One of my better finds at the garbage tip shop. I greatly regret not having any pictures of it as found but here's what it looked like when new, a 56cm Giant Peloton 7000 from 1999 in candy gold yellow. This was Giant's bottom of the line road bike for that year.
http://archive.giant-bicycles.com/it/030.000.000/030.000.000.asp?year=1999&model=9521
According to the Giant archives it does at least have a double butted TIG welded cro-moly frame though the unicrown fork is only hi-ten. The derailleurs and brakes were Shimano RSX with RSX STI brifters that were non-functional by the time I got to the bike. Rear cogs were a freewheel rather than a cassette which I thought unusually archaic for a Giant only ten years old but both wheels were totally shot anyway. The deep V Alex rims were covered in powdery corrosion pits and several spokes had pulled through cracked spoke holes. "Twenty five dollars.", said the tip shop man. "Both wheels are buggered.", I protested. "Okay, fifteen.", and I was happy with that.
The gold paintwork and decals were in surprisingly good condition and a bit of cut and polish compound on the stripped frame made it almost like new. The STI brifters were plainly suffering from some terminal internal rupture. That didn't bother me because I had a pair of Paul Components thumb shifter bases all ready to receive Shimano 7 speed downtube shifters salvaged from another dump bike. They work well with the original RSX derailleurs. A set of Tektro short pull levers and a cheap alloy flat bar in a clashing shade of purple completed the cockpit area. The dual pivot RSX brake calipers needed no more than dismantling for a cleanup, lube and two sets of new Shimano pads.
The CPI brand crankset has perfect 52/42 chainwheels. I get the impression that this bike went from new to garbage tip in nine years while doing very little work along the way. It's amazing what polishing compound and a stitched cloth mop on a bench grinder can do for alloy crank arms.
This is it in current configuration. The olde skool MTB bar ends don't appeal to everyone but I like them for the forward hand grip they provide when I want to get up out of the saddle. The saddle itself is a Brooks B17 that was looking for a home. The threadless stem converter shoved down the threaded steerer tube is a little unfortunate but it lets me experiment with different stem lengths. When I'm sure I've got it right I might invest in a nice looking traditional stem of similar height and reach.
The wheels needed a bit of thought. Build wheels for a fifteen dollar bike or buy a nasty "Z" grade Shimano wheel set when they're on special?
Fate intervened when I acquired a job lot of bike junk out of the local pocket advertiser. Among the junk was a wheel set consisting of 36 spoke Campagnolo Omega rims on Shimano 105 hubs with DT Swiss spokes. They probably date from the 1990's but they were perfect for the job after new 105 bearing cones and balls all round and a spoke re-tension session in the wheel jig. They are probably the best part of the whole bike.
The Vittoria Randonneur 700x28 tyres just fit under the brake calipers and strike a nice balance between speed and comfort. After I fitted the speedo recently, I thought it must be wrong because there was no way I could be doing 35kph uphill on my homeward commute. Checking the speedo against a handheld GPS next day proved that it wasn't lying. The Yellow Terror is a bit of a rocketship and I'm even considering putting drop bars on it again.
Unfortunately the frame does not have downtube shifter bosses so I'd need bar-end shifters or maybe some Paul's shifter bases in road bar size. But they are an awful price just for a couple of well designed clamps with square shifter bosses on them. Don't anyone suggest brifters. I'm sure that serious roadies love brake levers that also change gears but all those little pawls and springs inside scare me. The indexed levers on Paul bases deliver lovely seamless shifts and are one lazy movement of a digit away. I use Shimano Rapidfire triggers on other hybrid style bikes I have and they work okay, though a little plasticky. However, my research suggests that Shimano only make one expensive and hard-to-find Rapidfire variant that suits a road double crankset. And it requires a specific (expensive) front derailleur mech. How much easier it would be if Shimano still made the Deore thumb shifters of the 1980's. Easier than adapting old stock downtube or bar-end levers using Paul's expensive bits.
I'm quite pleased with the way this bike turned out, considering that it wasn't very high class even when it was new and it's been refurbished with an assortment of cheap parts and junk.
1 comment:
I've used Rapid fire 3 speed front levers on twin chain ring setups with no problems. The spacing difference (if any) between 2 and 3 chain ring setups in Shimano world is close enough that the shifts work perfectly. You do end up with a "dead rubber" on the nice little gear indicator, but who looks at those anyway? (If it really offends you, 1 minutes work with a black felt pen will fix it right up). In fact if you would like a set of 3*7 Rapid fires, say the word and they are in a post bag to you. Remember the mech doesn't know how many chain rings it has to span, the only relevant measurement is how much travel it has. To be honest, I've never succeeded in getting "as designed" two speed front mech to work with three speeds (I have however "adjusted" the designed travel with a rat tail file successfully on more than one occasion. Front mechs are cheap - particularly three speed ones as they abound on wrecked MTBs which have same cable pull/mech travel ratio as road mechs.
At the back end the practical reality is that in Shimano world, any rear mech designed for indexing will work with any (road) cassette. I have a lovely Exage 500 mech (ex-Miyata 721A) rear mech currently doing duty on my horrid Gitane commuter shifting a 9 speed Shimano cassette.
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