My latest resto-mod project

i'm definitely down with the resto-mod concept, whether it's applied to cars, trucks, houses, motorcycles, or in this case, a bicycle.

as i've posted elsewhere in the GRM forums, my brother has a sweet vintage 10-speed racing bike that he bought in the late '70s. Mirella frame with chrome lugs, chrome Tange front fork (because I crashed it in '81 and bent the OE Mirella painted fork), Simplex down-tube shifters, Campagnolo cranks and 42/53 chainrings, Perfect rear freewheel, Balilla brake levers and center-pull brakes, Campy hubs, Campy cable housing clamps, what I believe are Campy stem and bar (labeled "t t t" and "3" and bearing the olympic rings, and the stem has "RECORD" cast into it), Simplex rear derailleur.

it is a very comfortable bike for me to ride, and i've put a couple thousand miles on it since pulling it out of his basement in 2008 so i could ride it in that year's mid-Michigan Bike MS fundraiser -- he was diagnosed with MS in '94 and probably hadn't been on the bike for a couple years before that. he commuted on this bike for a couple years when he lived in AZ, and it was a big part of his life, so I really like riding it in the MS fundraiser.

but it seems like i break a spoke on the rear wheel every time i hit a big bump -- and in Michigan the big bumps are pretty hard to avoid. sure, i could have the rear wheel relaced and not worry about it anymore, but this thread would not be very interesting.

here's the plan so far:

keeping: frame, fork, stem, bar, cranks, cable housing clamps, center-pull brakes;

adding: Bontrager 700c aero wheels, 9-speed Ultegra rear, Ultegra integrated brake/shift hardware (mostly for the more comfortable hoods).

to accomodate the rear hub, i have to spread the rear dropouts about 14mm, then tweak them back to parallel to get the derailleur alignment right. i've already had the rear wheel in place a couple times, and the chain lines look OK. i'm not ratting it down or pimping it up. it will wear what's left of it's OE finish in all it's weathered dinged scraped and rusted glory.

all upgrade parts are coming from a 2003 Lemond Buenos Aires that I bought as a basket-case from a good friend. if i run into any serious issues and can't get it all to work on the Mirella, i'll put the Lemond back together as a rat.

and now, the "before" photos:

I like Campy stuff for resto-mod because they have smaller hoods than the similar Shimano.

Campy stuff is cool. (I have some Campy bar end plugs on my Cannondale; that was all I could afford when I built the bike a million years ago.)

i just came in from the garage / bike shop. i hadn't touched the Mirella since my very first efforts at swapping the 700x23 / ultegra 9sp rear, as i've been busy training for the MS ride, working on the resto-mod '68 Mustang, and trying to be a responsible Dad in between. so tonight, instead of working on the '68, I installed the 9sp rear and the derailleur, which told me my dropouts needed big tweaking to get the derailleur aligned. pull both wheels, stick the dropout in the bench vise, and mildly pull on the steer tube. check it once, tweak it again, and everything looks good. pop the wheel in place, install the derailleur and the new IG chain, and now I have to decide whether to see if the Simplex downtube shifter has enough throw, or just swap to the ultegra flight deck brake/shift levers. put a new cable on the Simplex, took out the slack, and what do you know? it works like a charm. but they're friction shifters and they need a ton of friction to resist the stiff spring in the derailleur.

so now instead of a 13-14-16-18-21 rear i've got a 12-13-14-15-17-19-21-23-25, but doubt the big ones will get used unless i'm really bonked somewhere.

now to make the old-school brake hoods more comfortable.

pix tomorrow. i couldn't find the camera tonight.