Today’s “standard” seems to be 26mm. The difference between 26.4 (or 26.5 in my case) and 26 mm may not sound like much, but they say (I really don’t know) that if you put smaller bars in the stem and just tighten it up that it will cause stress on the alloy that might eventually cause it to crack, just when you don’t want it to (while pulling up hard).

The stem is fine, but I’d like to have bars that are about 45cm wide (or more). I can probably raise the stem a bit to make me happy. I too have a stockpile of some stuff. Fortunate circumstance of never throwing anything away.

You must have kept busy as a father

I’m not real pious about the renovation. I don’t try to keep it true to its age. Instead, I’m trying to renovate it in such a way that it will continue being a functional bike. I ordered a stem-converter:

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/product-Profile-Profile-Design-Stem-Convertor-1-inch-Quill-to-1-1-8-inch-Threadless-20442.htm

Hmmm, looks like I got the last one. The link will say “temporarily unavailable” and then the page will go to the index after a few seconds. It looks like that, but it converts to 1 1/8 inch rather than 25.4mm:

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/product-Coyote-VP-Ahead-Convertor-22.2-mm–25.4-mm-20395.htm

With that, I can use modern stems and replace the drop down bars. I could never get them high enough to use them in dropped down position and they are a bit too narrow. I’m going with one of these:

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/product-Modolo-Modolo-Yuma-Traveller-Multi-Position-Hybrid-Bars–Silver-15572.htm

or

http://www.cyclecomponents.com/2/sv/artiklar/racer_cross/komponenter-3/styren-2/race_cross/254-mm/nitto-randonneur-styre-silver-254-mm.html

The conversion gives me access to modern stems and various angles.

The Cinelli stem requires a 26.4 mm handlebar, Cinelli’s old standard (that noone uses and that Cinelli gave up on in the 90′ies). You can’t find good 22.2 mm stems anymore since almost all modern bikes use the A-headset rather than the older kind. Talk about head-aches.

The parts are on the way. I still have the Karrimor racks (back and front) and the back one is as good as anything else out there, so I’ll use it. I even have the panniers (front and back) but they need a little work. The elastic hooks tend to break on you, but I see that some newer bicycle bags are using the same set-up, so I can get new hooks and straps.

Thanks for looking! I’ve got 120 km on it now. I about froze my toes off yesterday and that is no exaggeration. I was a little worried when I realized I had 30 minutes before I was home and I was getting a little worried about frost-bite. But I guess it takes a while to get frost-bite. It was 7 degrees below (centigrade).

But the problems didn’t stop there. Once I had a modern (Shimano XT hub) and a 8-speed cassette, I found out that the Campagnolo Rally derailleur (”touring” model, long cage) didn’t have enough swing to cover all the sprockets, only the first 7, so I was still stuck with 28 teeth (unless I filed off some of the body so that it would swing a little further). Fortunately I still had a Sun Tour BL GT and it worked perfectly. Shifts better than the Campagnolo too.

I was just going to order the Dia-Compe 750, but a few days ago I referred to them on Utsidan.se and yesterday, when I went in to order, they were gone. They’ve been there for weeks. I guess they just had one single set and someone ordered them.

Thanks!

Do you need new hubs? May be it will be OK after cleaning and grease and oil in the freehub.

Thure