I really enjoyed breathing some life back into this 1980s Dave Hinde for owner Colin, who picked the bike up for a reasonable sum recently after his beloved steel tourer was stolen. Looks like it started life with full Campagnolo components, with the Shimano STIs and rear mech added in the mid 1990s. Anyway, in it came with a budget and a brief to make it prettier and easier to ride, along with a thorough tune-up. Colin may have chosen a much racier bike than his old one, but no need to be uncomfortable! First job after teardown was to touch up the paintwork and polish all that lovely chrome plating. Incidentally (I assume) the frame is made of Columbus SL tubing and the dropouts are Suntour, while the wheels are all Mavic. I removed oodles of white powder from most of the parts, dried metal polish residue I guess – it didn’t taste like sweat! I also replaced the old corn cob freewheel with a sensible new 14-28t Shimano SIS unit along with a new chain and – thanks to Nathan at CFC – fitted a sleek Nitto Technomic stem to safely raise the bars without resorting to a naff ahead converter. Then it was time for new cabling throughout, new bar tape, cheeky blue valve caps etc. We agreed that if he loves it we can discuss respray options at a later date, along with some new tyres. But mission accomplished for now, it looks a lot better and rides beautifully…
