My 3Rensho is comming along quite fine now. The 172.5 crank is on it's way from Holland. The brakes have been dissassembled and re-assembled. The front wheel will be re-built as soon as I find a replacement rim in the odd color and dimension. Everything that can be overhauled has been, and anticipation is building, almost as if I were taking delivery on the same bike brand new, back in the day. On impulse, I ordered a stainless steel bottle cage, some new bottle bolts. and some updated brake shoes from Nashbar (horrors!). The 5-6 speed chain they also sent is a KMC -Z narrow and I took a chance for only $10. It's not exactly a Sedisport, nor a Dura-ace, but when I put it on, all aspects of shifting immediately improved, from what I can tell while it's still mounted on the workstand. Putting a new chain on usually improves shifting, so this was no surprise. What did throw me was the sound. It is a sound I haven't heard in years. The only way I can describe it is to say that the rear end now seems to have a low hum that increases in pitch up the scale as crank speed increases. This doesn't appear to be a bad sound. In fact it seems to be one that I remember from years past and the bikes that populated my memories. My other bikes have sounds of mechanical clicking and the like, but no hum. The rollers on this new chain seem to have more play between the sideplates, and I remember hearing something about how the newer style chains are constructed using a different principle. Is that the case here?
Garth Libre in Miami Fl.