70s/80s Argos - After and Before!

Hello
Since I've posted my MTB, I figured I should probably put up a pic of my recent build. It's an Argos 531 frame and forks I got off ebay for GBP35 with arrowhead lugs and Campag dropouts. The plan was for a cheap/rat bike I could leave locked in town and not worry about. Thing is, I'm not very good at doing the rat look...the paintwork was a mess, but the frame was in good order, so I took it to Bob Jackson in Leeds to get resprayed. The bloke I bought it off sent me an old Dura Ace seatpost a couple of days after the frame arrived ("I thought you might find this useful..." - top bloke!), picked up some old single speed wheels (Sachs-Maillard rear, Shimano 105 front, both on Mavic CX10s), found a NOS 3ttt stem, some super-cheap Campag cranks, some Nitto bullhorns etc (thanks to my brother for the Brooks, best birthday present in a long time) and here we are...

Might well do something about the grip tape as it could do with a bit more absorbtion, but I'm chuffed to bits with it!

EDIT - a bit back to front, but I just found some 'before' shots - show off the lugs a bit better and how it looked as though someone had attacked the paint with wire wool!

nice build! clean and simple. maybe it's just my fascination with simplicity but have you tried envisioning it with all black tyres?

Thanks for the kind words! I thought of all black tyres, but settled on white to lift it a bit - I quite like it looking modern, but tyres aren't forever, so who knows...

Blimey that was cheap for an Argos frame regardless of condition. I think swapping out the black TT levers for silver handled ones would look better.

The plan was for a cheap/rat bike I could leave locked in town and not worry about

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Start worrying! That looks nice enough to pinch. Please post the location of where you leave it!!

@otherself - I was pretty chuffed to win it for that, I must admit. And you're probably right about the levers, but I can live with them as they are; I'm still toying with the idea of running drops instead of the bullhorns, so if that happens I'll learn my lever lesson for then.

@Steve Kish - Thanks for the light-fingered compliment! As soon as I got the frame in my hands, I knew it deserved more and there was no way I could rat it. I'm slightly obsessive where neatness is concerned...