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@t-4003
I have been tasked with clearing out my parents garage and while I was there I found my dads old bike. Much to my surprise it is an Eddy Merckx ‘tour de France’. It’s been in there for 18 years, so it is pretty dirty and has some (what I hope is only) surface rust on the stem, bars, wheels and possibly a few bits on the frame.
Dates are not my dad’s strong point but he thinks he would have got it probably in the late 70s or early 80s. It was last used in the late 80s to take my sister or I to school through the mean streets of Shepard's Bush. I reckon it was probably one of the more basic models as my parents were not exactly flush with cash, but I’m struggling to find out any info – I had a quick look and couldn’t see a number stamped on the BB shell, should I be looking somewhere else? I’d be interested to know more about this bike, so if someone can recommend a site where I can get a bit of history / place it that would be great. I’ve tried to find old catalogues online but have so far failed. It's got a light mount on the forks, not sure if that is unusual or not.
Anyway, before I start to try to clean it up I thought it would be worth getting a little advice as I don’t want to damage the paint etc. Can someone please point me in the direction of the thread(s) about removing surface rust and general tips on how to clean up an old bike. I can only seem to find a couple and I’m sure there was a quite involved thread somewhere.
My dad was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, so if I can I’d really like to get this bike up and running again and do a sponsored ride on it to raise money for the hospice where he is being treated. The work they do is amazing and they run almost completely on donations so I’d like to help out as much as possible to keep them going - so they can support other families as much as they are supporting ours. I was thinking of getting it set up with some moustasche bars and sticking his old rack and panniers on too. A gentlemans bike if you will.
here are a couple of pics. Thanks very much.
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