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| West Seattle Farmers market |
In addition to the usual assortment of fresh organic fruits and veggies I got a very pleasant surprise when I found strawberries today. We had a fairly warm spring which has put the strawberries about 2 weeks ahead of schedule, I'm not complaining.
One of the many things I like about riding or walking around my neighborhood is getting to see so many vintage bikes. I am not sure if my area has more old bikes riding around or if its just my finely tuned bike geek radar but I see them all over, especially when the sun comes out.
Today I saw a nice blue Nishiki in classic 10 speed configuration.
A few weeks I saw a lovely Peugeot mixte - a fairly common sight- with city bars
And a much less common Lotus Odyssey touring bike
I see alot of bikes, like the Peugeot mixte above that have been adapted for use as city bikes.
A nice Bridgestone with milk crate rear rack.
A Miyata adapted with city bars with gorgeous Ergon grips.
A Fuji Sports 10 with north-road riser bars.
And then of course like the Nishiki up top you get some classic 10 speeds relativity unchanged.
Univega Viva Sport.
And it is possible to park your bike for too long....
Well I am going to go juice some of that lovely produce. As always.
Ride. Smile. Repeat.
did you save that mixte?
ReplyDeleteI have become a bit of a Mixte snob, I need to see the classic split downtube to get the restoration juices flowing.
Deletedid you save that mixte?
ReplyDeleteIf only I had been packing my bolt cutters! Or if I was tricky enough to defeat a modern U lock. I think the city of Seattle "saved" it
DeleteI was just at the Santa Fe Century ride this last weekend and I am working up a blog post (!!) on that. I saw a few classic bikes but did not think to shoot pictures of that. ( My mind was clouded by the shock of riding in the warm sun). Along with the hundreds of the usual carbon wonder-bikes, there was a few that caught my eye. A nice fellow about my age that was riding a beautiful spotless Raleigh International. He was telling me that he bought it new when he was in college and now only brought it out for what he called show-off rides. I also saw an 70's Motobecane with very subtle decals. It was not a grand tourer like yours but was set up with 10 speed downshifters. There was also a young girl that had a sky blue Schwinn Varsity frame (early 70's) although, when I asked about it she told me an ex-boyfriend was really into the bike thing and had changed everything on it. She told me she did not know much about it and just rode it.When I asked about why she still had the bike and not the boyfriend, she just laughed.
ReplyDeleteLook forward to seeing your post at some point Jim, Taking pictures of vintage rides has become kind of a habit and is made easy with my iPhone - I would never take them if I had to carry and actual camera! Sounds like you saw some cool rides and your story about the girl and Schwinn made me chuckle, as it happens my ex has a bike like that although its on old Mt bike/Hybrid that I resurrected for her nothing as vintage cool, nor as heavy, as an old Varsity.
ReplyDelete