Puttering along on the Allez

With the Allez down to the Frame it got me thinking, always a dangerous thing, about a slight change.  I do like the original 53/39 Shimano 600 crank but for hilly neighborhood and old man reasons it occurred to me that a compact crank might make more sense.  I found that I could get an FSA Vero 50/34 crank for about $70 delivered and I actually have a new 110 mm cartridge BB in the parts bin I can use. so I went for it.   If I find that I truly love this bike and the compact crank I can save my pennies for a nice Sugino XD2 that is about 3x the cost but with a more vintage look.

before

after a first pass

I also stripped the old bar wrap and started on cleaning up the grungy white brake hoods,  its amazing what some dish soap and a tooth brush will do.

I didn't let the lack of access to my deck stop me from using it to apply frame saver on internal tubes of the frame and fork. 

I also replaced the brake pads, since these are Suntour brakes, of course there are no replacement pads to be found.  Instead I went with Shimano Tiarga/Sora replacement pads.

I won't really know until I put the bike back together but it appears the pads will work fine.

And finally I got the new tires mounted, I think the red stripe should look good and hopefully the 700x25 cm size won't be too tall for the brakes.

For 3 of the main bearings I won't have much to do, the vintage wheels came to me already serviced and since they came from a Bike Forums member I assume they knew what they were doing, and they spin smooth,   The bottom bracket is a more modern cartridge style one that is brand new, so I really only need to do work on the headset.

Ride.Smile.Repeat.