The bike still lives outside and in 6 years the tires were looking shabby, they were used to begin with and Charlie was concerned about dry rot. As it turns out I had some Soma tires that were too fat for the Allez at 700 x 28c and frankly a bit undersized for this bike, but they were in good shape and this bike is back up transport not regularly used and so they would be fine.
I told Charlie I had some tires, they might be a bit gaudy but had plenty of life left. I couldn't just replace the tires, of course, so I put my workstand out on the porch to take advantage of the lovely weather we had last week.
The most obvious thing was to attack the rust so I used the dremel (with new battery) to remove the headset rust from the last 6 years.
The old tired tires came off and I did a few other things:
- lightly sanded down the brake pads
- wiped down the dirty frame
- checked the wheels for true and cleaned them up, and replaced a torn rim strip on the rear wheel
- cleaned and lubed the seat post and stem
- replaced the tires of course
- cleaned and lubed the chain
- took a test ride to check the braking and shifting
I wiped down the contact points, grips seat etc with Clorox wipes and did a no touch drop off. Charlie thought it looked a bit like the Pee Wee Herman bike lol. He didn't have too but insisted on giving me $$ for the work which was nice as was doing some bike work again since I have stalled out a bit on the 520,
Ride. Smile. Wash your hands. Repeat.
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