- 2 days 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
00:06does
00:06need quite a lot of work to get it right but I have a good feeling that it will actually
00:11shape
00:12up pretty well. I don't have too much information on what this bike is but I believe that this is
00:18a
00:18Trek 1.2 from the late noughties, maybe 2009, maybe 2011. But before any components can be attached
00:28to 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
00:58it
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
01:21that
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
01:37the
01:38frame itself was actually in really good shape we then cracked on with changing the bottom bracket.
01:42Now I have no idea how many miles this bottom bracket had done in fact it did actually feel pretty
01:47smooth but my thinking was if I'm going to be building this thing up I think it would be really
01:51good
01:51to start it from fresh. So we pulled out the old one and as you can see it all needed
01:57a bit of a
01:57cleanup so our first job was to clean those threads and make sure that there was nothing in there. We
02:03also then decided that we'd face the bottom bracket shell again to make sure that when we fitted a new
02:08bottom bracket it was going to be mating perfectly to the surface of the frame and going in completely
02:14flush. When it comes to facing a frame you tend to go at it one side at a time and
02:19in this instance it
02:21gave a really good opportunity to actually remove all of the paint that was still sat on the frame
02:25from when it came out of the factory. Then once we removed all of that paint you could see a
02:30perfectly
02:31finished metal surface which is eventually what the new bottom bracket will set against and of course
02:38once you've done one side you then move on to doing the next side and oh there was so much
02:43paint
02:43that came off of this frame but it resulted in a really really good finish.
02:50Once the shell itself was prepared it was then ready to actually put some grease in there ready
02:55for the new bottom bracket and Lee being ever the professional made sure that everything was fully
03:00clean and then injected the grease into the shell and then wiped it around to ensure an even coverage
03:06and then he screwed in both of the cups before finally getting the tool on it to tighten it up
03:11correctly and then there we have it we have a fully faced bottom bracket shell with a brand new bottom
03:18bracket in. Lee also actually had the forethought to have a look at the seat tube which is something
03:23that i hadn't really thought of but i'm really glad that he did because it was actually very gritty inside
03:29so he cleaned off the seat post and then he got his drill with an attachment and then cleaned out
03:34the
03:34inside of the frame before re-greasing the seat post and then sliding it back inside the frame.
03:41Next up it was the headset and when i tell you that this headset caused us 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
03:59left 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
04:13of place we did
04:15have to use a blow torch in the end just to warm up the metal just so that you can
04:20kind of create that
04:21space 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
04:36factory
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
04:47inside of it
04:48as well so it just ensures that when you put some new cups in you've got a brand new surface
04:53on every
04:54single level. After that the frame was done and it was over to me to complete the rest of the
05:00build
05:00so we'd had a new bottom bracket shell in we checked that the frame hadn't been in a crash and
05:05was all
05:05still fully aligned and we had a perfectly prepared head tube so my first port of call when we got
05:11back
05:11to our own workshop was actually to give the frame a bit of a clean because it hadn't been cleaned
05:15since
05:16i retrieved it from the bin. Now that the frame had a whole lot less dirt on it the first
05:21job that i needed
05:22to do was fit that new headset now take this as a word of warning this is by no means
05:26a how-to on how
05:28to fit a headset because i really did break quite a lot of rules but of course the first thing
05:34that i
05:34did was grease up the cups and also put some grease on the inside of the head tube as you
05:40can see the
05:40tool that i'm using isn't actually a headset press this is actually a pretty rudimental park tool
05:46bottom bracket press ideally with a headset press you'd have some alignment tools which means that
05:53the headset cups go into the frame completely straight so obviously when i did this job i was
05:58having to pay incredibly close attention to ensure that those cups were going into the frame straight
06:04and weren't at an angle happily after quite a few attempts i did manage to get them in and they
06:11did go in
06:11straight which was great but of course this was by no means the correct way to do the job and
06:17you
06:17should definitely always be using the right tools for the job once i'd done that bottom cup i then moved
06:24on to doing the top cup in that very same dodgy process and of course i guess the only good
06:31thing
06:31that i did do was making sure that all of the logos were lined up on the head tube itself
06:36but i mean
06:36arguably that's a very small detail after that i wanted to prepare the fork so i grabbed some
06:41isopropyl alcohol and then cleaned it all off from all of the old grease and debris i then added a
06:48little bit of grease to the bottom of the crown and then also the bearings that were going to be
06:52sitting within those headset cups once all the bearings were in place it then did give me the
06:57opportunity to see how it was going to fit with the stem and also see how much excess steerer tube
07:03i had
07:04from there i then just marked out how much i could lose and then started to cut off the uh
07:10the excess
07:10steerer tube um basically the main reason i did this is because quite frankly i just didn't need
07:16the excess so there was no real need to keep it and plus personally i just think that it looks
07:22a little
07:22bit better rather than having a bit of a chimney on top of your stem of course once that bit
07:28of steerer was
07:28removed i had the job of just cleaning up the cut and removing all of the burrs um it was
07:34quite an
07:34easy job to do um but there's one extra part that i then had to do was also fit a
07:39brand new star nut to
07:40the steerer tube itself and then i could do a little test fit with the stem and it all lined
07:46up perfectly
07:47from there it was very much a case of just getting everything bolted onto the frame so that included
07:51popping in the bars and yes i have decided to go with some straight bars just to make it more
07:57of a hybrid
07:58run around town kind of bike that was then followed by the brake levers the gear shifter because i'm
08:04going to be running a 1x11 setup on here and then i also bolted on the saddle and the rear
08:10derailleur
08:11next up was fitting both of the brake calipers and then i also followed that with the chain set as
08:15well so again just needed to lube that up a little bit with a bit of grease and spread that
08:19over the
08:20spindle uh before then yeah sliding it into place through that brand new bottom bracket um talking up the
08:26bolts and then making sure to remember to put that little plastic clip down on the non-drive side
08:31crank again to match with the hybrid nature of this bike which i don't know if it will stay like
08:37this
08:37forever but for the time being i thought actually putting some flat pedals on here does make quite a
08:42lot of sense just so you can hop on and off quite easily i then popped in some wheels now
08:47these wheels
08:47actually came from my winter bike which to be honest has kind of ended up on the wall um because
08:53these
08:53wheels just haven't really been being used so i thought let's utilize these um because quite
08:58frankly they weren't doing anything else it was at this point that i decided let's start cabling up so
09:02i did the front brake first followed by the rear shifter now eagle eye viewers amongst you might have
09:07noticed that i've made a bit of a mistake so drop it in the comments if you can see what
09:11i've done at this
09:12point it was then very much a case of just threading the cable through the frame popping it through the
09:17rear derailleur um and i'd already set the limit screws um so the derailleur was itself in shape
09:24um it was now just a case of getting the cable tension correct one of the few things that i
09:28did
09:28spend money on was a brand new 11 speed chain um of course you don't really want to be using
09:34second
09:34hand old chains um but that also meant that i had to measure the chain as well now i tend
09:39to go for the
09:40method of getting the chain on both of the biggest sprockets and then adding three links um i've always
09:46found that that's worked for me um and in this case it worked once again i then popped the quick
09:51link in and then i just needed to snap it into place which is pretty easy to do next up
09:57i just
09:57wanted to go through and make sure that everything was kind of aligned so i worked on the compression
10:02of the stem to make sure there was no play in the headset and then i worked on the angle
10:06of the
10:06brake levers now you will notice that the rear brake has not been cabled up and as any good home
10:12mechanic will know you often end up not having all of the parts right when you need them so
10:17i needed to go and get myself a new rear brake cable so i could complete the job on the
10:22following
10:22day which is why now you can see that the lighting's changed and yes i have come back on another
10:27day to
10:28finish the job once i had all of the parts that i needed so i got myself a brand new
10:32rear inner cable
10:33and some outers and then once they were all cut to size i then threaded that through the frame
10:39and got them all lined up now that those brakes were cabled up i could go about the job of
10:44making
10:44sure that the pads were aligned and were feeling nice and grippy finally i could get towards some
10:50of the finishing touches like fitting the grips so again use the little bit of isopropyl alcohol just
10:55to make them slide on nice and easily because again of course that fluid will essentially evaporate
11:00off and then they'll be on there nice and solid but again viewers can you spot the mistake that i
11:06made
11:08so eagle eye viewers amongst you will have noticed that i put the shifter on the wrong side of the
11:14brake lever so what i did is i quickly slid off the grip and then moved the shifter to the
11:20other side
11:20of the brake lever and then everything basically fell into place so there we have it that is pretty much
11:26my bin bike to now salvaged hybrid bike i'm really excited to start riding this thing and seeing how it
11:33performs out on the road i did give it a little spin around the car park and it does feel
11:37really nippy
11:38the stem might be ever so slightly too long for me i think maybe i could do with one which
11:43is about 10
11:43or 20 mil shorter what this project really allowed me to do was to save a lot of the components
11:49that
11:49i'd kind of had built up and were kicking about there are only a few things that i had to
11:53buy from you
11:54those being the headset the bottom bracket the chain those brake levers and the handlebars everything
12:03else i either already owned or i was able to get for an amazing price from facebook marketplace
12:07i think in total i don't think i spent more than a hundred pounds on this build so i'm really
12:13happy
12:13with the amount of money that essentially i've been able to spend to save this bike one thing that did
12:19really surprise me was just how light the bike was despite not using any real high-end components
12:24apart from maybe that ultegra rear mech everything was pretty basic and the weight of the bike came in
12:31at just 7.8 kilos now that has got me thinking that actually i could probably save quite a lot
12:38of weight
12:38off of this build so i'm gonna have a little hunt around for some maybe some carbon tubular wheels and
12:45perhaps maybe some carbon finishing kit if i can find anything for a really good price to be honest
12:51i'm really happy that i've been able to create this bike and save this bike and i think it just
12:56shows how easy and pretty accessible it is to do sure you might need a mechanic to help you out
13:01with
13:02some of the more complex jobs like fitting a bottom bracket or a headset but i think a lot of
13:07the other
13:07things especially on these older frames cabling things up it's really easy to learn how to do and
13:12there's so many resources online that allow you to learn how to do these things with some fairly basic
13:18tools so let me know what you think of this build down in the comments below if you enjoyed the
13:23video then please do drop it a like subscribe to the channel for more content and i will see you
13:27again
13:28very soon
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