Stemming..

For some time I had considered the last ever produced Campa headset in combination an old-fashioned Panto stem, but these are unfit for the modern 31,8 mm compact handlebars, and the more profiled and sizeable stems of today really look great as well, especially with appropriate marking and decoration. Here I was fortunate with the Colnago stem from Hungary, described earlier. The black would fit with the paintwork around the head tube, upper fork area and both the seat post and wheels. The mounting was a nice job and rather easy. The inner fork star flanged nut was perfectly in place and I needed just two of the four remaining spacer rings. The sloping cap to be combined with the already present and new to add bushing, which had a slanting bore allowing the stem to be placed pointing upward or more horizontally, was an easy fit. The horizontal option was the best choice in both handlebar position and appearance. 

Fork and Torque..

One of the most satisfying exercises was the replacement of the headset using the Cyclus tools for driving out and pressing in the bearing cups. Good tooling really does it all. Pushing the upper bearing ring downward over the edge of the fork shaft only succeeds if executed completely straight and horizontally, so I used a stem cap which was left over from Tecnos 1. After it was pushed down over the edge, the Birzman crown race fixing ring and tube did the rest. The most challenging of all the parts to fit however, was the bottom bracket - crank combination, especially because this was Campagnolo Ultra Torque, which was totally new to me. Ingenious as it might be, I personally feel that 2 half axles held together with a bolt seems a bit insecure, compared to a crankshaft in 1 piece. But I’m no technician of course.  I chose the ”Inferior” installation method using Loctite, considering the special tool for flattening the bottom bracket shell too large an investment at this stage. I must admit I was a bit nervous here. My greatest concern was possible play on the shaft after mounting. With previous generations of bottom brackets, the desired tightness of the bearings on the crankshaft could be reached by loosening or tighten the bearing housing, but with the pre-assembled bearings on the Ultra Torque, there is no such possibility. The bottom bracket cups need to be mounted first, tightened, and after fixation, the 2 crank units have to be placed outside-inward and fastened together with a special bolt. At 42 Nm to be precise. Meaning everything needs a perfect fit with no possibility for adjustment. There is the crinkle thrust washer which compensates for the variation in bottom bracket shell widths found on various framesets, but I was somehow still worried that this would not entirely prevent play on the axle. So I was pretty much relieved to find a tight and perfectly balanced, smooth running crankshaft 48 Loctite drying hours later. The major challenges were completed now..

Parts to cling to..

From the start of the project, I had the intention of keeping only the bare frame and selling everything else in order to have some financial compensation to support the purchase of the new still to acquire components and wheels. So I initially advertised on marketplace showing a picture of the complete bike mentioning all parts were for sale except the frame. And that seemed to work out well, as soon there was a bid which was higher than what I had paid for the whole bike in the first place. I did not wait too long to accept the offer, informing the bidder I would come back once all parts were available. But once they were, the bidder withdrew the offer. I was a bit disappointed, but not really surprised. Welcome to Marketplace. There's a lot of impulsive bidding and you're only sure once the money is received. Although in my general experience, most people are fair. I then decided to offer the parts available as loose, as a complete group, or otherwise, to the wish of the potential buyers. There was interest for sure, for all the parts, but against unfair offers in my opinion. The thing was that I had cleaned and refurbished all the parts thoroughly, noting the good condition they still were in and I was really impressed by the high quality and superb engineering of this Dura Ace generation. Also, the 3T stem and handlebar were something special. Although the whole group and wheels were nearly sold for an offer that may not have been too bad after all, considering current standards, I finally decided to keep everything. Not only due to the relatively low proceeds, but mostly because I had started to like the parts. Just as a collection, but also with the idea that they might be used in possible future bike restorations. Bike tinkering had meanwhile started to become a really nice pastime..

Stem and Bar..

The handlebar was the easiest of all choices. I had immediately been very happy with the FSA Vero Compact 44mm on my new Wilier, had Tecnos 1 equipped with it as well, so Tecnos 2 would be having FSA number 3. A perfectly well designed handlebar in simple aluminum, very convenient, comfortable and affordable. The stem had to be searched for however. I wanted it black showing the Colnago logo. Not easy to find new, but I finally ran into an advertisement in Hungary, where I had found the seat post at the same time; https://www.velossimo.hu/ which proved to have quite a range of new Colnago parts.

Dealing was easy via the webshop and delivery fast. The stem set had 2 bushings and 2 stem caps, of which the plain straight cap found its place on Tecnos 1. There also was a sloping cap to be combined with the other bushing, which had an oblique bored shank allowing the stem to be placed horizontally, or pointing upward. In my case, horizontal was the choice. An ingenious system. I had the bare metal bolts on the handlebar clamp replaced with black.  What was left to look out for were handlebar tape and caps. So that was it.. I had all the major parts now.