August 10th, 2018
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My dream goal for today's visit would have been to get my front brake
working completely.  At that point, I would consider the bike more or
less rideable.  Two brakes is a very good idea, but the front brake is
much more effective and is what experienced cyclists use 90% of the
time, so riding with only a front brake for, say, a week, is not
exactly insane.  Alas, I didn't quite get to this point, but I'm close
and am certain I will next week, which is exciting.

I have mentioned elsewhere that the previous owner of this frame, for
whatever reason, sprayed it with primer with the stem and seatpost
still in place.  I knew that once I had the brake levers on the
handlebars, they would be a pain to remove, which would make it a pain
to get the paint off the stem.  So, before doing anything else, I
pulled the stem out, put it in a vice and used a steel brush to get
all the paint off.  This was tedious, sweaty work, which ate up more
of my limited time than I'd have liked, but a the same time, this is
the kind of chore by which you invest a little bit of your soul into a
machine, so I'm glad for the opportunity.  While I had the stem out, I
took a photo of the model number - SR 5355.  Some quick web searching
suggests this is a 22.2mm stem.  Fantastic news!  This is a standard
stem size and not the weird French 22.0mm size.  This suggests the
non-matching fork is not a weird French fork, which suggests the
previous owner, whatever their strange painting phiosophy, did me the
great favour not only of installing a weird French bottom bracket, but
of replacing the headset with a standard one (possible because, thank
goodness, the non-threaded parts of French headsets *do* have standard
measurements.  This means I can easily replace the fork!  I think I
will do this next week.  I'll get a nice chromed silver one - because
it will make the job of eventually painting the frame easier, as there
will only be one part to paint.  Of course, I didn't know any of this
until I got home, so right now the front brake caliper is happily
bolted to the old fork, but oh well.

Update: after some more searching, it seems like almost every bloody
SR stem ever made is marked 5355 and nobody seems to have explained
why.  So I can't actually be sure it's 22.2mm after all.  Maybe I'll
have to just use some calipers next week to actually measure the stem.
Imagine that.  I've also realised that my frame is quite large
(something else I should actually measure!), and in particular has a
very long headtube, which means I might have trouble finding a
chromed fork with the steerer tube cut to a suitable length.  So the
fork change is not a guaranteed thing at all yet.

With the stem all brushed up, I put the handlebars back in and fitted
the brake levers.  To my surprise, the clamps are tightened by turning
a nut inside the lever, rather than a bolt or screwhead.  This was
quite difficult, and only once I found a pair of semi-needle-nosed
pliers with a roughly 90 degree bend in them did I have much luck.
But they're on, now, in the conventional position for moustache
handlebars, more or less at the middle of the curve.  They look
pretty nice!

I think I mentioned in my last log not being able to find cable
hangers last week.  I asked about this first thing today, and the old
guy that runs the place disappeared somewhere and came back with a
set for me.  The front hanger is by Shimano, and has a funky quick
release lever like I've never seen.  I'll admit I'd have preferred
something either unbranded or from a European manufacturer to keep
the build more coherent, but it doesn't really matter and I didn't
want to be a jerk by making a fuss over it.  The rear hanger is also
unlike what I've seen on other bikes, it's quite a large pulley, but
if it works, I'm happy.  Only the front one is on for now because,
embarrassingly, I couldn't actually get the seattube clamp bolt out,
even after removing the nut completely.  Not sure if there is some
trick to this?

Not having the rear hanger on turned out to be no great delay because,
alas!  The rear caliper of my Mafac Racers is designed to be mounted
on a brake bridge which has been drilled out vertically, whereas mine
has been drilled out horizontally.  Apparently the (relatively rare)
vertical mounting calipers came in two kinds, one of this is
fundamentally and irreversibly vertical, the other of which has been
*reversibly* converted to vertical mount by bolting on an adapter.
The latter can be reversed back to horizontal.  It looked to me like
mine could be reversed, but I'll have to do more reading and play with
it next week.  I'll be disappointed if I can't use it.  Not that I
will have any trouble finding a perfectly servicable rear caliper of
some other kind to use, but if I go down that route, silly
sentimental-about-machines fool that I am, I will feel bad depriving
somebody else with a vertically drilled brake bridge of a matching set
of Mafac Racers.  And if I replaced the front caliper too with
something else, then I'd feel bad about taking the Mafac brake levers,
depriving the same hypothetical person of a matching set of levers
for their matching calipers.  It's all or nothing, so hopefully I can
get the rear calipers mounted somehow...

Right, so the handles are on, the front cable hanger is on, and the
front brake caliper is on.  I got to this point with a little bit of
time to spare, and if I was well practiced and installing brake
cables I probably could have finished the front brake today, no
worries.  However, I actually have literally zero experience
installing brake cables, so predictably there was a lot of
trial-and-error going on.  Right now, everything is connected and the
calipers do close when you pull the lever, but the cable is way, way
too loose and the brake pads just kind of gently rub on the rims with
no actual stopping power.  Sorting this out next week should be a
pretty quick affair, though, so even if I do end up doing a fork swap,
which will slow things down a bit, I should definitely have a working
front brake next week.  The Kool Stop brake pads I ordered online
roughly five thousand years ago have *finally* had a tracking update
indicating they arrived in the country this morning, so I should
definitely have them to install next week as well, which is nice
timing.

It's starting to look pretty likely this project will be nicely
wrapped up by the end of August!