Quote Originally Posted by DebW View Post
I'm just marveling at the pristine condition of that bike. It's like it was in a time capsule for 30 years with lots of silica gel packets. Those are the kind of bikes I sold and worked on in a bike shop in 1973-74. By rights that bike should have rusty steel rims and spokes that don't turn and stuck cotter pins. But just looking at it, I'm imagining that everything works as smoothly as the day it left the shop. Be sure you put some oil on the derailleurs, shifters, brake caliper pivot bolts. For the front derailleur, shift it to the large chainring and put a couple drops of oil on the shaft the cage is attached to. I can tell you how to adjust that front derailleur if it's not obvious - it only has one stop screw, and it will probably need an adjustment after the bottom bracket is repacked.
After a quick trip with it to my LBS (they're not so into the 'retro' thing, but he said the exact same words you did about it being straight from a time capsule!) I've come to the realization that this is going to be a bigger project than I imagined. I got new tires and tubes, a new seatpost (there was a wierd shim-thing that was taken out so a seatpost could actually FIT in the opening), and brake pads. The LBS couldn't get the bolt loose to get the stem out. There's some wierd rise where the bolt is that the rachet couldn't get around. I don't plan on saving the stem, so I guess it doesn't matter if it's dinged up a bit. The rims have this cool pattern on them, but if I want to upgrade the cassette I'll have to either have them re-spoked with a new hub, or get new wheels alltogether. I found some that might work at Sheldon Brown's website, I just need to verify the rear hub spacing. It'd be way cheaper to get the new wheels (only $100 for the pair!!!) versus respoking at $100 per wheel plus whatever the hubs will cost, but I really like the rim pattern on the old rims. I have definately decided on the albatross handlebars from the Rivendell website, though.

Hmm, maybe it'll be ready for commuting by next year!