So following on from Part 1 last month when I acquired the poor neglected Brian Rourke and striped it down to a bare frame it was time to bring the bike back to life. As you can see the bottom bracket shell was pretty crusty inside but after attacking it with a wire brush and testing out the AliExpress BB Threadchaser tool I bought specially for this job it was looking brand new again.

Next I carefully removed the surface corrosion from several areas of the frame where the paint had either chipped off or been rubbed away with a fine brass brush in a Dremel multitool. After making the exposed steel nice and shiny again the bare spots got treated with some rust converter and painted over with the closest paint match I could find from my collection of old car paints I might need again someday shelf in my garage, and gave the chrome forks and seat stays a good scrub with some fine wire wool and WD40 that was the frame ready to build up again.

Now it was time to sort through the box of disparate bits I’d removed to see what was worth keeping, and the answer was ….. not a lot actually. The lovely polished Campagnolo aero seatpost cleaned up nicely and likewise the Campag headset was fine after a careful clean up and some fresh grease. The ugly adapter that was on the bike to convert the quill style headset and forks to the more modern Aheadset system went straight in the bin to be replaced with a more period correct and infinitelybetter looking ITM stem. The handlebars being nice quality Cinelli ones were worth the two hours of my life I lost laboriously lost cleaning off years of super sticky bar tape residue, and with all that done the only thing left was the choice of groupset.

The bike came with a slightly weird mix of mid 2000’s components. What we had was 10 speed Shimano Ultegra shifters and rear derailleur, a Shimano 105 front mech, Ultegra dual pivot brakes and a Campagnolo Centaur Crankset and bottom bracket. Both the Ultegra FlightDeck shifters looked like they’d seen several unscheduled meetings with the tarmac over the years and the right hand one only worked when it felt like it. Likewise the rear derailleur had plenty of battle scars and its jockey wheels were both well past their sell by date. The Campagnolo crank had some life left in it but the square taper bottom bracket really, really didn’t want to part company with the frame and lets just say It didn’t survive the rather brutal operation that was needed to remove it.

The only question really was what flavour of bits to fit in their place? I knew this frame deserved some decent quality cohesive component choices. I also knew I wanted to build this bike up with the sort of period correct bits that the bike had possibly worn when it had been somebodies brand new shiny pride and joy. I spent far to long on the internet researching secondhand parts prices and what was freely available without ordering the last one in the world from thousands of miles away. I have to admit the nostalgia fest looking at these long since discontinued bits of steel and aluminium was real. Just looking at a picture of a vintage Campagnolo Victory rear mech circa 1982 was enough to have me wiping rose tinted tears away remembering how I’d saved up to buy one when I was still at school before trying to make it play nicely with my bikes cheapo Suntour fiction levers ……..

Anyway the here’s what I ended up with after lots of eBay bidding and my wife asking what was in all these boxes that kept turning up at the house.

I went with Shimano 600 TriColour 8 speed complete with downtube shifters and aero brake levers. This groupset which was available from 1988 and was the precursor to what became the Ultegra series and was back in the day something that had always just dangled out of reach of my meagre teenage budget, now over 30 years later it was time finally see how well it rode. Once all the parts were on my workbench the Rourke came together incredibly quickly. With no concealed cables, hydraulic hoses or Di2 batteries or wires to faff about threading through the frame stem or handlebars I reckon I went from a bare frame and forks to a ridable bike in about an hour. I’d forgotten how simple a bike can be when you role back 30 years of technology. The final touch was a set of Michelin Classic 25c tyres with tan sidewalls to complete the retro look. One thing I did miss order were the inner tubes – hence if you look closely at the pictures of the complete bike you’ll note the ridiculously long 60mm valves poking miles through the skinny Mavic rims but that’s a minor detail, overall I’m over the moon with the way the completed bike looks and I even had some blue bar tape in the drawer that goes well with the frame.

On to the 94 million dollar question – how does it ride? really, really well actually. Yes, using the downtube shifters was a bit of a wake up call after years of never having to take my hands off the bars but the muscle memory kicked in after about the 30th time I’d flapped around wondering why the brake levers refused to move inwards. The Rourke rides just as a really good traditional steel frame should. It’s a rather hard thing to quantify sitting here at a keyboard trying to explain it but I’ll have a bash if you’ll bear with me, I think the best way to describe it might be like this: Down the narrowish country lane I often use to get back home from a ride there’s section of road consisting of a left hand then a right hand corner. Its just after you come off the back of a small rise over a railway line bridge so you’re naturally picking up speed. The first corner is perhaps 70 degrees or so, ever so slightly off camber with a patch of gravel and a bit of a pothole towards the centre of the road. The high hedge line on both sides of the road make it a blind exit onto a short straight before the road then bends to the right, pretty standard stuff for a English Country lane. If you get it right on a bike and manage to carry speed through both bends it’s a satisfying section of road to ride, the key to it is confidence through the first corner. My Trek TCR rewards commitment through here, its a bit twitchy as you tip the bike into the left hander, but if I trust the bike and stay smooth I’ve learnt that the TCR with its modern compact frame with a straight fork and steep head angle will stay on the line I’ve chosen but it’s always a nervous moment if I’m pushing on. My Ti Sabbath Silk Road on the other hand won’t be rushed through the first bend. It tends to try and push wide if you enter the corner faster than it wants to go which a couple of times has led to buttock clenching close encounters with the gravel lined pothole of doom. So if I’m on the Sabbath I’ll enter the left hand bend slower than on the TCR then try and power through the section picking up speed. When I took the Rourke out on its maiden voyage I was looking forward to seeing how it rode through these bends because for me at least its a really good measuring stick for how a bike handles and it didn’t disappoint. The bike held its line beautifully and without any drama through the left hand bend, less nervous than the TCR but without the Sabbaths tendency to run wide, just instantly confidence inspiring and a lot of fun.

This does present me with a bit of a problem. The original plan was to rebuild the Rourke as a bit of a passion project and then try and move it on to a new owner, not for any great profit but hopefully at a price that would let me roughly recoup my costs. Now of course I really want to keep it but I just don’t have space or the justification for the now rather bloated Declining Cyclist fleet. The Rourke brings the total to six bikes, four road and two MTB’s. At least one of the four road bikes from the choice of the Giant TCR, Sabbath Silk Road, Moulton TSR22 and now the Rourke needs to go, but if I’m being really honest with myself I really should be thinking about culling at least two of the fleet to free up some space and funds but which bikes are going to get advertised? or should I put them all up for sale and see which ones sell first?

I feel this is not a decision to rush so I might just keep riding them all for awhile to try and help me make my mind up.