In March of 2022, I got my first bike shop job, working at a place in central Indiana. The place was short-staffed for much of the time I was there, but I got to know one of my co-workers pretty well. He was stubborn, old-school, and we didn't have much in common, but he did enjoy talking about old bicycles in his personal collection.
He got me pretty hooked on looking at old resto-modded (restored & modified) bikes -- and because I had some disposable income at the time, I impulsively bought an old frameset to resto-mod back in June of 2022.
I've slowly built it up since then -- and here it is now, in its completion one year later.
In total, the project cost ~$500. It seems slightly pricey for an old bike, but I built it up with the components I wanted -- still with some consciousness of maintaining a budget (I'd love to have Dura Ace on this thing, but that's not realistic for my wallet...).
The Trek 660 is going to be my perfect coffee-getter, rest day rig, and retro eye candy machine.
I could use one of my other bikes to roll around town on, but... they're either too expensive to justify leaving outside and putting unnecessary miles on, or they just wouldn't fit the application all too well.
So far, it's a dream to look at and to ride. It's also my first taste of steel.
If you're wanting a slightly more in-depth look at the build, here is the process:
Here's the listing picture of the frameset. It was the best-looking pink/blue 660 I could find at the time. It did not come with a headset or a bottom bracket, and I had no idea what type of parts would fit... so some research needed to be done.
The frame is 54/55cm, and has Reynolds 531 double-butted tubing.
Here is the frameset after it arrived to my house. The first thing I did was wipe it down with some Muc-Off cleaning spray, followed by an internal coating of ProGold steel frame protectant seal (it was called chicken grease at my old shop due to the bad smell).
For the headset and bottom bracket, I used a Sugino 1" threaded headset, along with a 110mm Shimano threaded bottom bracket. My old coworker estimated the bottom bracket length, and was spot on -- any shorter, and we would've had a problem.
I bought this whole groupset of Shimano 105 off of Pinkbike for $70. This, I believe, was the first generation of 105 8spd with integrated shifters.
Even though a downtube shifter would look and feel period-correct, I still wanted the ease and familiarity of shifting and braking without having to take my hands off of the bars.
Other notable parts that were purchased were the Uno bars, stem, and seatpost, as well as the Origin 8 1" quill stem adapter.
After snagging some lovely blue Velocity rims with 8spd 105 hubs off of Facebook Marketplace, I played around with the possible variations of the bike. I was set on having brown grips, a brown saddle, white cable housing, and tanwall tires, but considered matching the white Newbaum's bartape with a nice white Turbo saddle.
Ultimately, I ended up going for a completely different look.
I bought chrome 8spd velocity rims -- instead of the blue -- with 105 hubs (from the same guy who sold me the blue wheels...), used the stock black grips, and then purchased some black Continental Ultra Sport 23mm tires from "The Bay" (Ebay).
I did ultimately buy the Turbo saddle after I disliked the look of a $10 white Prologo saddle from a swap meet. The Prologo saddle was the right color and well within the budget, but just didn't look fitting atop the bike.
My favorite detail of the bike is the Trek saddle bag, along with the zipper string.
The saddle bag is period-correct, and was only $2 at the CIBA swap meet.
The zipper string is a repurposed bracelet from an old friend. It's a piece of the bike that seems insignificant on its own, but makes the build feel thorough and complete.
I have yet to put more than a couple miles on the bike, and it needs some slight adjustments. Otherwise, it seems promising, and I'm happy. However, I haven't yet rode on it enough to find out if "steel is real," as they say...
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