An old Masi road bike brought back to life with an 11-speed Shimano Ultegra drivetrain and a modern cockpit. The frame was in great shape, the customer had been riding it for years and wasn’t going to get rid of it — they just wanted it to be more enjoyable to ride. We made it work.
The Build
Modern Cockpit on an Old Frame
The bike started with old-school bars. Steve wanted a modern handlebar on it, so the shop used an adapter that lets a modern stem and bar clamp mount to the older frame, then fitted Zipp Service Course bars. It opened the cockpit up to current options without anything drastic.
The Drivetrain
The original crank stayed on the bike and worked out. There’s a little chainring warp in it, which can cause some rubbing given how tight the tolerances are on modern 11-speed, but it was made to work. The new front derailleur is the toggle-style version, and the cassette worked with the customer’s existing wheels — luckily they’d been upgraded at some point to something that takes an 11-speed cassette. Original brakes stayed on. Lizard Skins bar tape finished it off, and the bike looked clean when done.
In Steve’s view, Shimano 11-speed mechanical Ultegra is really tough to beat — it shifts really well and just works. For a bike like this it’s the right call, and you can’t beat the new shifting once it’s on there. He took it for a test spin to check everything over and it rode well with the modern bars.
When This Kind of Job Makes Sense
Not every old bike is worth putting money into. But this is a customer whose bikes the shop services regularly, the frame was in genuinely good shape, and the upgrade just made sense. He’d had the bike a long time and wanted to keep riding it. The modern drivetrain and cockpit made it more enjoyable to ride without losing what made the bike worth keeping.
If you’ve got an old bike that means something to you and you want to keep riding it, come talk to us. If it doesn’t make sense to put money into, we’ll tell you that too — we don’t want to do projects that don’t make sense.
Got an Old Bike Worth Saving?
If the frame is solid and the upgrade path makes sense, we can make it happen.