Some details about the bike and the parts I've used:
The bike is a barely used Repco Eurosport Tri-A. Serial #K9K5318. That makes it a 1989 Japanese built frame so probably some of the last Japanese frames to come out of the Repco production line.
I paid $180 for the bike via Gumtree about a month ago. It had all original parts including brake pads which suggests barely any kms.
First job involved pulling the wheels off, dismantling the cassette, stripping the hubs back and giving everything a solid flush. Fresh bearings were installed and Phil's Tenacious Oil trickled into the freehub to smoothen things out.
Both wheels were out of true and had loose spokes. Unfortunately, both rims had also suffered pothole trauma and shared identical flatspots I had to tamp out a bit.
Handlebars and stem quickly replaced with Nitto Mod 177 (Noodle) rando bars and Technomic stem. Brake levers replaced with Dia Compe Gran Compe Classics.
Next step was the drivetrain. Things got very tricky here. The NDS crank came off easily. The crank puller had no success on on the drive side and stripped the threads immediately - those 105 cranks are made out of cheese! Used some ingenuity to pull the cranks off by leaving the NDS cups on, putting a long hollow spacer over the crank spindle from the NDS, putting the crank bolt over the spacer and pulling the crank spindle from the NDS side. This pulled the crank spider hard up against the DS cup and continuing to turn the bolt from the other side pulled the spindle out, leaving the crank spider and crank behind. Cranks now binned, the next horrific task was trying to take the DS cup off. No amount of force could budge it so off I go to see the boys and girls at CERES hoping they would have something.
The volunteers there pulled out "The Tool" from the bottom drawer - some huge, brutal chunk of steel that looked like a crank puller but meatier and nastier. It attached perfectly to the flanges on the cup and as the volunteer turned the bolt, the cup came off. It took 2 of us and bloody great long steel pipe for leverage.
With the BB cleaned out, the next decision was: what to do with cranks? Hmm - some old Sugino RD cranks that I had lying around from a track bike build were brought back to life, this time in their original configuration as the RDs have flanges for 2 chainrings - sweet! Those cranks need a 103mm BB. Lucky for me, I had a nice Phil's 103mm BB lying around too so both were put into service. The Phil's is perfect here as you can dial in the chainline right on 43.5mm and I did just that.
Fresh chain and cables on I just had to get out and ride this thing. And what a ride! Now I get what all the fuss is about. It's smooth and very responsive. My centre of gravity is back towards the saddle which is a real bonus for me as I suffer from sore elbows and shoulders. From what I've read here, that is a deliberate consequence of the geo to benefit the triathletes who would have used this bike in the day. Indexed gears shift very, very nicely and the Biopace chainrings add a slightly eccentric (no pun intended) feel to pedalling.
Stage 2 of the rebuild has already started: Firstly the wheels - NOS Shimano 1055 hubs (uniglide and hyperglide compatible), H+Son TB14 polished rims and DT Revolution spokes. Complete overkill but what the heck - this bike deserves some TLC after 20 years in someone's shed.
Stage 3 will wait until after the Euro adventure. Will probably involve a sandblast and repaint. Hopefully I can find some Repco decals....maybe upgrade to some Dura Ace components...
I can tell you from personal experience that these Eurosports are a fantastic ride!
