New Bike: Old Trek

I found the urge to buy a big old Trek road bike, again, my third. My 612 was a nice, but old enough that it still had an oddball collection of braze ones (one bottle cage, no shifter bosses, lots of nutted fasteners). I did a 650B conversion with it, but the Pacenti rims were awful. My 510 that followed it had nicely thinned lugs, but the frame wasn't straight. Since I recently sold my Soma--it just didn't excite me--I've been without a road bike this summer. Unless you consider the Dahon, which I've been riding--and enjoying--during this time.

But I felt the urge for another big old Trek. Some CL trawling led me to this bike in Dayton:

It was cheap, but not local, but a trip to Dayton is a good excuse to go out to Cici's pizza, which means I had some company on this trip:

I talked the seller down enough on price to pay for our lunch, so soon I had some cheap pizza in my belly and an old Trek on the bike rack.

Maybe I should have talked the guy down more, though. I quickly found some issues as I went over the bike in my workshop:

I already knew the pedals didn't match:

And the ratty bar tape and 38cm bar (on a 25.5" frame!) would have to go:

Even if the 20mm tires weren't dry rotted, they would have to go. Did anybody ever think riding a 20mm tire was a good idea?

The big issue was the seat post. It's a nice Campy post, as the seller proclaimed, but frozen solid:

When neither wrenches nor a big hammer could move it, I soaked the seat tube in ammonia from the inside:

While this might have worked for someone on the internet, even soaking four days didn't budge this post. I bought some new hacksaw blades to cut it out, but for now I'm just living with it: with my new saddle on there, the saddle height is just right for me.

My theme for this build was "spend no money," though of course I had to order up some new tires (and pay for the ammonia) Everything else, though, came from my bin:

I pulled the 53t outer ring off to make a 1x drivetrain, and on went my (matching!) Grip King pedals:

I converted my fixed 700c wheel back to a freehub and put on an old 8 speed cassette and chain, maybe 12-28, I'm not sure. It's enough gearing for what I want to do with this bike:

The pitted headset was trashed, butI just happened to have a NIB VO Grand Cru headset on my shelf waiting for a home:

Continental Ultra Sport 28mm tires fit nicely under the short reach brakes, and ride pretty nicely for their $18 price. They feel massive after those silly 20mm tires:

Trek did a nice job of maximizing tire clearance on this model, both wheels have the pads right at the bottom of the slot.

The too short stem was replaced with a threadless adapter, and the child sized bar replaced with a Salsa Bell Lap. The ergo bend isn't beautiful, but the off key Novara red tape hides it. Sort of.

You can also see the bar end shifter I'm using to drive my 8 speed cassette:

Finally a decent saddle, a bag to carry stuff, and I'm ready to roll:

Of the original bike, I'm only using the crankset, rear derailer, brakes, bottom bracket, and, of course, the seat post. But I've removed the binder bolt to save weight.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It feels fast! Maybe that's due to the 531 frame, or maybe that 5g binder bolt really makes a difference. Most likely it's because I've been riding my Dahon all summer.

I'm not sold on the bars. I may try an Albastache again or something similar in the future, as I'm not quite comfortable on the ramps of these Bell Laps.

Regardless, it's nice to have something different in my stable that lets me change up my riding.