Sunday, May 22, 2016

Market Run

West Seattle Farmers market
When my schedule allows on Sundays I like to go to my local Farmers market and that means riding the bike.  Its a paltry 10 block round trip but it gets me turning the pedals and puts a smile on my face.  By turns I am embarrassed its the only riding I am doing  of late and happy that I am getting out at all.  Congrats to any of you who participated in bike to work day last week.  I have participated a number of times but not this year.


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.



A mid 80s Raleigh sporting bamboo fenders, not sure of the model but based on the down tube shifters and drilled brake levers its probably a super course or above.



Univega Viva Sport.

A red  Trek 720 a mid 80s touring bike with 531 tubing and canti brakes.

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.

6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I have become a bit of a Mixte snob, I need to see the classic split downtube to get the restoration juices flowing.

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  2. Replies
    1. If 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

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  3. I 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.

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  4. Look 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.

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