tadzik

Bike project for the next a little while: rebuilding and restoring this old 1999/2000 Gary Fisher „Gitche Gumee”.

It’s spent the last 15-ish years outside (mostly under a roof), but I have a bit of a soft spot for it, since it’s the bike that my dad used to ride when we rode together.

At first I thought it looked worse than it was, and I was only planning to do the bare minimum to make it ridable. But the more I dug in, the more it became apparent is that it needs to be stripped, cleaned, regreased and rebuilt or it’ll always feel like shit. To the bike stand then!

#bicycles #bikewrench

(thread, 1/?)

Jan 15 at 7:07pmWeb
Show threadtadzikJan 15
For the most part it's a normal vintage bike: fully rigid steel frame (nice and lightweight), BSA bottom bracket, normal derailleur hanger, threaded steerer, takes a 27.2-ish seatpost. All regular stuff, and would lend itself really well to a restomod, but I want to keep it as close to original as possible, at least at first, to see how it was really designed to ride and how it felt on stock parts.

Some stuff is really odd though, and catches me off-guard. Like these unbranded (old Sram?) brake calipers. They take a circular kind of spring. Half of the originals degraded beyond helping, and I bought some that are meant as replacement parts for BB-5 disk brakes, and they fit just fine. Still, weird. I haven't seen those before. Try as I might they felt like shit, so into the box they go and I'll see if they behave once thoroughly cleaned and lubed, or I'll swap them to some modern-ish silver ones so that they at least keep the look.
Show threadtadzikJan 15
The drivetrain is a weird mix. A boring Shimano Altus FD and crankset (with disgusting riveted chainrings, ugh), with a Sram "composite" (?) RD, driven by good old Sram gripshifters.

Somehow the shifting is bang-on after all these years, the shifters felt great and required no adjustments. I pondered just leaving them intact, cables, housing and all, but the cable end was a poking hazard and too far gone.

The FD is mounted with what appears to be a brace of sorts, and mounted as a BB spacer – no mountpoints or markings on the frame. Neat! And weird.

When undoing the pinchbolt on the RD, the little screw came out from the other side. I've spent ~20 minutes so far trying to put it back in its place. I may need to convert this to a singlespeed.
Show threadtadzikJan 15
And lastly, the wheels. Alloy, Made in USA 26" Weinmann's. They have a normal HG cassette hub thankfully, no freewheel nonsense. And it appears to be 34-ish mm long, so mayyybe could take an 8-speed? I'll give it a try.

Came with a 7-speed 11-28, so with a 24-34-42 up front that's a 445% gear range. That's almost as good as a modern 1x, so good enough for anybody :)
Show threadtadzikJan 15
So, where to next?

I'll need a 116mm square taper BB. This one seems to have sealed bearings, and god knows they weren't sealed well enough for what the bike went through, that thing is nasty.

The hubs and headset should be serviceable, but I've made enough mess today, so that'll wait.

So with new cables, housing and some elbow grease, this thing ought to turn out nicely. Surely nothing will go wrong from now on. Should I keep y'all posted?
Show threadPaul Cochrane 🇪🇺Jan 15
@tadzik Keep me posted, it sounds interesting! Also, if you want, you can have look at my bike ;-)
Show threadtadzikJan 15
@peateasea As long as I can put this one back together again... ;)