Race Ready Bike for $52

Was doing my standard ebay trawl the other day and came across something that was a little too good to not have a crack at.

It took the form of a late 90’s aluminium bike. I am a bit of a cannondale fan and tend to keep my eye out for early model CAAD’s. I am riding a SAECO Caad4 at the moment, and would love a red Caad3 to make into a real Cippolini replica.

Anyway, no dale’s, but there was a bloke down the road from me selling a “Quantum Stealth”. I remembered a bloke who had one back in the day. They were an early Cannondale copy with tubes that looked like you could build a bull bar out of. They were not light, but they were stiff. Anyway with a starting price of 40 of your best, it was worth a punt. It looked in good condition, running shimano rsx shifters (worth more than 40 bucks in their own). The stealthy bit seemed to be that it was painted matt black – trying to channel a bit of stealth bomber action me thinks.

Being an experienced ebay snaffler, I put a bid of 52 dollars on. That’s a tip there kids, always put a couple of extra dollars on as the average punter will bid to a round number – more on that later.

So with 5 min to go I am the only bidder and am looking good for a 40 dollar deal of the century. With 5 seconds to go another bloke bids 50 and I take the win by my extra two dollars. Sweet.

Picking up the beast confirms a couple of things. The shifters are jammed up (common), but the bike seems in remarkable condition. Get her home and realise that it has pretty much brand new tyres, and that there is virtually no wear anywhere. First order of business was to pull the shifters, remover the rubber hoods and go to work with the wd40. Old shimano shifters rock, being incredibly well made (talking 7 and 8 speeds here), but they have a habit of jamming when the grease inside the mechanism goes hard. Flushing them with wd40 frees this up. You really want to clean that all out and then regrease them with a light grease – do this right and they will last forever. Don’t get wd40 on the hoods as it will break these down. It is always worth picking up an old set of shimano shifters if you get a chance – always.

I was having some trouble freeing up the left shifter (fine now), so I chucked on an old 105 one that I had and put some old bar tape on, greased everything up and went for a 2 hour ride.

Verdict – stiff as a very stiff thing and a lively little number. Not really good for bad backs or pleasure cruising, but a nice thing to ride. Similar to an old cannondale. Rsx shifters are 7 speed. Now before you get all weepy on me, this is actually a good thing. 7 and 8 speeds run a thicker more durable chain and they tend to stay in tune easier because they have a bit more room to play with between sprockets. They shift super sharp and for a training winter bike they are all you need. You can run an 8 speed cassette with 7 speed shifters but you will lose either the top or bottom gear. Best bet is to run 13,14,15,17,19,21,23.
Now I have a few bits and pieces to chuck on, including a mizuno carbon fork and some old ultegra or dura ace cranks, but even now I would be happy to have a race on this bike – for 52 bucks.