Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...

2002 CAAD7 Black Lightning #16
I got bored this winter, so instead of Being a Man™ and toughing out the weather, I decided to take on a project bike. After a few weeks of eBay trolling (the fishing kind of trolling, not the internet kind), I found a complete 2002 CAAD7 Black Lightning. It was in largely good condition, but needed plenty of TLC and was ripe for prettifying. Number 16 of 300, so that means there are only 15 people better than me right?
Stock components:
- Campagnolo Record shifters/derailleurs/brakes in special gold/black edition
- Campagnolo Neutron wheels with Black Lightning graphics
- Hollowgram Si crankset
- 3T bars/stem
- Thomson seatpost
- Campagnolo ErgoBrain computer
I had to do some shopping around to find the Zepp XL stem and handlebars to match the original spec. It had a special edition Fizik Poggio saddle in gold/black, but I have yet to find one and also prefer modern saddles because of the whole gentleman vegetables thing. The current saddle is a Fizik Antares Versus for the classy look.
Maintenance:
- Replace old cabling with Jagwire braided gold
- Broke the shifter ratchet when trying to remove the former idiot owner's Shimano cables which had probably been fused in for ten years
- Replace worn Record Ti cassette with new Centaur--can't afford to put on a new Ti cassette just to wear it out again
- Grind out and replace spinning bottle cage nut/fused bolt
- Gold KMC XLS10. If I love it enough, I'll get the special gold/black edition
- Cinelli bar tape, Continental GP tires, Specialized tubes
- Replace faulty ErgoBrain
- Replace shattered chainring bolts
- Replace terrible seatpost collar
- Stripped down each and every piece for thorough cleaning, lubing, and assembly
Future maintenance/upgrades:
- Replace BB and Headset
- Replace jockey wheels
- Replace coil springs in shifters
- Re-anodize and laser etch the crankset. The previous owner sure rode this bad boy a lot, and clearly didn't understand the concept of heel clearance
- Replace original with new Thomson seatpost
- Touch-up paint job
- Gold titanium spindled Bebops
- Continental GP 4K tires
And, of course, pimping:
- Gold alloy chainring bolts and bottle cage bolts
- Braided gold cables, cable tips and gold chain
- Gold Ti bolts for the stem/seatpost collar/headset/brakes/derailleur hanger
- Gold Ti tuning on all derailleur bolts
- Gold bolt-ons
- Picked that specific saddle not only for comfort and its classy shape, but also because the logo is gold-ish. I'm a finicky bastard.
- All original bolts and parts have been kept in case I ever decide it would be prettier without the tuning.
Finally, the most important part. She weighs in at a shade over 16lbs, and keep in mind that this is mostly components that are over ten years old.