# First bike - Bianchi Sport SX



## Kaidao (Oct 17, 2012)

Hey, just bought my first 'real' bike. Now that I live so close to work I thought I might as well start biking haha. Anyways here's some pictures. I paid $200 for it used on CL. Whether it's a good deal or not, whatever, it's already done and I like the colors and the frame was in pretty good condition.


































What do you guys think?


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## David Loving (Jun 13, 2008)

Nice looking bike - I love Bianchi - now go out and ride it!


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## Kaidao (Oct 17, 2012)

Thanks. Yeah I'm planning on it. My work is 3.8 miles/way so it should be some pretty good exercise.


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## AndrwSwitch (May 28, 2009)

Nice. Lots of old school cool on that bike.

If it comes up that you need to replace a wheel or tire, make sure to find out what size you've got.

Indexing or plain friction shifters?

parktool.com is a great resource for maintenance stuff.

Enjoy it!


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## PJ352 (Dec 5, 2007)

Nice looking bike! I'd guesstimate it to be circa '89 and a mid-range steel frame, but you can poke around on the web if you want to know more.


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## Kaidao (Oct 17, 2012)

AndrwSwitch said:


> Nice. Lots of old school cool on that bike.
> 
> If it comes up that you need to replace a wheel or tire, make sure to find out what size you've got.
> 
> ...


I'm not gonna lie. I had to look up what friction shifters are. I was confounded the first time I took it out on the road and I didn't know how to change gears lol. A couple YouTube videos later, I at least know how now. Can't say I'm good at it yet but definitely practicing.

I'm looking to get some better, sturdier wheels/tires for my bike, any suggestions?


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## AndrwSwitch (May 28, 2009)

First, find out what size your wheels are.

Wheels are one of the bigger-ticket items on a bicycle and sometimes with those old enough to have friction shifters, you can open a bit of a can of worms in terms of compatibility problems. Newer wheels don't necessarily play well with older drivetrain bits and dropout spacing and if I'm right about the size, you'll have problems with your tires and may have a problem with your brakes.

Have you had the tires off yet? Another thing that you should know before you throw money at new wheels is if you have aluminum or steel rims, and if they're single-walled or double-walled.

Basically, I've been down this road a couple of times. It can be a huge pain. So you should definitely go into it eyes-open.

Whether you have 27" or 700C wheels, there are tires out there. To be honest, I haven't actually bought tires for one of my commuters in years. I just use tires that my friends think they're too good for. If you're getting a lot of flats and your tires don't have flat protection, though, it's much more convenient not to have that happen so often. So - what size tires do you have? And what are you comfortable spending on tires? Clinchers can cost as much as $75 and as little as $15. IME, they start being worth buying around $30, but I do have fancy tires on my competition bikes, so for those, I'm willing to spend more.


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## PJ352 (Dec 5, 2007)

Kaidao said:


> I'm looking to get some better, sturdier wheels/tires for my bike, any suggestions?


By all means, check, but I'm gonna make an educated guess and say that your bike has 700c wheels and 7 or less cogs at the rear. 

If correct, I'd minimize (in other words, avoid) some compatibility issues and lace new rims to your hubs, thus retaining the current freewheel/ freehub (7 speed could have either - see link below). This assumes the wheel hubs are in serviceable/ good condition. If so, consider overhauling them with new grease/ ball bearings. 

Freewheel or Cassette?

Rider weight and intended uses should be considered, but (as two examples) Mavic CXP22's or Open Sport rims will generally suite recreational road riding. There are a wealth of other choices. 

Re: tires, depending on intended uses, you may want to consider something offering puncture resistance - Continental Gatorskins (or similar). If you're into comfort and/ or are a heavier rider, I suggest going with the widest tire your frame and fork can accommodate.


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## Kaidao (Oct 17, 2012)

Wow, thanks for the information guys. I haven't had that much time to look into everything you mentioned here, but I'll let you guys know once I do some more research. Honestly didn't know there was so much into a bike haha.


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## AndrwSwitch (May 28, 2009)

Sheldon Brown's got some good articles about older bikes. Globalization is leading to some standardization, although manufacturers break the standards every couple of years, so things stay complicated. But bikes of the period of yours, and even more so bikes that are older than that are a little bit pre-globalization in some respects. There used to be many more manufacturers of everything, and more components used to be manufactured in-house, or be brand- or country-specific.

I don't think you're going to run into anything super-weird on that bike in terms of something that only the French or only Campagnolo did. Not on an Italian frame with a Japanese drivetrain. But I'm hesitant to say late '80s, to my eye it's early '80s, and that means that rear hub type and rim size are concerns. You don't actually have to measure anything - telling us how many cogs are on the freewheel (or cassette, if that's what it is) and finding the size printed on the tire should be fairly definitive.

If the rims are already double-walled aluminum, I don't believe there's much "up" to "grade." Especially if you have a threaded road hub with funny spacing.

Building wheels is a good project if that's what you're looking for and a huge pain in the butt if you just wanted a ridable bike. It's time-consuming enough that I don't think it's worthwhile to build a wheel onto a damaged hub, which folds a hub inspection and either rebuild or buying new ones into the project. And it's one of the points where you need to make a decision about partially modernizing the bike or not.

With older bikes bought to be commuters, I think it pays to keep your eyes on the prize - if it's just supposed to get you to and from work, it really just needs to be safe.


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