Last week I fitted “modern” wheels to the Cervino, and with 28mm Paselas and a 9-speed Hyperglide it is running beautifully–so beautifully, that I should just leave it the way it is and stop messing with it, but unfortunately that’s not how I operate:
As I mentioned, putting a modern Hyperglide (or equivalent) chain and cassette on an old drivetrain is such a dramatic improvement in shifting that stuff like a dropped and slanted parallelograms becomes largely academic in comparison:
There’s no question a modern derailleur would be an even greater improvement, but when I stopped to make a limit screw tweak I appreciated as I always do that the “open” design of the old Super Record makes doing this so easy and convenient that it might even outweigh the drawbacks of its primitive geometry. If you look at the low-limit screw (the one on top) and the high-limit screw (the one on the bottom) you’ll note you you can see exactly where they stop the derailleur in either direction, which takes all the trial-and-error out of the process:
Granted, this doesn’t really mean much if you’re always using the same wheels and only need to futz with the limit screws on initial set-up, but if you’re switching back and forth between wheels with different gearing as I’ve been doing it makes those little adjustments that much easier.
Also, look how easy it is to take this thing completely apart:
I once tried to take an Ultegra derailleur apart and almost lost an eye when one of the springs ejected itself and left a little hole in the wall. (Granted, you never actually need to take an Ultegra derailleur apart, so I suppose nearly blinding you is Shimano’s way of reminding you not to do it.)
Anyway, speaking of switching wheels and nearly injuring myself, it rained all day Saturday which made it a perfect day to stay in and do some tire gluing:
I’d already been stretching these:
And then on Saturday these babies showed up courtesy of a reader who was wisely divesting himself of tubular tires and graciously offered them to me:
I was very tempted to install these fine tires instead of the Gatorskins, but the roads are still quite debris-strewn at this time of year, and it seemed a bit premature to deploy the ballet slippers. Plus, I knew I’d make a mess of things, and if I was going to screw up I figured it was better to screw up on the Gatorskins. This proved sagacious, for while I did manage to get them on the wheels, I probably got more glue on the sidewalls than I did between the tire and rim.
In addition to grappling with the tires, I also performed a pulley transplant on the derailleur, for when putting on that 10-speed chain the other day I’d noticed that one of them was cracked:
This is typical of old Campagnolo derailleurs, as I learned during my time with the Teledyne Titan:
I’m sure you could keep riding a cracked pulley like that indefinitely but I already take so many unnecessary risks out of laziness I figured I might as well be responsible for a change. Fortunately it turns out that cheap Shimano pulleys fit perfectly, so that’s what I used:
By the next day the sun had returned, so I went for a ride on the refurbished Cervino:
Shifting on the old freewheel was noticeably improved with the 10-speed chain–something I’d also experienced in my time with the Vengeance Bike–so perhaps the real key to better shifting is simply a modern chain. Unless of course it was that Shimano Tourney pulley upgrade:
As for the tires, if I zoom in on the clean parts it almost looks like I did a decent job:
I did do an okay job of aligning them so they roll nice and smooth:
However, they do make a tacky sound, like when you get a price tag stuck to the bottom of your shoe in the supermarket. This points to an inadequate glue job (shocker!) so I should probably pull them off and add some more. Might as well, practice makes perfect…though these days gluing tires is a skill only marginally more useful than fountain pen overhauling.
