<Cue John Coltrane Music>
One of my favorite things is making things work "better." Last weekend I visited Art Stump and his history is a history of making things better. One of the questions I asked him was, "Can you tell me of anything you've looked at and thought was perfect and wouldn't be made better with a little modification?"
Art looked at me from under his fishing cap and after a long pause said, "I'm sure there's something though I can't really think of it, and I'm not sure if my ego would allow me to leave it alone anyway." This got me thinking about why I love being a mechanic, because these are the same words I've heard come out of my mouth before. Maybe it's also a desire to have something different then everyone else, but I love to change things from stock. It may only make the part lighter or look better, but it sets the part apart from the others of its kind. "Here are a few of my favorite things."
1. Drillium parts. Like everything good it can be overdone and lead to sadness, but done correctly it can remove a lot of weight and add a lot of style.
2. Campagnolo rear deraileurs can be made much better with replacing the stock pulleys with Bullseye and installing a barrel adjuster in the back for cable tension.
3. Making non-aero brake levers aero and running the housing and through the bars. This is one of those mods that can be screwed up easily. The trick is getting the same amount of cable pull.
4. Adding the same color, or a complementary color, to all the grooves and cut-outs in the parts. This really adds a stunning look to the bike even if the parts aren't milled and drilled. It's really easy to do the crankarm and shifter grooves, but the lettering in the brake calipers is a really nice accent.
5. Custom cutting of your leather saddle looks really nice and saves some weight. If you have chrome rails and a polished post it looks really nice.
There are a ton of other more mechanical modifications, but the above 5 are ones to give ideas to folks who don't like to run with a crowd. I have planed someday to have a web page dedicated to modification, but that's not going to happen any time soon. enjoy, Brandon"monkeyman"Ives SB, CA
PS: I'd like to thank my dad who let me take apart the lawnmower when I was way too young. Val Kleitz for teaching me half the mods I know, and all the people like Art Stump that were never satisfied with stock.