alright. lately ive been rollin around on an old Soma Competition Chromoly frame built with a complete first generation Shimano 600 14speed groupset. the thing is absolutely beautiful, and perfect condition. a real fun oldschool road bike. i bought it a few months ago, and now that i have some cash, i had planned on stripping it down, redoing the paint, rebuilding all the bearings, new saddle and tape, cables, etc etc.
heres a pic for those of you who havent seen it in the other thread i made bout it:
(its bigger if you click it)
anyways, yesterday I went to throw new rubber on it, and never realized it had the old standard 27 X 1 1/8 rims, which are just a tad bigger than modern 700cc rims. crap. for one, new tires in that size are designed as replacements for A-B bikes, and are heavy and slow rolling. i dont think anyone makes race tires for that size anymore (the ones on there are very light, just dry and cracking). so new tires are out of the question. new rims could be laced to the hub, or i could buy a new wheelset. problem there, is the rear dropout spacing is 126mm, and modern, 10 speed hubs are 130mm. being a chromoly frame, its not too difficult to spread them a bit, but ugh. pain in the ass.
soanyway, i have pretty much 3 very solid options at this point in time, with no idea which direction i wanna go
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Option 1.
relace the original hubs to new rims, and call it done. keep it as a full original Shimano 600 bike. maybe upgrade to NOS ultegra or dura-ace hubs. still 14 speed.
Pros: all original, oldschool look
Cons: heavy, oldschool bike
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Option 2.
say screw it, and go all out. new aero wheelset, full 10 speed SRAM rival or Ultegra build, carbon fork, bars, seatpost, etc etc, pretty much a modern bike built off of the Soma frame, which would be unique, great ridding, and light where it really counts, in rotating mass.
Pros: New modern everything, fast rolling areo wheels, 10 spd drivetrain, intergrated shifting, prolly save 5-10 lbs overall.
Cons: lots of work converting the frame, bikes gonna be outta commision for a while while im building it.
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Option 3.
strip the Soma down to nothing, sell off the 600 Ultegra stuff, which has decent value as vintage parts, and throw a 700cc, fixed hub wheels on there and some bullhorns, and build a fixie for commuting around campus. start from scratch and build a full carbon modern road bike
Pros: the soma is a perfect candidate for a fixie conversion, reverse horizontal dropouts, zero braze ons, itd be super clean. ive been wanting a fix for around Columbus for some time now. id have two really good bikes.
Cons: expensive, that'll equal 3 bikes of mine now in a little apt
Now, im not worried too much about cost, as ill have plenty of money this summer, i just wanna put this bike (frame) to the best use possible. pretty much need some opinions, as im totally stuck as to which way to go. sucks though, a simple tire change ends up costin at LEAST 100 bucks, plus the 60 bucks on tires!
thanks all, and like i said, if any of your dads ride, id really appreciate their advice.
