My wife wanted to get an Ipad, and I wanted to get a new road bike. I wanted to get back into road riding (I had an aluminum Schwinn 594 back in the early '90's, and sold it after my son was born).
My wife had been saving for awhile, and I had been saving for only about a month. I realized it would take me a lot longer to save (especially since the bicycles I wanted (a new Trek) would be about $1000), and she was very close to having her Ipad. I had saved $250, and she was $150 away from her Apple Tablet.
There was no way I was going to be able to save enough money before the Fall, so I decided to go a different direction. I began to look for an old, solid, light road bike. My plan was to pick up a fixer-upper and ride it while I saved for next season.
I answered a Craigslist ad for an '80's Raleigh Technium. It was an older, Finnish gentleman who was trying to sell the bike. He was knowledgeable about bicycles, and had several others in his garage. He was kind, but didn't exactly want to give the bike away, obviously. He wanted $125, and I knew I wanted to stay at $100 or less. We did the Craigslist dance, and settled at $100.
(The Raleigh Technium was built using thermal bonded, high strength, heat treated aluminum. Translation, the aluminum tubes were bonded together using a chemical curing method, instead of the traditional welding method. It is a very light bike for having been built in 1986, by the way...exactly 24lbs, by my scale.)
I was really happy with my score, but knew I had my hands full, as the Tech needed to be cleaned desperately, and needed new rubber. The brake lines and other cables were solid, as were the rims and spokes, although they needed cleaned.
Later that day, much to her surprise, I was able to present my wife with the $150 she needed to procure her Ipad, and then went to work on my Tech.
Here is the Tech as it stood when I brought it home...
As you can see, the Tech needed some TLC. I didn't have a bike repair stand, so I used our bike rack on the back of the van. Any old port in a storm, so to speak. The first thing to go was the old, Serfas Tailbones gel saddle. It looked like something my mother would use on her cruiser, so it had to go. I immediately began looking for a new one on Ebay and at my LBS.
After I began taking pictures, it became apparent that I would be in the market for a good degreaser.
I wanted to use a biodegradable one, as my LBS tech informed me that the one they used to use (which was not biodegradable) was now not considered acceptable for use on bicycle chains and gears by them and the degreaser company. I settled on Krud Kutter.
I have some mechanical ability, thanks to my father and working on my first bike (a 1984 Schwinn Predator), and the aforementioned 594.
So, I went to work.
Look for '86 Raleigh Technium 460 Part 2 soon...
Hickorygrove
Part 2?
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