Ride It or Die: Trek 620 Rebuild (cont'd)

Welcome, jerks.

Yeah, I got the fever. Three or four years ago, a rabid, red-eyed zombie sank its rotten teeth into my arm and thus I was infected with a peculiar strain of irrational obsession. Since then I have breathed, eaten, and slept bikes and almost nothing else. Maybe a vaccine will be invented, or maybe it'll simply pass, but until then I'm a slave to my compulsion to buy, transport, take apart, degrease, scour, lube, polish, assemble, tune, tighten, align, wax, buff, and yes, ride, ride, ride these magical two-wheeled machines.

So, the idea is, on this page I'm going to post pictures and perhaps stories of bikes that I've refurbished and ridden or ones that are in the process or recently completed. Maybe it'll expand from there. We'll see, I guess.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Trek 620 Rebuild (cont'd)

Despite having the correct size seatpost in it, this frame had an unusually narrow slit in the seat lug, too slender to fit a normal cable hanger. I was so set on using the center pull brakes, though, that I made it work by means of this clunky clamp-on hanger. If I had to do it over again I would have shopped for a slightly larger seatpost and/or filed the slit in the seat lug to fit a small hanger. You live and learn, I guess.

This is my version of the "spring-thing" that VO sells, modified to fit an undrilled seat stay bridge. Again, if I had to do it again, I probably would have just drilled the bridge and put a bolt through it instead of using the p-clamp.