mr_hippo
Living Legend & Old Fart
On the 7[sup]th[/sup] of August last year, I retired my NashBar 6000R After almost 20 years of faithful service. That bike has had more retirements and comebacks than Francis Albert Sinatra!
After a crash in early 2010, when I broke my Campag Ergolevers, I decided not to replace them: I can’t get Campag here and am too mean to pay the shipping and import duty! I replaced them with normal brake levers and downtube levers but could not get used to them. So after I got my new Trek 520, the ‘Hippo bike’ was finally retired or so I thought! Months went by and I am sure that I heard the 'Hippo bike' pleading with me to do something but what can I do?
The cheap option seemed to be – new Shimano hub, cassette and gear levers. That may be false economy – new hub on a 15 year old rim! Okay, let’s have new wheels, new rear mech. The Trek 520 is fitted with Dura Ace bar end levers and I like those and the present brake levers are almost brand new so we’ll go with that.
Let’s unify the chainsets, my other two Treks have 48/36/26 triples so that's decided. Try as we might in the LBS, we could not get the triple to fit so we removed the 26 ring and it now has a 48/36 double – the old tourers favourite!
We were now back on the road but something did not look quite right! The Campag Mirage brakes! They have now been replaced with Shimano Tiagra
So now I have a fast day tourer, a fully laden tourer and a hybrid; now to work out a system where all bikes are used! The hybrid for shorter, lazy rides and if I feel the ’need for speed’ then it will be the new ‘Hippo bike’ but again that raises another problem! I normally ride for about 40 minutes to get out of Bangkok’s traffic before deciding where to go., I might have to make my mind up before I set out!
After a crash in early 2010, when I broke my Campag Ergolevers, I decided not to replace them: I can’t get Campag here and am too mean to pay the shipping and import duty! I replaced them with normal brake levers and downtube levers but could not get used to them. So after I got my new Trek 520, the ‘Hippo bike’ was finally retired or so I thought! Months went by and I am sure that I heard the 'Hippo bike' pleading with me to do something but what can I do?
The cheap option seemed to be – new Shimano hub, cassette and gear levers. That may be false economy – new hub on a 15 year old rim! Okay, let’s have new wheels, new rear mech. The Trek 520 is fitted with Dura Ace bar end levers and I like those and the present brake levers are almost brand new so we’ll go with that.
Let’s unify the chainsets, my other two Treks have 48/36/26 triples so that's decided. Try as we might in the LBS, we could not get the triple to fit so we removed the 26 ring and it now has a 48/36 double – the old tourers favourite!
We were now back on the road but something did not look quite right! The Campag Mirage brakes! They have now been replaced with Shimano Tiagra
So now I have a fast day tourer, a fully laden tourer and a hybrid; now to work out a system where all bikes are used! The hybrid for shorter, lazy rides and if I feel the ’need for speed’ then it will be the new ‘Hippo bike’ but again that raises another problem! I normally ride for about 40 minutes to get out of Bangkok’s traffic before deciding where to go., I might have to make my mind up before I set out!
