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**Hilary, Dave and The 4 Handlebars of The Apocalypse
**I am a pair of pedals, tyres, tape and a brake away from riding the Merckx.
The front brake is hopefully sorted. And I thinking of a Paul cross lever. Primarily because it will have my name pantographed on it. And it won't even cost me extra. Sweet.
Seriously though, it's taken a while to get all the bits. So although this isn't a groupset shot, here's a little shiny photo
http://imageshack.us/a/img541/6196/bikekit.jpg
The Pista cranks are courtesy of AndyP. Merckx Cinelli XA stem from FranktheTank. I picked up the Chorus seatpost from ebay, Records were just going for too much and I needed to save a few quid somewhere. And I got the San Marco Regal Girardi seat for a bargain too.
The bars pictured are for illustrative purposes. I'll be using 65s, but not those exact ones. Here's why...
Before I bought pretty much anything else - other than the frame - I picked up a set of Cinelli Mon Campione Del Mondo bars. Old shield logo, decent condition. Pretty sweet shape on the drops. We'll call these Bars1.
To partner my lovely new friend, Bars1, I began a quest that would see me (metaphorically) scour the globe for a lovely Merckx panto stem. They occasionally cropped up on ebay. But were either in not very good knick or the wrong length. Or the wrong clamp size. I needed 26.0mm.
But then FranktheTank popped up with a Merckx stem on LFGSS. NOS condition. The right kinda length. Maybe a touch on the pricey side ;) but I was willing to chuck a little extra at it. Only problem - it was 26.4mm.
I left it for a week. Then I thought frig that, I'll change the bars.
So began my 2nd great quest - the search for a pair of Cinelli 65s. A non-milky non-brand new pair. We'll call these guys Bars2.
It took a while to find. I missed a pair on ebay. But eventually I chanced upon a pair when I visited Hilary Stone's site. Good condition, price seemed about right. And importantly, the right size for me and the stem. Email sent. Payment made. Job done.
Except when **Bars2 **arrive, they're not **Bars2. **No. They're BarsMotherFucking3.
Now, I don't wanna put a downer on BarsMotherFucking3. They're nice. 3TTT Superleggero. But they're not the right buddy for my Cinell stem. And they're for a 26.0mm clamp, not 26.4mm.
Arrrrrggg.
Get back on to Hilary. Email sent. No reply. No reply. No reply. Get angry. Make forum post. Assume I'll never seen see Bars2 and start thinking of selling Bars1 and BarsMotherFucking3. And because I just wanna get my bike build back on track, I decide that yes I should just buy a pair of Cinelli 65s - the milky new ish ones - and maybe even deanodize them.
Say hello to Bars4. That's them in the picture up there. Right, all sorted then. Or so I think.
The day after I buy Bars4, I get an email. Make that two emails. One from Hilary and one from Dave. Hang on, who's Dave?
It transpires that a bloke calling himself 'Dave in Amsterdam' had received Bars2. And I had received **BarsMotherFucking3. **Hilary had accidentally sent the wrong ones to each of us. Dave said he just wanted to check I was real. And can we swap.
So we confirmed that we were both indeed real. And our addresses were correct. And our respective bars are now on their way home. Huzzah. Though of course, I've still got **Bars1 **and Bars4 now and I'm sick of tripping over spare parts in my office.
The funny little part of the story (for me anyway) was that Dave is also in the midst of a project. He's restoring a Bianchi he picked up - you can see it here http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=253356
Turns out he'd got a few too many parts aswell. He was looking for a very specific stem to go with BarsMotherFucking3. And after all this, just before Hilary got in touch with us about the mistake, he'd found that stem. And bought it. And it came with the exact same bars, so he's got two sets. We'll call them BarsMotherFucking5 !!!
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Yep - bars you'll get ASAP! What cranks did you opt for?
DB. See what you did there.
As you can see, I've got some nice shiny Campagnolo Record Pista cranks. Very happy with 'em. Took a while to source, same as with everything else!
Hope all is well in Amsterdam :)
And welcome to LFGSS.
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Crafty stuff... I know.
Those are some deadsexy cranks you got there... Making me wonder whether my next project (curse me) shouldn't be a fixed gear instead of a road bike. That barebones simplicity just can't be trumped! It would at least provide me with a great opportunity to collect double or triple the amount of parts I need, in a completely different bicycle category. The wife will undoubtedly love me exponentially more as a result.
BTW - I don't know what's more fun to read, the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner or the Almost-Never-Ending Story of the Bars!
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Crafty stuff... I know.
Those are some deadsexy cranks you got there... Making me wonder whether my next project (curse me) shouldn't be a fixed gear instead of a road bike. That barebones simplicity just can't be trumped! It would at least provide me with a great opportunity to collect double or triple the amount of parts I need, in a completely different bicycle category. The wife will undoubtedly love me exponentially more as a result.
BTW - I don't know what's more fun to read, the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner or the Almost-Never-Ending Story of the Bars!
Most certainly the almost-never-ending story of the bars!
I just had to share the pain. It's part of the healing process. One simple sentence would not have sufficed.
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Hey Paul, how did your build end up?! Any pictures?!
My Bianchi managed to get put together 15 minutes before our van departed for the Retro in Oudenaarde last month, which meant that I got to do a first shakedown run of the 30 year old bird, cracked tires and vintage brake pads and all, on the cobblestones and descents of Belgium. Held up like a charm, and looked the bit too!
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Hey Paul, how did your build end up?! Any pictures?!
My Bianchi managed to get put together 15 minutes before our van departed for the Retro in Oudenaarde last month, which meant that I got to do a first shakedown run of the 30 year old bird, cracked tires and vintage brake pads and all, on the cobblestones and descents of Belgium. Held up like a charm, and looked the bit too!
Hi Dave, would love to see any pics from the Retro ride, especially of how your Bianchi ended up too. Sounds great. Glad you got it ready in time.
My Merckx will finally be ready next week I hope. I spent a long time deliberating over pedals. '92 seemed to be a year when Campag were still doing toestraps, but also just bringing clipless too.
In the end I opted for toestraps. And it's taken me a long time to source the pedals. But I got 'em finally last week. There's a couple of bits I don't have tools for, so it's going to the shop on Friday to have a couple of things done, then hopefully I'll be riding it next week.
Finally.
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Fantastic read.
This really does need more pictures though. I have a real soft spot for Merckx of this era, the paint and detail is beautiful!
Glad some people like it, i was gonna let the thread die, but I'll post up some pics next week of the finished bike.
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Rode it to work this morning 'cos the weather is decent. Woot. Pictures by the weekend.
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Here's how it's currently on the wall.
Cool. You got a different seatpost in on the two photos?
Looks lovely.
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Ok, here's some photos of the 99% finished bike. As a tribute to everyone who thinks I'm a puppy killer, me and my girlfriend took a ride out to Southern Cemetry in Manchester - biggest cemog in the UK - and snapped some pictures.
btw I'm a rubbish photographer, I tried to do the fancy shots like you guys seem to manage, but er, yeah, here we are.
http://imageshack.us/a/img46/6248/7l40.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img194/6411/7m11.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img542/7618/m98.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img838/9360/kzsd.jpg
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That looks sick!! I don't see anything lacking in the photography? Nice shots, nice backdrop, gorgeous bike - wtf more does one desire?
And yes - the flutes on the seatpost had been repainted red at some point over the last 30 years. I cleaned out the old from the flutes as best as I could and repainted with the original color blue. Didn't have time to do this before the retro though :)
DiveBomb
*Matt*
geedubya-
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About
The Merckx Full Circle Project
Posted by
@Hairingtons
Update coming soon.
Crankset - got
Wheels - got
Bars - got, then not got, then got again, then not, now got
Stem - got
Front Brake - need
Brake Lever - need
Pedals - need
Tyres - need
Pretty sure I know what I'm doing reagrds the brake lever and caliper.
But if anyone has a suggestion for pedals and tyres, I'm all ears. (Was thinking Campagnolo Look pedals)