- 1 year ago
After some time, road bikes may look a little worse for wear and the value in them may be hard to see, however, by following some simple techniques, they can restored to their former glory. In this video, Sam Gupta saves a Trek 1.2 road bike and goes through the entire process of restoring the frame and then building it back up to once again to be fully useable.
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00:00I saved this road bike from the bin and I'm going to restore it to its former glory. Now it does
00:06need quite a lot of work to get it right but I have a good feeling that it will actually shape
00:12up pretty well. I don't have too much information on what this bike is but I believe that this is a
00:18Trek 1.2 from the late noughties, maybe 2009, maybe 2011. But before any components can be attached
00:29to this bike I need to make sure that this frame is safe straight and solid and not to mention
00:37this headset definitely needs replacing. So my first port of call was to go and see the legends
00:45over at Velo Atelier and most importantly that man being Lee Prescott and that's because I wanted him
00:52to take a look at the frame and make sure that the frame was actually safe and to ensure that it
00:58hadn't been in a crash. So the very first thing that we did was that he got his frame alignment
01:03tool out and then checked to see if everything was straight. Now you do this both sides to make sure
01:09that essentially the seat stays haven't been hit and that the frame itself hasn't been in an impact
01:16and then you compare it to the other side and make sure that they line up and happily Lee said that
01:21actually this was within a millimeter of perfection and something that he would be happy to see come off
01:27one of his jigs. He also went to the trouble of checking the dropout alignment as well to make
01:32sure they were straight and as you can see they too were also dead on. Now that we worked out the frame
01:38itself was actually in really good shape we then cracked on with changing the bottom bracket. Now I
01:43have no idea how many miles this bottom bracket had done in fact it did actually feel pretty smooth
01:48but my thinking was if I'm going to be building this thing up I think it would be really good to start it
01:52from fresh. So we pulled out the old one and as you can see it all needed a bit of a cleanup so our
01:58first job was to clean those threads and make sure that there was nothing in there. We also then decided
02:04that we'd face the bottom bracket shell again to make sure that when we fitted a new bottom bracket
02:09it was going to be mating perfectly to the surface of the frame and going in completely flush. When it
02:16comes to facing a frame you tend to go at it one side at a time and in this instance it gave a really good
02:22finish to actually remove all of the paint that was still sat on the frame from when it came out of
02:27the factory. Then once we removed all of that paint you could see a perfectly finished metal surface which
02:33is eventually what the new bottom bracket will set against and of course once you've done one side you
02:39then move on to doing the next side and oh there was so much paint that came off of this frame but it
02:45resulted in a really really good finish. Once the shell itself was prepared it was then ready to
02:53actually put some grease in there ready for the new bottom bracket and Lee being ever the professional
02:59made sure that everything was fully clean and then injected the grease into the shell and then wiped it
03:04around to ensure an even coverage and then he screwed in both of the cups before finally getting the tool on
03:10it to tighten up correctly and then there we have it we have a fully faced bottom bracket shell with a
03:16brand new bottom bracket in. Lee also actually had the forethought to have a look at the seat tube which
03:23is something that i hadn't really thought of but i'm really glad that he did because it was actually
03:27very gritty inside so he cleaned off the seat post and then he got his drill with an attachment and then
03:34cleaned out the inside of the frame before re-greasing the seat post and then sliding it back inside the
03:39frame. Next up it was the headset and when i tell you that this headset caused some issues that is
03:47really really an understatement i mean to quote Lee he was saying that this is one of the worst headsets
03:52that he's had in a very long time those cups i think might have been in there since the bike left the
04:00factory because the galvanic corrosion holding those cups in place was really really strong the bottom cup
04:07wasn't as bad as the top because the top cup really took a lot of time to knock it out of place
04:15we did have to use a blowtorch in the end just to warm up the metal just so that you can kind of create
04:21that space but finally finally we did get both cups out and then we could crack on with getting that head
04:29tube faced as with the bottom bracket shell it was very much a case of removing a lot of the factory
04:36paint just to expose that nice clean metal surface underneath now the really good thing about doing
04:42a head tube is that you not only surface the actual tops of the tubes but you also do the inside of it as
04:48well so it just ensures that when you put some new cups in you've got a brand new surface on every single
04:54level after that the frame was done and it was over to me to complete the rest of the build so we'd had
05:01a new bottom bracket shell in we checked that the frame hadn't been in a crash and was all still fully
05:06aligned and we had a perfectly prepared head tube so my first port of call when we got back to our own
05:12workshop was actually to give the frame a bit of a clean because it hadn't been cleaned since i retrieved
05:16it from the bin now that the frame had a whole lot less dirt on it the first job that i needed to do was
05:22fit that new headset now take this as a word of warning this is by no means a how-to on how to fit
05:28a headset because i really did break quite a lot of rules but of course the first thing that i did was
05:35grease up the cups and also put some grease on the inside of the head tube as you can see the tool that
05:41i'm using isn't actually a headset press this is actually a pretty rudimental park tool bottom bracket
05:47press ideally with a headset press you'd have some alignment tools which means that the headset cups
05:54go into the frame completely straight so obviously when i did this job i was having to pay incredibly
06:00close attention to ensure that those cups were going into the frame straight and weren't at an angle
06:08happily after quite a few attempts i did manage to get them in and they did go in straight which was
06:12great but of course this was by no means the correct way to do the job and you should definitely always
06:19be using the right tools for the job once i'd done that bottom cup i then moved on to doing the top cup
06:26in that very same dodgy process and of course i guess the only good thing that i did do was making sure
06:33that all of the logos were lined up on the head tube itself but i mean arguably that's a very small detail
06:39after that i wanted to prepare the fork so i grabbed some isopropyl alcohol and then cleaned it all off
06:44from all of the old grease and debris i then added a little bit of grease to the bottom of the crown
06:50and then also the bearings that were going to be sitting within those headset cups once all the
06:55bearings were in place it then did give me the opportunity to see how it was going to fit with the
07:00stem and also see how much excess steerer tube i had from there i then just marked out how much i could
07:07lose and then started to cut off the uh the excess steerer tube um basically the main reason i did
07:14this is because quite frankly i just didn't need the excess so there was no real need to keep it and
07:19plus personally i just think that it looks a little bit better rather than having a bit of a chimney on
07:25top of your stem of course once that bit of steerer was removed i had the job of just cleaning up the
07:31cut and removing all of the burrs um it was quite an easy job to do um but there's one extra part that
07:37i then had to do was also fit a brand new star nut to the steerer tube itself and then i could do a
07:43little test fit with the stem and it all lined up perfectly from there it was very much a case of just
07:49getting everything bolted onto the frame so that included popping in the bars and yes i have decided to
07:54go with some straight bars just to make it more of a hybrid run around town kind of bike that was then
08:01followed by the brake levers the gear shifter because i'm going to be running a 1 by 11 setup
08:06on here and then i also bolted on the saddle and the rear derailleur next up was fitting both of the
08:12brake calipers and then i also followed that with the chain set as well so again just needed to lube
08:17that up a little bit with a bit of grease and spread that over the spindle uh before then yeah sliding it
08:22into place through that brand new bottom bracket um talking up the bolts and then making sure to
08:27remember to put that little plastic clip down on the non-drive side crank again to match with the
08:34hybrid nature of this bike which i don't know if it will stay like this forever but for the time being
08:39i thought actually putting some flat pedals on here does make quite a lot of sense just so you can hop on
08:43and off quite easily i then popped in some wheels now these wheels actually came from my winter bike which
08:49to be honest has kind of ended up on the wall um because these wheels just haven't really been
08:54being used so i thought let's utilize these um because quite frankly they weren't doing anything
08:59else it was at this point that i decided let's start cabling up so i did the front brake first
09:03followed by the rear shifter now eagle eye viewers amongst you might have noticed that i've made a bit
09:08of a mistake so drop it in the comments if you can see what i've done at this point it was then very
09:14much a case of just threading the cable through the frame popping it through the rear derailleur
09:18um and i'd already set the limit screws um so the derailleur was itself in shape um it was now just a
09:25case of getting the cable tension correct one of the few things that i did spend money on was a brand
09:30new 11 speed chain um of course you don't really want to be using second hand old chains um but that
09:36also meant that i had to measure the chain as well now i tend to go for the method of getting the chain on
09:42both of the biggest sprockets and then adding three links i've always found that that's worked for me
09:47um and in this case it worked once again i then pop the quick link in and then i just needed to snap
09:53it into place which is pretty easy to do next up i just wanted to go through and make sure that
09:58everything was kind of aligned so i worked on the compression of the stem to make sure there was no
10:04play in the headset and then i worked on the angle of the brake levers now you will notice that the
10:09rear brake has not been cabled up and as any good home mechanic will know you often end up not having
10:15all of the parts right when you need them so i needed to go and get myself a new rear brake cable
10:20so i could complete the job on the following day which is why now you can see that the lighting's
10:25changed and yes i have come back on another day to finish the job once i had all of the parts that i
10:30needed so i got myself a brand new rear inner cable and some outers and then once they were all cut
10:36to size i then threaded that through the frame and got them all lined up now that those brakes were
10:42cabled up i could go about the job of making sure that the pads were aligned and were feeling nice and
10:47grippy finally i could get towards some of the finishing touches like fitting the grips so again
10:53use the little bit of isopropyl alcohol just to make them slide on nice and easily because again of
10:57course that fluid will essentially evaporate off and then they'll be on there nice and solid but again
11:03viewers can you spot the mistake that i made so eagle eye viewers amongst you will have noticed
11:11that i put the shifter on the wrong side of the brake lever so what i did is i quickly slid off the grip
11:18and then moved the shifter to the other side of the brake lever and then everything basically fell into
11:23place so there we have it that is pretty much my bin bike to now salvaged hybrid bike i'm really excited to
11:31start riding this thing and seeing how it performs out on the road i did give it a little spin around
11:35the car park and it does feel really nippy the stem might be ever so slightly too long for me i think
11:42maybe i could do with one which is about 10 or 20 mil shorter what this project really allowed me to do
11:46was to save a lot of the components that i'd kind of had built up and were kicking about there are only a
11:52few things that i had to buy from you those being the headset the bottom bracket the chain
11:59those brake levers and the handlebars everything else i either already owned or i was able to get
12:05for an amazing price from facebook marketplace i think in total i don't think i spent more than a
12:10hundred pounds on this build so i'm really happy with the amount of money that essentially i've been
12:16able to spend to save this bike one thing that did really surprise me was just how light the bike was
12:22despite not using any real high-end components apart from maybe that ultegra rear mech everything was
12:28pretty basic and the weight of the bike came in at just 7.8 kilos now that has got me thinking that
12:36actually i could probably save quite a lot of weight off of this build so i'm gonna have a little hunt
12:41around for some maybe some carbon tubular wheels and perhaps maybe some carbon finishing kit if i
12:48can find anything for a really good price to be honest i'm really happy that i've been able to
12:53create this bike and save this bike and i think it just shows how easy and pretty accessible it is to
12:59do sure you might need a mechanic to help you out with some of the more complex jobs like fitting a
13:04bottom bracket or a headset but i think a lot of the other things especially on these older frames
13:09cabling things up it's really easy to learn how to do and there's so many resources online that allow
13:15you to learn how to do these things with some fairly basic tools so let me know what you think
13:20of this build down in the comments below if you enjoyed the video then please do drop it a like
13:25subscribe to the channel for more content and i will see you again very soon
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