vp's Cogworks: The Marin and Beyond

The Marin has been officially promoted to commuter with the help of my parts bin. It's also quite Dutch now.
Will get a square taper bottom bracket and mount the original 700CX triple crankset. Rear mech is an RX100 that I overhauled a while back. 7 speed, took a while to fiddle out the spacing on the 11s freehub body, but it's perfect now, thankfully I had a lot of different spacers to play with. I've installed the 105 cassette that I took off the Puch before. I got the grips and the saddle of the folding bike, so that's a bit unusable now.
I'll source some anti-theft qr skewers for the wheels, although I'm planning to lock it with not less than 3 locks...

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I wanted to do some sunshine shots to hopefully capture the amazing sparkle this paintjob has, but the weather had different ideas in mind. Anyways, here's the Puch.

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Further downgrades. Never thought I'd run out of sealed crankset hex bolts but it seems I was wrong. Oh well.
I've bought a Tranzx anti-theft QR skewer set, so hopefully I won't be dealing with a missing wheel (or two) overnight, albeit I was told they can quite easily be opened with pliers. Kinda wish I kept the original Araya VX400 wheelset that came with the bike. Anyways, I'm gonna use the combination of a ring lock, a chain and a U-lock, so hopefully the sheer sight of those will deter thieves.

I'm still amazed by the original drivetrain of this bike, 42-32-20T chainrings with a 11-19T cassette. Had to fully fasten the B-screw on the rear derailleur to barely clear the current 13-26T cassette's small cogs, so I'm gonna get another cassette soon (of course I just gave the original one away a couple of months ago).

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Things escalated in a rapid manner and now I own a bike with roller brakes - which will be the lockup steed after all. Not gonna post much content of this one as it's probably the most boring bike I've ever had - it's very functional though. Haven't done anything on it besides some minor tweaks and installing my new lock that I intended for the Marin...

Speaking of the Marin, it remains as is until spring comes I guess.
Need to figure out the N-1 now, have sold some parts already to reduce the strain on my wallet...

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New year, new project. A Giant Speeder from around 1990 I reckon. Quite neglected. BB is shot, headset is way loose, chain is long gone, RD doesn't go below the 4th cog. Gonna fix it up and sell with minor profit hopefully. Frame looks to be in a good condition otherwise, nothing's bent and there is no major rust, only surface spots. So far everything came loose without an effort, hopefully the BB won't give much trouble either.
Pity about the cracked Cinelli stem...

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So far so good. Everything came off very easily, even the BB wasn't stuck, which is always a very welcome surprise.
Stuff's grimy though, needs proper cleaning.
Also trying something new, gonna make an ig reel of the whole process. Small bits of the restoration put together.

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So, the Giant Speeder is coming together nicely, all parts were cleaned, all bearings re-greased, everything's nice and smooth, frame is dead straight, no unlucky surprises. Currently waiting on a couple of spokes and a chain to arrive, then it's show time. The cockpit is taken from the Puch (which shall have its proper drop bar setup again - I already re-installed the full 105SC set that came with it).

In more exciting news (at least for me), on Saturday I shall be the new owner of a vintage Italian track bike. It's nothing fancy, and it's going to be more of a wallhanger than a daily driver, but hey, it should only go up in value as time goes on...

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So, this one's a set of new tyres away from final, saddle has since been adjusted a bit. Was a fun build, whole process has been recorded, editing it today and hopefully uploading it as a 2-3 minute long IG reel tomorrow.

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And in more exciting (for me) news, I am now a proud owner of a track bike for the first time in my life.
Italian-made resprayed frameset, 27.2 mm seatpost, clearance for 23 mm tyres front and rear (could possibly fit 25 too). Campag crankset (not pista unfortunately). Campag headset, Stronglight BB (needless to say I've no tools for it and it knocks a bit). Locknut's a tad loose of course so I rather did not ride it home.
56 cm tall and 55 cm long, fits me like a glove, didn't think it would be so comfy. And what's more important, it looks (and feels) perfectly straight and damage-free.
Pics hopefully tomorrow.

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So, here we go. I also uploaded it to YouTube. Was a fun project. Might record some more tinkering in the future.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CoAhrP_vCtt/

https://youtu.be/q9deuHUJrcA/

That Puch is beautiful.

Thanks!

And behold, the fixieh skiddah:

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Nice work on the Giant, fixie is great too, any idea on the make?

yeah! congrats!

Thanks both! No idea about the frame maker. Serial number is either 201 67 or 2010 67. It's hard to see due to the sloppy paint job. Didn't have much time to investigate yet, I'll take it out for a proper photo sesh and ask around, maybe someone has a clue.

Also no clue what this crank could be. Mirage? Veloce? Maybe Athena? Damn Campag has no proper codes... Crank arm only says 170 51 9/16"x20

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should be low tier as it is painted - mirage/avanti or something like that

Probably right, I've checked some catalogs and it seems to be a '90-91 Xenon.

So, the Speeder's gone before I could make proper pics. Guess I listed it for too cheap.

I'll be getting a nice vintage Cinelli/3TTT cockpit for the Puch, and also a stand that I can use for taking proper photos. So hopefully more and better pics incoming.

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So, my new wheels arrived for the track bike.
Rigida Chrina rims, Miche Primato hubs. Awesome and sturdy-looking stuff.
Checked dropout spacing, it was about 115 mm on the bike, so I cold set it to 120. Was surprised how on point it turned out...

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Forgot the full pic. Chain is a tad slack. :P
Ordered a 44T chainring, Izumi track chain and black bar tape. Need to source some toe clips and it's showtime... Stem has been slammed of course.

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a slack chain is a fast cha...-what

The Puch is sort of finished. Got a Cinelli bar+stem combo and it looks like I rotated the bars slightly too down.
Still want to source a proper vintage saddle, Turbo or Rolls.

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Details.

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In case you‘re interested in the Frame ID, I reckon it‘s probably a repainted 60s/70s Plume Vainqueur. Check the similarity to This one: fork crown, lugs, seattube cluster etc. I reckon yours is a little younger than the white one.