RRRRRRetro

Some time around 10 pm last night I decided to have a look at that baulky rear brake that's been causing me grief for the last week or two. The first thing I discovered was that the cable didn't want to come out of the housing when I pulled on it from the front of the brake lever. Not knowing whether the problem was inside the lever body or just a problem with the cable housing, I decided to go ahead and unwrap the handlebar and take the lever off for a good look. As it turned out, I found that the plastic housing on the brake cable had a big tear in it (How'd that happen??) right around where it came out from under the handlebar tape near the stem. When I pulled the cable out, using pliers and a whole lot more force than should be necessary, I found that an inch or so of the cable was coated with what can be best described as "grunge." I guess sweat had been getting in there and had just made a mess inside that little section of cable. So anyway, that was easy enough to clean up but since I had the lever off the bike anyway, I decided I may as well do a little exploratory surgery.

The inside of the shifter was a bit of a mess with lubricant all over the place, but in general it was fairly clean and, surprisingly, nothing was actually broken. Both "G springs" were intact, as were the other two main springs, so I just cleaned everything up. It looked like many of the key parts in there were pretty well worn, so a complete rebuild is definitely in order, but the good news is that it is otherwise in decent shape and worth rebuilding. The only question is whether to rebuild it as 10-speed or 9-speed, since I'll be needing to replace most of the drivetrain anyway. Getting the spring tension back with all the little parts that stack on top of each other proved a bit too much for my sleepy brain, so I decided I needed sleep more than a shifter and hit the sack, leaving bits and pieces of shifter scattered about the workbench. I'll have to scout around on the 'net and see if anyone has any hints about reassembly because as far as I can tell it requires a minimum of three hands.

So this morning I dusted off the Really Old Bike for the Thursday long ride. I got the old Pennine frame new back in 1972. It was custom ordered from England through my local bike shop. I was able to specify the colors, the style of lugs, the type of dropouts, the fork crown, where the chrome should go, where the braze-ons should be placed, etc. As I recall, it cost $110 including the fork and headset. I raced on it for ten or eleven years. I guess that now, like me, it's a genuine antique. Anyway, it fits well and doesn't really feel all that different when I'm riding a steady pace, except of course that the old school front fork puts the front wheel alarmingly far in front of the bars and I'm limited to a 5-speed freewheel with a high gear of 52 x 14. It was a nice ride anyway today. It seems the Thursday rides have gotten to be somewhat less intense than the Tuesday ones, but still not what you'd call "easy."