Weekend Puttering

Its been a weekend of short rides and lots of small projects.


Trek 520
After doing a 5 mile ride of incline repeats, I can't really call them hills,  I was up to about 15 km on the Trek 520 Cirrus and decided it was time to do more than just put air in the tires and reconnect the front brakes.

I started with de-glazing the brake pads with some fine grit sandpaper and then pulled both the stem and seat post to wipe down the old grease and apply fresh.

There were a number of allen bolts that had collected rust like the stem bolt that I spend time staring at when I ride.  My Dremel with a fine brass brush is just right for this job.

And did the same for this canti brake bolt..

and finally on this brake lever rivet, that Dremel is worth every penny I paid for it!  I also cleaned and lubed the chain on the 520.  It will get the spa treatment after the Clunker challenge is finished.  I took it for a ride this morning on a short 4.2 km course that I have been using as a fitness gauge,   On my first ride on the road, post crash, I took the handsome devil on this route just riding causally in about 21 minutes.  Later I rode it on the Moto_GT in just under 18 minutes.   I clocked under 17 on the Cresta GT with re-bent fork yesterday and this morning came in at 16:09 on the 520 for a course record.  I think that means my fitness is getting better but now I really need to do longer, hillier rides.

Novara Randonee
While waiting on a new, narrower, seat post binder bolt the Randonee is in dry dock but that didn't stop me from puttering.  I test fit the fenders with not much hope and found that the 27 X 1 1/4 still didn't want to play nice even with the stock brakes.  To that end I ordered some inexpensive Kenda 27 x 1 1/8 tires to mirror what was on the bike originally as I would really like a fendered bike option if I am going to maintain fleet.  I think the Pasela's on it currently will end up on the Trek 520 when it gets rebuilt.

I cleaned up the kickstand, added some intertube bits on the chainstays to protect them from getting scrapped up and mounted the kickstand.  I know some people find them heavy and unnecessary but I think they are useful and miss them when I ride bikes without them.

After testing the zefal pump to be sure it worked I put the umbrella clamp back on the seat tube and mounted the pump.  I really like the modern Leyzene pump as they are smaller and I think more efficient, but if you have a working vintage pump you might as well use it right?

Nishiki Cresta GT

I wanted to take the Cresta with repaired original fork on a longer ride than just around the block to test my initial feeling that it rode different than before.  As I mentioned above I took it on my baseline 4.2 km ride and I didn't dislike how it felt, but it was different.  I wouldn't go so far as to say twitchy but the handling was certainly lively and I felt like I needed a firm hand on the handlebars to keep the bike from getting away from me.  I would not want to try riding it no handed.   To sum up it handled more like a race bike than with the stable, stately ride of a tourer that I remembered.  Not bad per se just different.

what the fork!?

Ride. Smile. Repeat.