Merry Christmas, to all!
My bicycle present is not really a Christmas present, but an effort to remake the bicycle I inherited from my father. It is a randonneur-touring bike from 1984, a match to my favorite, so I feel I can make some modernizing modifications to it and have decided my "gift" is to take some time to work on it.
Yesterday, I respaced the dropouts from 126mm to 135mm and then reset the dropouts to parallel. Success, as the final measurement is 135.1mm and it is square on my alignment table.
It is outfitted with self-trimming "aero" shift levers attached to a boss atop the top tube, so I will need to fire up the torch to make an adapter to accept conventional downtube shifters (my favorite) in the same mount. There's myriad other little "challenges", but it is proving to be a fun project between rides on my Nomad.
The Nomad is my all-weather bike of choice now, because Oregon is still suffering under the weight of heavy storms. It hasn't been terribly cold, but we've had lots of snow in the mountains, high winds, torrential rains, and now landslides and sinkholes with a lot of treefall and power outages. Snow is predicted for tomorrow and in late January. What better vehicle to traverse this apocalyptic landscape than my faithful Nomad?
Best wishes to all,
Dan.