Old 531 - new problems - a cautionary tale
secretsam
Posts: 4,985
Regular readers of my postings (ie no-one) will know that I have an old 531, my first "proper" bike bought with my money. It was a frame that I bought in the late '80s from my Bristol LBS. It sat unloved and unused until a few years ago, then was revived as a station bike.
Having got back into cycling, I decided to modernise it and give it some TLC, which to date has included a new chainset, gears, D/T shifters (indexed), converter for the stem to 'ahead' style, seatpin and wheels (700c in place of original 27").
I also got it painted, powder coat, as it was rusty as hell.
The wheels have been a particular problem as it is old style 126mm spacing. I just took it to Spirit bikes for an assessment, and they advised not to re-set the spacing, as this would eventually crack the frame. So all sorts of fun and games are needed to make the rear wheel fit. c.£100, then the bike will finally be usable.
So I've spent £50 on shifters, £100+ on spraying, £100 (say) on the wheel changes plus £25 on all the other bits 'n' bobs needed to modernise the bike. All to get an old bike that will ride like an old bike, is still old but has more modern bits.
For that money, I could have bought a modern frame and simply put together a bike using a mix of old and new bits.
A fool and his money...
Having got back into cycling, I decided to modernise it and give it some TLC, which to date has included a new chainset, gears, D/T shifters (indexed), converter for the stem to 'ahead' style, seatpin and wheels (700c in place of original 27").
I also got it painted, powder coat, as it was rusty as hell.
The wheels have been a particular problem as it is old style 126mm spacing. I just took it to Spirit bikes for an assessment, and they advised not to re-set the spacing, as this would eventually crack the frame. So all sorts of fun and games are needed to make the rear wheel fit. c.£100, then the bike will finally be usable.
So I've spent £50 on shifters, £100+ on spraying, £100 (say) on the wheel changes plus £25 on all the other bits 'n' bobs needed to modernise the bike. All to get an old bike that will ride like an old bike, is still old but has more modern bits.
For that money, I could have bought a modern frame and simply put together a bike using a mix of old and new bits.
A fool and his money...
It's just a hill. Get over it.
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I have a 531 frame, im only building it up as a fixed gear though.
Specialized Hardrock MTB for Lumps
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n+1 is well and truly on track
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You can get exceptional rear hubs spaced at 126 without the need for respacing the frame.
I do ride a retro 126 mm frame and with a good set of tyres can even do a decent time on a 10 miles TT. It's certainly not slower than many bikes I see around these days
Nice, I've got a 91/92 Marin Pine Mountain which I bought from new (cost me a fortune back then), I've got a stuck seat tube which has resisted all Sheldon's tips for removal and I'm now contemplating using a hacksaw blade to cut it lengthway from the inside
If you kept the bike as it was though - it would make more sense. Quill stems are a thing of beauty.
The Moser
The VN
"Let's just all be really careful out there folks!"
It's in the LBS getting a few fettling jobs done which will not include ditching the quill (why?) nor changing the old DT friction shifters - part of the fun is honing manual (in my case 8-speed) gearchanges! I'm using a 25 year old front wheel (handbuilt MA40/600 tricolour) - which is still true - and complementing it with a new Excellight/105 rear handbuilt.
Can't wait to be reacquainted and resume its year-round duties. Of course it makes no "economic sense" whatsoever - to even discuss that is somehow missing the point of why we like to keep our old bikes alive!
By ops reckoning we should all be driving Dacia Sanderos (maybe a bad example- I wouldnt mind one..)
@mattbeedham
I have 4 531 bikes in my shed and ride them all from time to time. All of them are non-modernised with the exception of two of them having been upgraded to 700C wheels, and to be honest, those are the ones most often ridden.
I find you can still get "in-period" parts from jumbles and suchlike. I sometimes feel like I need to buy something whizzier and carbon, if only to keep up with my wife who has a nice little Bianchi (because she liked the colour, of course!). On the other hand, I still like riding my oldies. My newest bike in 1979, by the way, and I have had it from new.
I think they are called drawbacks...
I know - I think I must have been listening to David Cameron :oops:
You'd need to shorten the spacer rather than remove it and then you end up with a wheel rim that isn't aligned to the frame. You can have it redished or I have wondered if in my case I could have the drive side cone ground down a bit. I only need to find about 3mm.
I therefore initially saw the title of this thread and my heart sank - I was expecting a tale of spending some money to find that old frames suddenly collapse unexpectedly in a heap of dust or something. I'm rather relieved to see that is not so. The post about vintage cars was a good analogy. Would I rather spend a few hundred quid on this old bike than buy say a Carrera TdF - personally, yes, I would.
Would I change the beautiful Milremo quill stem and engraved handlebars? - not a chance. But I could well swap the rotten, chrome plated steel rims which I fitted myself about 30 years ago, for something more modern (still 27-1/4" if possible though).
Bringing an old beauty back to life is well worthing spending money on, if you have it spare and it's what you want to do.
Cheers,
MarkP
Tibia plateau fracture - the rehab continues!
My resurrected 531 frame was originally on 27". I upgraded to 700c in 1988! Originally it had (awful) Weinmann centre pulls but it now uses Tektro extra-deep drop calipers which easily reach the new size of rim and work very well indeed with good pads inserted.
If you want to give the old bike a lot of use, I'd go one more step and cold-set the rear dropouts from 126 to 130mm. This opens up not just a massive choice of wheels but also a much wider choice of cassettes - 8 speed cassettes work fine with downtube shifters and the old chainset is still compatible as the chain size is 6/7/8 speed.
I've spread the rear end on my 531 Raleigh Royal. Dumped the censored brakes for cheap sidepulls. Fitted a Tiagra road triple etc, etc. I bought the frame and other fitted bits for £37 off e-bay a few years ago. Upgraded it from e-bay and club site. The whole caboodle stands me at aprox £150. It rides just as well, if not, IMO, better than a new Galaxy or LHT.
I tour Europe on it every year and use it on club runs etc. Love it.
Seriously though, that's a lovely bike and as good to ride as many hyper-priced handbuilt custom steel bikes. Nothing wrong with them, by the way, but you can access the steel experience for a shoestring if you find an old frame that fits you.
It still has centre-pull Weinamnn brakes on it, which I thought were rather nice :oops: I'll give it some thought about changing to 700c wheels. I've been scratching my head for some time about what to do with them and the groupset. It was once a double at the front but there's just a generic 52t on there now, which I'd planned/hoped to swap out for a modern compact. I can't remember the make of the old rear derailleur, but again I was hoping to swap that for something modern, but I'd like to keep the downtube shifters
But I digress, and drift offtopic.....
Tibia plateau fracture - the rehab continues!
The centre pull Weinmanns do have a lovely feel to the movement - they are beautifully sprung. Unfortunately, the metal is Edam. They flex - if you pull the brake lever so that the blocks are pressed against the rim, and then increase pressure on the brake lever, you can actually see the brake arms at the cable end moving whilst the arms at the brake block end remain in the same place! They are useable - just - but probably best not at high speed in heavy traffic or down steel hills (as I once tried - just keeping to a fixed speed and not accelerating was the first objective!).
Why do you want to swap the components? A modern rear mech is not necessarily any better than an old one - infact, the best of the old mechs is probably a good deal better than any modern mech. Engineering quality isn't what it was.
The improvement over the "oh my god am I going to stop?" Weinmanns is immense.