Roberts Audax Special Rebuild

So I bought this off ebay for £900. It's been hardly used, frame has two or three tiny scratches. It's going to be my winter road / audax machine. It's almost too nice for winter duties but it takes full mudguards and a rack, and is extremely comfortable, so perfect really.

It was owned by a lovely guy called Lewis Cooper, who's name is on the top tube. He had it built for himself as a retirement present in 2002. I think he was on a budget as some of the parts are very cheap and heavy and don't do the frame justice. Seatpost for example is a 25.0 unbranded thing with a massive shim. However even built like this, on my short test ride it felt amazing. I think the chainstays are columbus MAX, the rest a mix of other Nivacrom tubing. Incredibly smooth and responsive.

Obvious first things to go are stem, saddle and stronglight square taper triple crankset. I'm on a budget, and have found these bargains:

DA7950 crankset hardly used £100
The guy had stripped the thread on the non drive side and just bought a whole new one!
Bought a non drive side DA9000 crank for £40.

3ttt modus stem £26

Fizik Antares £17.50

Zipp course seatpost £45

Also on the way: Conti GT5000 28mm tyres, Ultegra BB cups, probably shimano XTR SPDs, Possibly DA 7800 shifters if I have any money left, might just fit some Ultegra 6600s I have knocking about

Long term, I might get some wheels built for it. Current Ultegra hubs on Mavic CXP33 rims are very nice though.

Subbed! Looks ace. If you sell the original stem please LMK :)

Yes the stem will be available by the end of the week. Where are you based?

@William. just got your message cheers

Stripped the unwanted parts off. Very keen on the colour and the steel headbadge.

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It is GAPPY without its mudguards. I'm going to run it light over the summer though and enjoy it.

I don't like these bars, but I had to stop spending money and they were lying around. Will upgrade to Deda RHM in due course.

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I have some Deda RHM you can have for free. A bike shop build upgrade "mistake". Think they are 44cm edge to edge.

Amazing! where are you based? Happy to pick up London area

Great looking frame. These bars are meant to be rotated down, with the finishing straight bit parallel to the ground. A bit like classic bars, but wonky.

These bars are meant to be rotated down

They are not the right bars for the position I want, but I don't want to spend any more money. Sadly the offer of free bars were the wrong size.

Anyone know what bars are a similar shape to deda RHM, so I can widen my search for a budget option?

FSA Compact bars are not too dissimilar, better if anything, and can (could?) be found cheap.

So it turns out Dura ace 7900 and Dura Ace 9000 are actually quite different. Who knew. Still, it's £300+ worth of crankset for £115
I think this is going to annoy all the right people

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What size do you need? I’ve a pair here that you can have, think they are Deda 42s, which mean they’ll be 40 cms centre to centre, over sized clamp.

Thanks man, I realised I was wasting loads of time agonising over this so I just bought some!

Ha! We’ve all been there.

Hiya, hope you don’t mind me hijacking your post (how’s the build going, btw?), but what would you say was the rough value of the wheelset/groupset/other gubbins when you bought this? I’m about to sell a similar frameset from 2004, and I’m having trouble putting a price on it.