Old Friends

I'm in the process of re-acquainting myself with my road bikes. I've got three. Okay, really two and a half. Or two and three quarters.

I documented my stable a little bit in a previous post (N+1). The two road bikes are the Paul Barkley and TiCycles Softrides, and the half (or three quarters) is the Scott Waimea. Of these three, I think I've ridden the Paul Barkley the most over the last few years. It's a little cobbled together right now. The original first-generation Ultegra STI 8-speed "brifters" (brake/shift levers) froze up long ago, and nothing would revive them. It now has standard brake levers, with a SunTour Cyclone down tube front derailleur shifter (serious vintage part), and a SunTour bar-end shifter for the rear (it's actually a front shifter, but has enough throw so that it works for the rear).

Fortunately, the shifters on the TiCycles still work. I used this bike most when I was bike racing pretty much full time. It's been hanging in my garage for a few years now. Why? Can't really say. Part of it was that the tires were flat, and when I swapped out the front tube, it went immediately flat again. I recently replaced the rim strip, tube and tire, and it seems to be holding up fine now. It's ready to ride again, and I've had it on the trainer.

The Scott is actually an old tri bike that I set up as a roadie (drop bars and "brifters") and added Profile T2+ clip-ons. It was bought as a way to use some PowerCranks in a year-long trial that never really worked for me. At the end of that year, I shipped the PC's back but kept the bike. I kept it at work last summer for lunch time road rides. It also has a down-tube front shifter because the left brifter is a triple, while the cranks are double. I sold the clip-ons last fall, so it's a full-time roadie now.

There are still some accommodations to make with the TiCycles and the Scott. I have a compact crank on the Paul Barkley, but standards on both the TiCycles and the Scott. Since the Scott has 650 wheels, it essentially makes the crank a compact, but with the standard on the TiCycles and 700 wheels, it needs a wider range rear cluster rather than the 11-23 8-speed that's on there now. And the Scott needs a set-back seatpost to make the position a little more road-worthy, taking some weight off my hands, and maybe a wider range of gears in the back as well.

So why am I re-acquainting myself with these bikes? Because next year's RAMROD isn't all that far off. It's only 15 months away.

Never too early to prepare. And I like working on the bikes.