Among my modest stable of velocopedal conveyances, there is a little gem I picked up a few years ago on Craigslist for $175. It is a 1986 Fuji Allegro, a prime example of late Bike Boom Japanese production; toward the lower end of Fuji's product line, it featured a proprietary triple-butted lugged "Valite" steel frame outfitted with a typical mix of components from Nitto, Suntour, Sugino and Dia Compe. All the great pre-Shimano Asian names. I used the bike as a commuter for about six years, but after a job change a couple of years ago, the ol' Allegro kind of fell into a bit of neglect. As I have been doing some work on my primary bike, I figured I'd go ahead and gussy up the old Fuji while I was at it.
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1986 Fuji Allegro
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Off the factory floor the Allegro featured typical-for-the-time stem-mounted friction shifters,
extension or "
suicide"
brake levers and foam handlebar grips. All the hallmarks of cheap
mass-production bikes of the times. Yikes! The unfortunate choice of
such "fashionable" components obscures the underlying quality of an
otherwise fairly well-made bike.
Judging from the sticker at the
base of the seat tube, my Allegro was originally sold by the Killeen
Bicycle Center of Killeen, Texas. And from the looks of it, somebody
rode the snot out of it. There is a groove worn into the front
derailleur where somebody seems to have routinely failed to trim it
after shifting to the smallest cog on the rear cluster. To its credit, the
bombproof SunTour ARX derailleur still works just fine regardless, as do all the
components on the bike. By the time I got it, there was a suede Selle
San Marco saddle (a Concor?) on it but otherwise it seemed to be in more or less original.
The guy who sold it to me, a prodigious Craigslist bike-flipper, had
moved the shifters to the downtube, ran some new cables and generally
cleaned it up a bit, but it still had the original wheels, foam grips
and pedals, or reasonable facsimiles thereof.
When I took stewardship, the first thing I did was replace the single-pivot side-pull Dia Compe brakes. I replaced them with much better looking Gran Compe 610 center-pulls, though in honesty they don't work appreciably better. But they look fantastic and at the time I was plunging headlong toward the Jan Heine abyss. I swapped the suede saddle for a new-at-the-time Brooks Cambium, put on some Velo Orange fenders, attached a Pletscher rack on which to mount some saddle bags and in so doing created a pretty dependable commuter that served me quite well for a few years. Though after getting mistreated and neglected for the better part of a decade, it seemed a good time for a bit of an overhaul. But where to start?
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| Panaracer Pasela 27 x 1 1/8 tires |
Wheels
Those super-long valve stems are protruding from a newly acquired set of wheels. The original wheels had seen better days, with grinding bearings in the hubs, rusty spokes and brake surfaces that were gouged and gritty. Given my recent positive experience putting new wheels on my main bike, I figured I'd start there.
Quality 27 inch wheels are a bit hard to come by these days. A lot of people would take the opportunity to convert to a 700c wheel, and believe me, I was sorely tempted. Or I could have picked up a nice, shiny set of 27s from Velo Orange, if I got lucky enough to grab 'em during the occasional windows during which they are in stock. In the end I went simple and bought an inexpensive Wheel Master Weinmann LP18 Wheel Set from Amazon.com. $154 for the set. Nothing to write home about, but the rims are relatively straight, the spokes aren't rusty and the hubs don't grind, so they should be an improvement on the 35 year old hoops that were on it; and these seem to be fairly sturdy and well built. I picked up a new six speed 14-28 tooth Shimano freewheel, a new chain and we were off to the races.
Tires
Quality 27 x 11/8
inch tires are difficult to come by these days too, but fortunately the
geniuses over at Panaracer are still making them. The tread on the
Pacela Protite tires runs to the thick side, but the rubber compound
feels great and the sidewalls seem light and supple compared to the
Kenda tires I had on it before. Of course they cost twice as much, but I
am finding that it's well worth investing in quality rubber.
Brakes
And I left on the Gran Compe 610 bridge-mounted center-pull brakes I bought for the bike when I first got it. The brakes suck compared to the direct-mounted center-pulls on the Velo Routier, and they make me understand why manufacturers eventually abandoned the design in favor of dual-pivot side-pulls, but they look so good on the bike that I left them. I put in some Kool Stop salmon pads which help a bit, but the brakes still suck. Ah, vanity...
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Gran Compe 610 Center-pull brakes with Tektro straddle cable
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Cockpit
If you followed the saga of the building of my Cycles Toussaint Velo Routier, you know that during that build I abandoned the kit's handlebars and stem, instead scavenging the Fuji's Nitto "Young" stem and Nitto B114 "Olympiad" handlebar. At some point I always intended to move the Fuji's cockpit back from whence it came and install a new Soma Fabrications stem with a Velo Orange "Course" handlebar I picked up a few years ago. But, I've become quite fond of the 70 mm stem and relatively short reach Nitto handlebar, so I left them on the Velo Routier and installed the Soma/VO rig on the Fuji. The reach on this combination is quite a bit longer than the original setup, but I use the bike for shorter efforts and it just looks so damn cool I think I'll leave it.
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1986 Fuji Allegro w/ Soma stem and Velo Orange "Course" bars
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Velo Orange doesn't offer the bar anymore, which was basically a re-imagining of the classic Maes Parallel anymore, which is a real shame. They seem to be following the
Crust model of funky, "modern" gravel-informed bars, along with disk brakes. (Don't get me wrong; I love Crust and if they ever produce another
Lightning Bolt or
Romanceür with cantilever brakes, I will snap one up as sure as Bob's your uncle. But the Crust guys ride bikes primarily off-road and like their handlebars super-wide which offends my admittedly retrogrouchy aesthetic sensibilities). I better pick up one of the classically styled Randonneur bars while Velo Orange still makes them, since they've now introduced a goofy looking "
Nouveau Randonneur" featuring ultra-shallow drops and extremely short reach and look nothing at all like
an actual Randonneur bar. Pretty soon their bikes will all look like Specialized gravel bikes, only with vaguely french sounding names.
Levers
I mounted the DiaCompe Touring Brake Levers with QR that came with the Velo Routier DIY kit. I initially rejected the notion of using these levers with their swoopy cables. Even too retro for me. The original levers that came on the Allegro were aero, meaning the cables exited the hoods under the bar tape like more "modern" brakes. But the original levers (which weren't the original levers, but a weird looking set of white levers) got seriously scraped up in a minor fall I took a few years back and I figured I'd go ahead and install the ones supplied by Cycles Toussaint. I had bought some brake lever cable adjusters shortly after getting the DIY package (they were left out of the original shipment of my new bike), so I went ahead and used the DiaCompe touring levers. And man, I'm glad I did. They're great. The hoods feel terrific in the hand, the cables with their shiny braided finish look just great, and notwithstanding the somewhat inadequate brakes they actuate, they work really well.
Finally, I wrapped the bars with Cinelli cork tape which has become my go-to colorway on classically styled bikes with brown appointments. I just think it complements the gumwall tires, the brown brake hoods and the leather saddle in a way black just doesn't.
But do the handlebars have Prosecco corks for bar-end plugs? you ask. You're goddamn right they do!
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Prosecco cork bar-end plug? Check!
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Perch
Astute observers will note I installed the recently abandoned Brooks B-17 Imperial I dumped from my primary bike. I recently read a kind of negative review of that model by the esteemed Brooks at the Retrogrouch. He noted that he thought maybe the factory-installed laces may be keeping the saddle from flexing the way a standard B-17 does. So I have removed the laces and I'll give it another shot. The Fuji won't get long rides like my other bike, so maybe over time the Brooks will do what they are supposed to do and become my favorite saddle ever!
So the bike is back in ride-able condition and has had some noteworthy improvements made. Now the only thing it really needs is a new bottom bracket. I noticed while giving it a good clean that there was some pretty serious wiggling around down there. Despite having developed a large amount of confidence working on a nearly every other component of the bike, there are two areas I'm still hesitant about: head sets and bottom brackets. So I'll take it into the guy and get that swapped out. After that, all there is to do is work out the luggage. I'll probably put on a rack or basket to make it more practical as a flipflop / around town / grocery getter. But that will be another adventure altogether. So stay tuned...
* That's right, folks, I'm a
Firesign Theater fan.
