CYCLE TECH ROFO: 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.