On Tuesday I cleaned the
Ridley Helium frameset I'd bought last week, where the seller / their child? had painted parts of the frame black. Using white spirit it went from this ...
... to this, with the seat tube / top tube / a seatstay cleaned from black paint plus other areas cleaned up:
I'll need to source some matching white and yellow paint for touch-ups, but otherwise it's ready for a build once it's been decided whether to replace my son's hillclimb or winter bikes with it / I have it as my winter bike.
Also progress has been made on the Viner Mitus, with a LH Ultegra shifter arriving that needed a new un-rusted clamp bolt/washer and a bit of cleaning. I'll still need to source a RH Ultegra shifter but the 105 version can do for now. It's got to 'cabling' point with new outer cables cut. Inner cables to do, then chain and bar tape so ignore the outer cables - which are there to help feed through the frame. Oh, and Raceblade Long mudguards to go on as the brackets are fitted already.
The Shimano RS20 wheels on there are a temporary set I've got on
eBay that
aren't selling at £10 with tyres 
so can stay for a bit. I've a new Superstar Components Pavé set to go on instead. At some point I'll get hold of a pair of Pirelli Cinturato Velo TLR tyres as they've got matching lime green parts.
This needs to get a shift on now as I've got a Woodrup to restore plus the Helium above to build, so I'm hoping to finish it over the next week for a test-ride. Just in time for the end of summer
Running a pure race bike isn't probably most people's idea of a 'winter bike', but my Raleigh SP Race has done the job decently for the past two winters until an issue between the frame and non-standard replacement fork became evident (that's sat on the turbo trainer until I source an original fork). That may have
mostly become evident when I went for a gap between a barrier and a bus, which rapidly turned into no gap.
