Specialized Sequoia Makeover Project - Pt 2

Cleaned up, reassembled, mostly complete.

When I first got the bike, I figured it was in decent mechanical shape, but a bit grungy and rough looking.  So then I got down to taking it all apart and cleaning the frame, which turned out to be in much better shape than I had expected.  Under the grime, there was bright, clear paint, and very, very few scratches or flaws.  Even the decals were pretty much perfect, which is pretty rare on a frame this old and clearly ridden a lot.  The various components were pretty grungy and needed cleaning and overhaul, but I also looked at the parts mix and gave some thought to changing it.  As I explained in an earlier post, as near as I have been able to determine, the 1982 Sequoia was sold as a frameset, and built up to the buyer's requests.  This freed me to rebuild it with my own preferred mix, keeping some parts and changing others.

SunTour Cyclone II derailleurs and Sugino AT crankset

To start with, the bike had Campagnolo Nuovo Record cranks, which back in my younger days, I might have kept, since they are great quality and worked great if you could live with the gearing options they offered.  I'm older now, and appreciate having lower gears, or at least a "bail out" or "granny" gear, and that wasn't an option with those cranks.  Furthermore, the arms themselves were a really long 180mm (170 is pretty typical for road bikes of this era), and while I'm tall with long legs, I don't really feel I need them that long.  In their place, I installed a set of one of my favorite cranksets, a Sugino AT with three chainrings instead of two, giving a wider, more versatile range of gears.  As an added bonus, I found someone who wanted to buy the long Campy cranks, which brought in almost half of what I had paid for the bike.  Initially set up with MKS Sylvan Track pedals and toe clips, I later put a set of Wellgo SPD pedals instead.  I figure I can swap them out depending on mood.

SunTour Superbe brakes

In a similar vein, the rear derailleur was a lovely, early version of the Shimano Dura-Ace mechanism.  Those are really great, smooth shifting units, but designed solely for racing, and very limited in the range of rear sprockets they can work with.  So I opted for a SunTour Cyclone GTII ofr the correct period, which would work with the wide range chainrings up front, as well as giving me more options at the rear.  And the Cyclone was a match for the front derailleur the bike came with, which I kept.  Likewise, the original owner had put SunTour bar end shifters ("barcons") on the bike, and they are a personal favorite of mine, so they stayed.  Very smooth operating and right at your fingertips at the end of the handlebars.

Nitto bars and stem, Superbe brake levers, SunTour barcons

Speaking of handlebars, the bike came with a very aggressively curved drop handlebar, a style I really just don't care for, and a stem that didn't bring the bars up very high, so those were also discarded and replaced with a more conventional Nitto B115 bar and Technomic stem.  The original brakes were odd, in that the front was a standard reach Campy sidepull, but the rear was short reach with a drop bolt.  No idea why they would have done that.  I had a set of SunTour Superbe levers and calipers and used those instead.  Gorgeous and they work great.  I kept the original seat post, and ultimately put a Brooks B17 saddle on it. 

Avocet Mod II hubs, Super Champion Gentleman rims

Finally, the wheels and tires.  The bike came with a set of wheels built around Avocet Mod. II hubs with sealed cartridge bearings, laced to Super Champion Gentleman 20mm wide clincher rims.  Once I checked and found the hub bearings perfectly smooth, I just couldn't think of a better option for this bike. Avocet was a USA based company that offered a range of components made by Ofmega of Italy, including hubs, cranks, and seat posts. They were probably better known for a longer time as selling some really nice tires, but they closed down operations some years ago. Super Champion was a French rim maker who were among the first to offer a narrow, lightweight box section rim that brought higher performance to clincher wheels.  I tried the bike out with the original Specialized tires for a ride or two, but they didn't ride that great, so I changed them over to some Compass/Rene Herse 700x28 Chinook Pass tires, which are high end, supple and fast tires.

So, how does the bike ride?  In a word, great.  Tim Neenan really hit a home run with the design of the Sequoia in my opinion.  Reasonably light, stiff enough for good power transmission, but with enough "give" in the frame for comfort.  As I said at the beginning of this, when I was younger I really wanted the stiffer, racier Allez model, but for where I am now the Sequoia is just about perfect.  If I wanted, I could put wider, cushier tires on it, even with fenders, and there are mounts for a rear rack if I wanted to carry some stuff.  It's not really designed for fully loaded touring, but if I wanted to do some long day rides, or some "credit card touring", I'd certainly consider this bike for it.  And it's a really beautiful bike too, without being overtly flashy.  I'm really glad I found it... or it found me.

Finished bike after a ride.  Yes, white tape.

I never did find out who told the owner they should bring it to me, but I'll always be grateful to whomever it was.