Il Pompino Refurb Part 2

The first thing I did was to remove most of the components from the frame, which had been left in a garage for a couple of years before I began working on it. The state of it was overall pretty good, but there were a lot of small rust patches to take care of. To get rid of those I used a 50:50 mixture of water and baking soda, mixed into a paste. After generous quantities were applied directly to the rust spots and left to dry I then scrubbed every oxidised surface I could find, using scrunched up aluminium foil. After the process was repeated and a final wash & dry the frame was almost as good as new!

As the lay of the land around here is much flatter than where I was living before I decided to replace the 32t chainring with a 38t, giving it about 59 gear inches. Luckily I was able to find a modern Middleburn RS7 for my ageing Middleburn Uno crankset so it was straightforward to swap it out.

The cantilever brakes (Cane Creek SCX-5) were in a pretty bad way, but not irrecoverable. Fixings were all soaked in rust remover and given a good scrub with aluminium foil. The brake bodies were also in need of a proper clean. Once everything was dry I re–installed the brakes using some nice new white–sleeved cabling, then moved onto wrapping the bars with fresh Cinelli cork gel tape.

(Incidentally: I always like to watch this excellent Park Tools video on handlebar wrapping when I need a refresher.)

So, after the bars were wrapped I thought I’d install the fenders I got: the very nice all–aluminium SKS Edge. There wasn’t quite enough room on the Il Pompino’s front fork and rear chain stays to comfortably fit the guards so I ended up fetching the trusty Dremel and doing a little trimming of the fender bodies.

With modifications finished I was able to get a great fit. I really like these fenders, they feel solid, look good and do not rattle. Can’t ask for more than that, really. Oh, good at catching mud too!

The tyres were old and worn Ritchey CX, which were a little too bulky for the Pompy’s new role as joyrider/shopping bike so I replaced them with these great Continental Gator Hardshell tyres. They fit perfectly on the Velocity Deep V rims this wheelset has and are better suited to the street riding this bike will see.

The chainline is already pretty straight on this build but at some point I’ll try some aluminium shims to shift over the freewheel and make it absolutely bang on perfect.

I wanted to ride in style so stuck with the Brooks Team Pro saddle I’ve had for years (and accompanying rain cover, naturally.) All that was left was to attach a new chain (KMC brand) and saddlebag (the Gusti Udo B.) and go for a test ride!