Lemond

Two weeks ago, I finally got around to doing some work on my 1998 Lemond Zurich. This was my first road bike, purchased in May of 1999. I finally broke down and bought a road bike after years of throwing road tires on my mountain bikes. That month was also significant, in that I also bought my first pair of "road" bike shorts...a month later I bought my first jersey. Prior to that, I was too manly to wear anything other than baggy mountain bike shorts and t-shirts. At the age of 23, I was finally secure enough in my masculinity to throw on tight clothes and ride my new shiny road bike on an Army base in SC. I had come along way from the 21 year old that was too cool to wear a helmet while riding a mountain bike down steep hills.

This was my sole road bike until 2007. The Lemond traveled a lot of miles, with very few problems. In 2007, a few things happened:

1) A couple of kids were playing and thought it would be cool to knock the bike down. The bike scraped up against a pillar on the carport and took out a fairly significant chunk of paint on the steel frame. Sonya knows the incident well, as I've mentioned this one hundreds of times...I will not let it die.
2) The right shifter started to work intermittently...not a good thing
3) I started riding a lot more.

Those 3 things prompted me to buy the Felt. I put the Lemond away in the closet. Over the past 2 years I only saw the bike when I was getting homebrew gear out of the closet. Always thought I'd get around to fixing it back up. It took awhile, but I finally took action. So far, I haven't made it far past step 1...removing all the components. I cleaned years of crud off the bottom bracket, derailleurs, cassette, etc. Some of that crap fossilized on the cassette after 2 years of neglect.

Step 2, acquiring new parts hasn't gone very well. After inspecting everything, I decided the only must-buy is a new set of shifters. My e-bay skills are weak. So far, I've lost 4 bids for a new set of shifters...maybe it's because I'm a tightwad. I need a set of Ultegra shifters...will even take 105. If you have some to sell, let me know.

Step 3 is the paint job. Any tips on touching up a 1-inch chip in the paint?

Step 4 is reassembly...this is something I've never done. I'll need some tips, but that will be months from now.