Well I did it. I bought a Rickert bike at T-town. It was being wheeled around by this nice old guy who had a genuine honest look about him. Soft spoken and no hype. We negotiated a price and I wheeled it away. My size and all. There are a few things that I have to put right on the bike and this is where I need help. It is pretty much all campy except for the brakes which are dura ace side pulls. Now you can easily see that this bike is set up for center pulls as it has the double brake bridge, one for the calipers and one for the cable housing retainer. Since I have never seen a Campy center pull I wanted opinions on what brakes should be on this bike. I was thinking of Weinmann 999 Vanquer brakes but cannot find any reference material to back that up. The way the bike was set up with the side pull is that he reversed the caliper to be in front of the stays so the cable would enter from the right side where the braze ons routed the cable.
I also learned a neat little trick from this old gentleman. He had a clamp on water bottle cage, and wire ties to hold the computer wire. He also had some friction tape on the down tube to prevent the brake from nicking the paint on the frame. On each of these he had several turns of plumbing Teflon tape under it. This did two things. It made it easy to remove and it preserved the finish and decals. The clamp on water bottle cage went right across the Rickert decal. When I removed it and began to unravel the Teflon tape I was nervous. The tape came off and the decal looks like it did the day they put it on the bike.
One last thing, the gentleman told me and had written on a sign that the bike was purchased from Ted Ernst. That meant nothing to me at the time till my friend told me that he was a well known racer in the 50s and 60s. Well I looked it up and he was right. In fact I looked and at the bottom of the seat tube there was the bike shop name. Ted Ernst bicycle of Manhattan Beach. Actually it says something more like Manhattan Beach bicycles made for Ted Ernst. Nice to have some provenance to go along with the deal.
Ray Homiski
Elizabeth, NJ