Is this a good idea? I want to do more road riding, but hate the look of modern carbon road bikes.

yep – or at least i think so.
I have an 80’s fillet brazed steel frame that is lovely to ride and i’ve had it as a single speed for a long time.
Now putting some gears on it – as long as the rear spacing lets you fit a standard modern hub then i don’t think there’s any problems.
Might find that the braze ons aren’t what you need but can get various clamp on cable stops to take care of that.
I swapped out the quill stem for an quill adapter so that could run a modern headset and have more bar choice and easier to play around with stem length etc.

If its done well it can look great. You’ll have to be careful with things like dropout spacing, bottom bracket and maybe brake bolt length (it might not be designed to use recessed bolts like you get with modern brakes)

I’d say go for it and keep this thread updated!

Have a peruse around the weight weenies site, some lovely 80’s and 90’s steel bikes with modern kit.

Some lovely modern steel frames out there too mind, Ritchey, Enigma, Mason cycles amongst others. In fact the above Colnago is fairly modern IIRC.

For brakes tektro make modern dual pivot brakes but with nutted fitting for old frames, add in some koolstop pads and they are just great. I put some on my Mercian after getting fed up of not being able to stop! (Also the tektro logo comes straight off with nail varnish remover)

yep done it on a 1980’s Dawes Imperial – 531c, rides the best of all my bikes. I had to get the fork drilled to fit a dual pull brake caliper on the front, but thats fairly easy. Replaced the square taper BB with a hollowtech one, now has an ultegra groupset with a 10 speed cassette.

Still got friction shifters on the downtube – it would need new cable guides brazing on if I wanted to fit STIs and I cba. The shifting works absoltuely fine.

its an absolutely lovely bike to ride and I would always choose it over my CAAD10 for any ride over 75 miles – considerably comfier!

great replies, thank you.

Do most old steel frames have 120mm spacing and new wheels are 130mm?

Now putting some gears on it – as long as the rear spacing lets you fit a standard modern hub then i don’t think there’s any problems.

If it’s an old steel frame you can usually squeeze a modern hub in there, I think it’s only a few mm. You might need to bend the hanger a bit, worked fine for me though. Have a read of Sheldon Brown on the subject.

Still got friction shifters on the downtube – it would need new cable guides brazing on if I wanted to fit STIs and I cba. The shifting works absoltuely fine.

You can get guides/stoppers that bolt into the holes that the friction shifters bolt into. Or clamps. SJS Cycles are great for this sort of thing.

It depends on how vintage / retro you want to be. I have (hanging on the office wall) my 1995 653 Dave Yates race bike. 130mm dropouts, Repsrayed. Skinny tubes, and skinny 1 inch carbon fork, Mavic open pro rims and alloy 10speed record.

It rides very nicely. Not as stiff as the carbon underneath it on the wall but still great.

I have done a similar thing with my ciocc but retained the down tube shifters. As long as you avoid a 753 frame you should be able to fit a 130mm hub.

If you fancy a modern steel frame that’s relatively cheap the spa audax is supposed to be very good.

Here’s my old racing bike powder coated and now with 105 10spd. Only downside is clearence is very very tight with a 25mm tyre. I’ll probably use a quill/ahead adaptor so I can use a modern stem and compact bars for next season too. Not as pretty but much more comfortable

Posted pics of mine a few weeks back – it’s now my favourite ride out of all my road bikes. these 80’s/early 90’s steel frames ride really nice, and combined with modern brakes and drivetrain they are great fun

[url=https://flic.kr/p/vV3VW7]colnago[/url] by jon bawden, on Flickr

This looks to fix the old frame / modern brake problem adapter bolt

I have a 70’s Raleigh frame that I have been keen to do this with. It has downtube shifters but would love to be able to fix STI’s to it.

This thread has made me keen to dig it out and strip the horrible yellow paint job some muppet put on it.

Definitely go for it, just be aware of vintage standards like 120/126/130 rear spacing and be extra careful if you have an old French frame as you might have fun with not-easily-available BB widths and thread gauge etc.

Some of mine from past and present:

2001 (ok, not that vintage) lugged steel Serotta with SRAM carbon 10spd and RS80 wheels:

1990 Merckx Super Corsa (sold to a mate who put Campag Centaur on it):

1980s Resprayed Raleigh 531 that I cold set the rear dropouts from 126mm to 130mm to use 9spd gears:

Colnago master is the most stunning bike I have ever seen..

New ‘retro’ yours for 2k frame only

I built my son a road bike from a coppi Columbus steel frame and tiagra groupset. Really light and comfortable and managed to get him to Paris for a charity bike ride. All of the guides thought it was fantastic apparently. Definitely worth the effort! I have some Shimano gear levers if you get a frame with braze on tabs

This is this winters “it waa supposed to be a cheap winter bike”

Is this a good idea? I want to do more road riding, but hate the look of modern carbon road bikes.

Why not go modern steel? Lighter and a bit stiffer round the bb and head tube but still a lovely ride and not looking like they were popped out of a mould by the thousand in Taiwan.
I have a pegoretti and a chesini and certainly wouldn’t swap them for an equivalent carbon frame, they are not old school skinny though most people ask if they are aluminium 😯

I have a 1987 Cannondale frame and forks with 2012 everything else on it. It works fine.

Nice modern steel is pricey and still looks modern ie bit thick steering tube etc. Wouldn’t stop me but there is plenty of decent older stuff.
To my mind bikes looked at their best just pre STI/Ergopower. Hidden cables ( so don’t use cheaper Shimano if you like this look)but still shiny stems etc. Older bars don’t always sit well with modern road shifters. Ahead stems are usually ugly great thick ones and look nasty with skinny forks.
Stay silver for components, much classier, especially rims. (Or maybe Mavic brown). Decent square taper Bb will be fine ut probably modern dual pivot brakes. These may not fit the drillings on the older bikes buy they do exist in that shape if you look./

Modern steel is not necessarily lighter. Equilibrium 2.2kg. I have an old 531 frame from the 80s – 1.8kg, same as my old Ritchey Logic.

Lightest I’ve seen/ridden is the 1.6kg Sintesi Pegaso.