Trek 560: A Racey Old Friend

I bought this '84 Trek 560 over a year ago, and though it doesn't get ridden as much as my other bikes, it has come to fill an important role in my vast stable of bikes (Ok, by "vast stable" I mean I have three rideable bikes and a few boxes full of parts). It's the indispensable sexy-sunny-day-go-fast bike. The 560 occupies the same sort of place in my bike collection as the "LBD" occupies in the wardrobes of a lot of women I know. For most serious cyclists these days an LBD bike is most likely going to be something modern, carbon fiber and quite a bit lighter than this old Trek. But for the non-competitive riding I do, I really don't think those modern carbon wonders have anything over my Trek 560 (says the retro-grouch in me...).

The 560 was designed to be a stripped down criterium racing machine so it just wouldn't be right to add fenders, racks and lights and load it down like a pack animal. Of course, being fenderless in Seattle means this bike spends a lot of it's time stashed away in the basement, but when the sun is out and I'm not expecting to be out riding after dark, the Trek 560 is usually my first choice.

From the original '84 Trek catalog

As with most bikes that pass through my hands, many of the 560's components have been switched a time or two since I've owned it. There's very little of the original bike left in this build. It's currently set up with a modern-ish drive train and wheels, and I wanted to be able to ride this in fast group rides, so brifters were called for instead of the original downtube shifters. The mix of parts is about as mongrel as it gets with the drive train including Campagnolo, Shimano, Suntour and SRAM. Yes, all four. And it actually works! I guess you could call it a "Campagsramanotour" drive train.

The cockpit

It started with the shifters. I've never owned a bike with Campy Ergo shifters before but I've always liked the feel of the hoods in my hands and way the levers work (thumbs to go faster, fingers to go slower). So I started researching what it would cost to switch the entire drive train over to Campagnolo. Shifters, derailleurs, cassette, chain, rear wheel... Wow! For a bike that I paid only a couple hundred bucks for originally I was looking at several hundred dollars to change it over to an older, used Campy group. That didn't make much sense, especially since all I really wanted was Campy shifters, so I started investigating cheaper options. That's when I learned about "Shimergo" drive trains.

There are a few variations of Shimergo but essentially it's a drive train with Campy ergo shifters and Shimano rear derailleur and cassette. Depending on how you mix and match the number of speeds, there are some different tricks for getting the indexing of the shifters to line up with the cogs on the cassette including 1) an adapter called the Shiftmate, 2) the "hubbub modification," or 3) just taking advantage of a "happy coincidence."

By happy coincidence I mean those cases where in spite of Campagnolo's and Shimano's best efforts to make their component groups proprietary and incompatible with each other, they stumbled a few times. With so many variations over the years (7 speed, 8 speed, 9 speed, 10 speed, 11 speed..., different models, etc.) there are a few combinations that just happen to work together. For example, Campy Ergo 10 speed shifters of a certain era just happen to line up perfectly with Shimano and SRAM 8 speed cassettes if you're using the right era of Shimano rear derailleur. Luckily there are generous people out there with more time than I have who have researched all of the different combinations and have posted their findings on the internet. Here are a couple of the articles I found extremely helpful:

• Rear Shifting - An article by Chris Juden on the CTC's site
• Shimano and Campagnolo – Can’t We All Get Along? on Cyclocross Magazine's site.

For my build, I took advantage of the Campy Ergo 10 speed/Shimano 8 speed happy coincidence I described above. The shifters have a couple of clicks more than there are cogs in the cassette, but the limiters on the rear derailleur prevent you from going there, so the shifters behave exactly as they should for an 8 speed drive train. You can use pretty much anything you want for the front derailleur since the Campy Ergo shifters aren't really indexed for front shifting. I used the original Suntour front derailleur just so I could keep something original in this build.

Oh yeah, then there's the SRAM part. SRAM cassettes use the same spacing as Shimano, so they are completely compatible. (what were they thinking?) I used a SRAM cassette just because they had one with the range I wanted and that Shimano doesn't offer, and the price was right.

With the Campagsramanotour drive train worked out, I was able to put this bike together using a lot of parts I already had. Here's the rundown of parts:

Wheels: Forte Titan wheelset
Tires: Conti Gatorskins 25mm
Handlebars: Nitto Noodles
Shifters: Campagnolo Veloce 10 speed
Front Derailleur: Suntour Cyclone Mk II (the only part other than the frame, fork and headset that's original to the bike)
Rear Derailleur: Shimano 105
Cassette: SRAM 12-26 8 speed
Brakes: Tektro R530 calipers
Crankset: IRD Defiant Compact (a copy of 1970s Campy Strada, but with a 110BCD spider so it can handle "compact" sized rings)

IRD Defiant Compact Crank with 50T and 34T Rings

Seatpost: VO
Stem: Nitto Technomic Deluxe
Saddle: Selle San Marco Regal

The main triangle of the frame is made of Reynolds 501 tubing which is similar to the venerable 531 tubing, but seamed and a bit more robust (aka, heavier). Stays and forks are Tange Mangalloy. The fork has a nice sloping fork crown and the frame has bosses for one bottle on the downtube, and no rack bosses or fender eyelets. No unnecessary doodads here; this bike was built to race.

The handling of the 560 is always a bit of a shock when I first get on it. It handles exactly like a racing bike ought to handle. Thanks to relatively steep angles and short chain stays the handling is quick and precise. The frame has the plushness of steel in the way it absorbs vibration, but it's also very tight and stiff. When you stand up on the pedals, it responds immediately. The 560 always inspires me to ride hard and aggressively. The ride is definitely rougher than my other two bikes (Trek 311 and VO Randonneur), but for rides of up to about 200k it's fine. Longer than that and the stiffness of the ride and the attention that the handling requires get tiring. For my typical 40 - 60 mile training rides the 560 is perfect.

Even with the strange mix of parts, this bike just feels right and works flawlessly. Shifting is spot on with that unmistakeable Campy "ka-chunk." The Tektro brakes grab far better than the original single pivot side pulls the bike came with. There's still some room for improvement, for instance the wheels aren't great. The hubs make a grinding sound similar to the sound my knees make when I walk up stairs, but inspite of the noise they seem to roll well.

As described here, the 560 weighs a little under 22 lbs (including pedals and bottle cage). Hardly a lightweight by modern bike standards, but it's still a blast to ride which is where it's really at.