and I bet Star Wars fans can guess what its title will be.
A couple months ago I had mentioned two SRAM 1x projects and a prospective plan to find the needed parts through the purchase of inexpensive complete bicycles. That is exactly the route I went to finish up a 1980s Panasonic vintage steel machine for my friend James’ son. I found a reasonably-priced Orbea “Mud” cyclocross bike listed on PinkBike.com, which came equipped with the levers for which I had been fruitlessly searching for months.
The Panasonic had come to me with lower-level Shimano and Sakae/Ringyo components which were pretty worn, but with the present supply issues, I should be able to resell the set for a bit of cash. I built up the bike with a drivetrain that included a SRAM GX rear derailleur that has a clutch to keep back tension and prevent chain bounce while riding over rough terrain. There is going to be considerable slack in a chain when contending with a massive 11-36t cassette! The X-Sync narrow/wide chainring, mounted to a new Truvativ/SRAM Touro crankset, has alternating teeth shapes to also help keep the chain in place.
This vintage steel frameset had plenty of clearance, but because it is a road frame, it did not have mounts for cantilever brakes. SRAM Rival side-pull calipers left us room for fitting a set of 30mm diameter Kenda Kwik tires, which I’ve found have tremendous puncture resistance. The tires were mounted to a nice set of Shimano wheels that James had provided.
He had told me that his son likes a less aggressive, upright riding position, so I installed a Nitto Technomic stem, which has long quill that allows the bars to be set higher – a detail that will be obvious in the photos:
A few weeks ago, a nice guy named Mike drove down from North Jersey to drop off a couple bikes. One was a Trek Emonda that was a couple years old and in need of a tune-up, and the other was a 1989 Cannondale ST400 that he wanted to overhaul. I was very familiar with this bike – other than being MUCH larger in size, it was the same exact model and color Cannondale that I owned for nearly twenty years. The bike was outfitted with all of the same Shimano components with which I had become so familiar.
Most of the parts were well worn and/or showed oxidation, and Mike mentioned that the wheels were causing issues. The Vitus 992 that I’ve had in my build queue had Shimano components from the same era, but in much better condition. I intend to install a Mavic group on that bike, so it became a bit of a parts donor for the Cannondale.
Mike was looking for some tires with better puncture resistance and also expressed the desire to mix terrain a bit, so I immediately thought of the Kenda Kwik. The tire purchase for James was done months ago, and I was a bit frustrated to find the solid black tires were sold out at all my regular sources. A tan wall version was available, and I considered that these would actually look better with the vintage wheels on the Cannondale.
A minor complication occurred with the headset, as the original had a very rusty locknut and cups. I knew that I had saved parts from my Cannondale and hoped I could simply swap in the necessary replacements. Unfortunately, I must have used the bottom cup for some other project, and nothing else I had would mesh correctly with the fairly shallow profile of the fork’s crown race. I soaked the original cup in Metal Rescue gel and then buffed it out the best I could with fine steel wool and light oil.
I purchased some new brake lever hoods, then polished up the lever blades and stem before wrapping the bars in some new cork tape. Mike told me that, as nice as the modern Emonda is to ride, he really prefers the fit of the Cannondale, so I hope he is happy with its restoration.
