Recently my 15 year old daughter has "adopted" my wife's nice road bike, and has been doing some great rides around town on it. So I thought I'd look for another road bike of about the same size to have a road bike available for both of the ladies in my life. I thought I'd go check out a thrift store bike yard, because my partner Steve found a great mountain bike out there. I went to the bike enclosure of the thrift store, and ran into Steve and his wife Jody, who were scouting for a kids bike. We prowled around together looking for gems, and seeing mostly junk.
Steve and Jody left with a nice kids bike, and I saw an aero brake lever on a handlebar, under a pile of nasty bikes. I unraveled the stack of nasty bikes, and got more and more excited as I freed the bike at the bottom of the pile. I saw a Campagnolo brake, then finally got the entire bike free to look it over.
It was a Fuji, with double butted steel tubing, and about the right frame size for my wife. It had Campy hubs, cranks, brakes, headset, shifters, bottom bracket and skewers, and Cinelli stem and bars. The saddle was suede, and it had Shimano pedals. Since one tire was gone, and it was pretty dirty and greasy, the lady at the gate of the bike yard put a price of $5.00 on it. I tried not to jump for joy, paid my $5, and took the bike home to clean it up. It was like Christmas in July, and with new tires and a little soap, the old bike looks pretty decent. This bike was the JACKPOT! Judging from ebay prices, any of the Campy parts would go for $75 to $125, and the whole bike might run $500+ on ebay.
Now if I could upgrade the shifters to indexed shifters, maybe older Shimano 105 derailleurs and down tube levers, my wife would like it a bit better. Anyone have advice about such an upgrade?
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