Sir/Madam, I have a Trek 1400 size 52cm with is being purchase in the early 90's.Since I have bump by a motorbike from behind 7 years ago,I have put my bike to rest in the storeroom. The bike still looks good,gear shifting in still gaood and brakes are o.k . I have afew question to ask.

1. Are the components still being used in todays world of cycling ?.

2. What can be done to upgrade the bike?.

3. If the component need to be upgraded, please advise me the minimum cost I have to spend ?.

Thank You. Regards.

-- Raja Idris bin Raja Mahmood (ridriz@yahoo.co.uk), September 24, 2002

Answers

Engku,

No need to upgrade unless the parts are really cabok. Older parts perform just fine, and if have not been riding newer equipment, you'll not know what you are missing anyway.

Briefly, the major advances in road bike technology since the early 90s:

• integrated shifter/brake levers. You can now shift gears with your hands in the drops.
• much more powerful road brakes, due to a re-design in the pivot mechanism
• 9 (Shimano) and 10 (Campy) speed cogsets.
• triple chainring cranksets for high-end groupsets

Unfortunately, most of these things need to be upgraded together, due to the incompatibility of older components. (Eg if you have a 7-speed cogset on your bike, to upgrade to a 9-speed, you'll need a new hub AND new cogset. Of course the whole wheel needs to be rebuilt too.) So, my advice is to keep your old bike and its components if everything is working fine. You'll probably need to get new tyres and tubes, though. Send the bike to a good bike shop to have it serviced (or better yet, do it yourself). I certainly believe that there's a certain cachet attached to old bike components.

Your retro fiend,
Joe

-- Joe Adnan (joeadnan@yahoo.com), October 22, 2002.