Bridgestone + Nitto + Brooks + more
Firstly, if anyone is restoring one of these bikes from scratch you might want to check out the old catalogues on the Sheldon Brown site.
While at Citizen Chain I collected a few random pieces for the bike. The Brooks standard B17 saddle (honey and men’s…. couldn’t see that I needed a specific women’s one), the MKS GR-9 platform pedals and MKS toe clips with brown leather trim.
So that still left a surprising number of parts to order online from Australia. With the generous help of Nick and Naomi I ordered the majority of the parts from Wiggle, Chain Reaction Cycles, Rivendell and Velo Orange.
The parts that didn’t fit…
Shimano BR-550 cantilever brakes. The original bike had cantis so I thought these would work. Turns out none of the newly made cantis will fit old bikes.
The beautiful Dia Compe brake levers from Velo Orange. The change in brakes meant that I had to change the brake levers too.
VO headset. I can’t remember why, but there was something non-standard about what the frame required. The frame is particularly short at the front so it may have been to do with the thread length.
The bits that did work…
The Nitto Randonneur drop bars, bought from Nick as they weren’t the right size for him.
The Nitto tall stem (26/70mm). A hard one to track down but worth it so that I didn’t go from a standard hybrid height to a super-low drop bar height. Also needed a shim to make the stem fit the 25.4mm bars.
The seat post is new-old-stock of the original Kalloy brand and was found on eBay. It’s 27mm rather than the more standard 26.2mm.
Dura Ace 9-speed bar end shifters. These are so nice to use. Indexed to click on the right but not for the three on the left.
Stronglight crankset (Impact Triple chainset 28/38/48 170mm). I was deciding between a double and triple. I rarely use the three cogs in my city commuting but I figured there was no harm in having the triple for the occasional country ride I might do. I was also looking at Sugino cranksets but this one is now discontinued so I got it for the super-cheap price of $45.
I ended up going for v-brakes when the cantilevers weren’t going to work. That meant the Cane Creek brake levers were my only option. At first this was a little disappointing, but now I appreciate that I have top quality brakes which stop really well. They give the bike a sportier look than I was originally going for with the brown but it works nicely.
The brakes I have are Avid Single Digit SL V Brakes with Kool Stop salmon pads.
SRAM 9-speed cassette. Went for the 9-speed to fit the bar end shifters. 11-32 was the spec… for reasons I can’t remember.
Jack Brown (green) tyres. These feel amazing. Well, it’s probably the combination of rims and hubs too, but they bounce so nicely.
Mavic Open Sport Pros spoked at Cheeky Monkey in Newtown (the people who also assembled the bike).
Ultegra front and rear hubs 32 hole
Chromoplastic fenders. Despite being plastic, these look great. They also have the advantage of being lighter, cheaper and quieter than the very nice looking Honjos.
After all that I also bought a New York Kryptonite lock but it’s heavier than I anticipated so I only use it when leaving the bike in dodgy areas.