should i buy a new bike or up grade my old one?

jonny limelight

i have a old pennine selta dei champinones, 753 tubing i bought brand new in 1986 ish. it has gear levers but a good campag group set when new and decent wheels for the 80's. as it has been in the garage and not used save for the odd turbo sess since i was nearly killed by some maniac about 11 years ago, it has a bit of rust where it has been scrapped in crashes. i think if i had it resprayed this could be sorted.

i don't know if i should buy a new one but i would only have £600 to £700 to spend. would i be better to spend half of that amount on a spray job, new handle bars and stem. a new chain and some good wheels ect. which would be the better bike?

i would also love some of those fangled brake come gear levers, can i switch over? but that would mean new mechs, but i could do it in stages, or should i keep it strictly retro?

any help would be appreciated
jonny

ride_whenever

it is certainly doable, and you'll have a far cooler bike if you upgrade over buying new.

jonny limelight

thanks ride whenever, should i keep the gear levers and keep it retro? i dont think i would miss what i ve never had.

i think i am leaning more and more to this option as i have suddenly fell back in love with it.

i am going to get back in touch with pennine if they are still going for a new paint job in orange and re stickering and see how much this would cost.

where can i get a new handle bar stem? i can only find those big things that attach at the top of the head set, i need one that goes inside and screws at the top. one in silver would be nice.

Weejie54

Pennine are still going and do resprays:

http://www.penninecycles.com/Home.htm

You have a bit of British history there and you won't get the same quality replacementon your budget.

Keeping it retro or upgrading is very much a personal choice. If you keep all the old parts you always have the option of restoring to original.
It certainly would lend itself to upgrading.

where can i get a new handle bar stem?

Cycle jumble or eBay - you need to measure the existing bar diameter.

jonny limelight

thanks weejie54.

i ve just emailed pennine about a new paint job and how much. if i can't afford it this year then certainly in time for next spring. i have got to keep it pennine so re stickering and in retro orange that eddie merckx had in the 70's.

going to get advice about keeping the old mechs and salvage as much as possible. but i need new handle bars, chain and new cables and how they get them through inside the bike frame i ll never know.

my pennine cost me new almost as much as my budget so i think i may be better going with what i already have and it was always a nice ride.

unixnerd

I'd put on some mudguards and run it as a winter / wet weather bike. I have a steel bike for that role.

Spend your budget on a good used modern road bike, look on ebay and gumtree. That's what I did.

Compared to my steel bike my lighter modern bike is a lot more nimble, a good bit of that's to do with the wheelset in all fairness. Folk will tell you that steel is more comfortable that aluminium and they may be right. But I notice little difference between my steel bike on 28mm tyres and my Cannondale CAAD5 on 25mm, that may be because the latter is an exceptional alloy frame.

I thought about getting an old Puch steel bike and putting a modern groupset on it (because when I was younger I wanted a Puch Mistral). But I have a fairly high bike count already!

rake

should i have a haircut now or let it get a little longer.

jonny limelight

rake wrote:

should i have a haircut now or let it get a little longer.

no, save your money and go for the plastic surgery