And then there were three

Ok that isn't actually true yet but it's the goal, get down to three bikes in the whole apartment;

• The 2009 Handsome Devil
• The 1987 Nishiki Cresta GT
• The 1978 Motobecane Grand Touring

Those three will keep me plenty busy as the last two both need the complete overhaul/spa treatment, and even the HD needs new bar tape and a few tweaks.

The pictures above are from June of 2017 and chronicle the height of the bike zaniness,  it can be tough to see it all but there are; two complete mountain bikes, two complete road bikes and five frames, as well as various wheel-sets occupying my humble balcony.

The pictures above reflect how things look today, just a bit of a change.  What happened to all the stuff you ask?

• The 1978 Schwinn Traveler and one wheel set remain in the on deck circle- a project in waiting
• The 1980 Raleigh Rapide is completed and listed on CL for sale
• The Green 1973 Motobecane Mirage is in the work stand and is close (fingers crossed) to being done and will be sold on CL.
• The Yellow Motobecane Mirage frameset was sold along with a few french parts and a wheel-set.
• The 1960 something,Torpado Alpha Frameset and all its parts were sold as a project and I threw in a bunch of new consumables; tires, tubes, cotter pins, cables, etc.
• The 1984 Nishiki Cascade was sold with new tires as a project.
• The 1986 Miyata Trail runner was sold - the guy traveled 50 miles just to get the stock wheel-set.
• The wheelset from the 1974 Nishiki Professional with the sanshin high flange hubs got moved inside and if I am dumb enough to buy a frame only project down the road they will be ready.

The last two residents of the balcony along with some wheels and rims and various metal bits went to the scrap yard (sad trombone).

• The 1983 Raleigh Record (Junk Bike) had a trashed seat tube
• The 1974 Nishiki Professional had many issues and was more than I wanted to tackle

I did harvest many parts from both of the bikes above some of which have been sold on and some of which may appear again soon in a future project.  For the Nishiki Professional as an example, I kept the wheel-set, and the seat post and saddle, while the stem, shifters, and derailleurs got sold. The Sugino bottom bracket and crankset I may also clean up and sell.  I should have never bought that bike but I think I at least broke even.

Some of these projects have been lingering for 5 years and it was cathartic to clear them out.  It also didn't hurt to put some $$ in my pocket.  I still have two projects I want to complete before tacking the Nishiki Cresta GT,  and after that I have the long overdue MotoGT to give a well deserved overhaul, so I am far from out of the woods.  After I get through all that I hope to take more of a one at a time approach to my rehab projects.  We'll see how that works out... lol. 

in the workstand

Until next time. Ride.Smile.Don't hoard.Repeat.

Off season Coffeeneuring and a few goodbyes

been a while?

When there is a layer of dust on your saddle it might mean its time to go for a ride.  I have actually ridden in 2018, but its been the Gran Touring and the Passage, so it was time to brush the dust off of the Handsome Devil and take it out.

We've had a string of sunny days in Seattle and I couldn't let another slip by without a ride.  I have been avoiding carbs of late so my regular Sunday ride to the farmers Market and the Beer junction is on temporary hiatus.  I had an errand to run and a new coffee shop to check out so that was reason enough to go enjoy the sun.

I have been going to the post office allot lately, more on that later.  And I had a few things to drop off.

The thing I dread most about the PO is standing in line, however, in the lobby of my PO there is a chute for boxes that have already had postage applied ala ebay/paypal so I never have to stand in line which makes me smile every time.

After the errands it was time for Coffee, I wrote back during the fall Coffeeneuring that I wanted to go to Olympia Coffee, they were going to open in October but didn't, nor November, nor December, and not even in January.  Finally in February I drove by and the paper was off the windows! 

I had a lovely mocha and enjoyed the new space, it has a clean Scandinavian feel and the tall windows were letting lots of lovely sunlight in.  My one nit to pick was the bike parking.  You will notice in the picture above with the store front and sign that waaaaay down the block there is a realtor sign....

 Yep that is where I parked, I am mostly kidding but nearly every other coffee shop in West Seattle has a bike rack right outside their door.

As I walked toward the crosswalk I saw this lovely modern Raleigh Clubman; classic steel frame, TIG not Lugged, nice Brooks dyed dark blue, brifters and disc brakes, flat pedals.  Nice.

Some Good-byes

I have been thinking for nearly a year that I really need to de-clutter, especially on the bike front.  I like to joke that my apartment looks like an episode of Vintage Bike Hoarders, but there is more than a kernel of truth in that joke.

I have also been feeling a bit overwhelmed by half-completed and stagnating projects and perhaps most importantly I need some cold hard cash.  So I have been spending time on Craigslist, eBay and the Bike Forums sales page.

The first to go was the 1984 Nishiki Cascade, this was a pretty easy choice in that I originally got this bike for the bull moose bars, and didn't pay much.  The guy who bought it showed himself to be an experienced re-builder as he cast a critical eye over the box of parts and looked carefully to be sure of what was there.  He mentioned he was going to build a bike for his daughter so that made me smile as well.  One less project haunting my porch and it went to a good home and it put some cash in my pocket.

Then I said so long to the 1986 Miyata Trail Runner, sigh, I really would have liked to hang onto it but it really needed a complete tear down before it was ready to be a regular rider.  I had a guy about my age come from 80 miles away to get this bike, turns out he works at a bike shop, and is an old MTB enthusiast,  he actually wanted the bike just for the wheels!  I had a fun bike conversation with him.  While I was a bit sad to see it go, it's cash in hand and my daughter has one fewer bike cluttering up her room.  

The last, so far, was the Torpado Alpha, this frameset has been languishing on my porch for years and the box of parts was sitting forlornly in the laundry room, so I offered it up on CL as a project and threw in new; tires, tubes, rim-strips, brake pads, bar tape, toe straps cotter pins etc. and a nice young lady pinged me about it and actually followed up.  She was a bit taken aback by how many pieces there were (despite my CL description and pictures) but to her credit she bought it.  I swallowed my fatherly urge to ask "do you really want to take this on?" and figured hey she's an adult, she knew what Bike Works was when I was mentioning shops that might have old parts, and everyone has to start someplace.   Passing this on was a catharsis.

I have also sold a number of parts lately:

• Two Brooks saddles that were on bikes that weren't getting ridden and/or I was thinking of selling
• New in packing bike planet SpeedEZ fenders
• Some RSX100 downtube shifters that I have no idea where/when/why I got them
• Some touring bike shoes that had never made it out of the box
• A set of mismatched but functional and sturdy 700c wheels with an 8 speed cassette that have been collecting dust in my laundry room for 6 years - when you don't bike commute you don't need a back up wheel-set!
• A Carradice saddle bag that was still in the packaging, ironically this the second time in 4 years I've done this with a barley bag (sad trombone).

One eye opener for me in going through boxes and drawers and closets is all the things I FORGOT I EVEN HAD!  Its pretty easy to sell on things you haven't used or looked at in so long that you have forgotten about them.

I started with the easy stuff, so now I need to do some actual work to put a few more bikes on the market.  More to come.  In the meantime, cherish those sunny winter days!  

Ride. Smile. Repeat.

Early 1970's Torpado Alpha Part II Disassembly

Standard FW on the left Racing on the right

The next step after acquiring the bike and giving it the once over is to take it down to the frame so it can be cleaned up and rebuilt.  I usually like to reuse as many of the original parts as I can, excepting the consumables like; rubber, bar tape, cables and chains etc., but in the case of this bike I am not sure about keeping the stock free-wheel.  As you can see from the picture above it has a minuscule range that while great for racing isn't a great fit for hilly Seattle.

One lesson I have learned is the importance of documenting how things are put together - before I take them apart.  With that in mind I tried to take a lot of pictures while taking the bike down to the frame.

rear brake attachment

Headset spacer order

Front brake attachment

Another thing about taking the bike down to the frame is you find things you can't detect from visually inspecting the bike while its complete.  Is the seat post stuck? is the stem stuck?  thank goodness neither of my biggest fears were realized.  I did find a few unexpected issues though:

a bent seat-post bolt

a bent cotter pin

In addition to the seat-post bolt being bent the cable guide is also pretty rusted so I am going to replace them both.  The bent cotter pin gave me a little fright as I was worried I wasn't going to be able to get it out and then I would have to deal with potentially replacing crank and BB.  Fortunately I was able to straighten out the cotter pin enough to drive it the rest of the way out with the cotter press and that was a big relief.  I have two new cotter pins ready to go and will be able to use the stock crank and BB.

Finally it was down to removing the headset and fork to complete the take down.  One thing I try to do with headset parts is keep them in order and then zip tie them once I have them removed.  They can even be cleaned in the sonic cleaner like that so that I can put things back in the right order.  That is especially helpful when it might be a weeks between disassembly and putting things back together.

Headset removed except for cups

Fork out with lower bearings

Keeping headset pieces together and in order 

So now the bike is down to the frame and ready for the next step - getting all those parts cleaned, polished, lubed and back together.

down to the frame

Speaking of polish I was pleased with how a quick Dremel with brass wire brush worked on the chromed head-tube lugs.

a little Dremel work in the middle of the lug

Now I just need to get motivated and start getting parts cleaned, framed cleaned and waxed, and all four main bearings rebuilt and we can get this Italian beauty back together.  Until next time; Ride.Smile.Repeat.

In the work-stand: Early 1970's Torpado Alpha

Now that I am done with the campus bike project for my Niece its time to move onto the next bike in the queue while the weather is still nice.  I wrote about the Torpado here back in January, since my options were to work on a complete bike or build one up from a frame-set, old Motobecane Mirage, I went with the complete bike.

I've noticed that on last few projects that I have jumped right in without much thought to whether I had all the parts I needed, so for this project I decided to give my parts bin and the bike a careful going over.  That helped me realize that I did not need to order brake pads, but that I was out of new chains and 27" tubes.  It was pretty obvious I would need new tires.

"All Original"

One benefit of a careful inspection was I discovered something about my brake levers.

The sharp eyed will notice that the levers are not the same.  One is fairly nice with a built in quick release.

The other is a converted "safety lever" model and is a bit Rube Goldberg to my eye.

Call me anal but it would bug me to finish the bike with this set up, fortunately I have a nice set of drilled Weinmann's that I can use instead of the existing set.

However there is one issue, ain't that always the case!, the drilled levers have no clamps for the handlebars so I am hoping I can cannibalize the mismatched set to make this work.

Giving this bike a careful once over also made me realize I would need to change how I route the brake cables.  Normally I like to run the the right lever to the rear brake but on this bike there is internal routing for the rear brake cable on the left side of the top tube so using my normal routing would mean some messy cable routing, so for this rebuild I am going to run the left lever to the rear brake (which I believe is how motorcyclist run their brakes) to keep things tidy.

So now that I have things scoped out and all the parts assembled (I hope) the next step is to take this Italian beauty down to the frame and start the rebuild, and find out what I have missed ;-) 

Until next time; Ride.Smile.Repeat.

1960s (?) Torpado Alpha

Yesterday (Saturday) I spent the morning breaking down donated bikes for Bicycles for Humanity Seattle or B4HS for short.  Now I have this issue in that sometimes I just can't get out of my own way, especially in relation to vintage 10 speeds, as much I as dislike quoting washed-up pop stars in this case the shoe fits.. "Oops, I did it again (I picked up a bike...where will I begin? oh baby, baby)".  I brought home another project bike to add to the ever lengthening queue. A 1960 something made in Italy Torpado Alpha.

I am guessing 1960s based on the following; wing nut style hub nuts, cottered crankset, and a stamped steel pump bracket.  Torpado made some high-end race bikes with fully Campy components, this does not appear to be one of those.

When I think of Italian components the first name that springs to mind is of course Campagnolo, however there are/where other Italian makers and this particular bike seems to be a whose who of those companies:

Brakes from Balilla

Shifters from Gian Robert

ttt Stem

Like most bikes of the 10 speed era its got its issues and its quirks; the main decal is pretty chewed up, there is surface rust on a lot of the chrome and we will have to see how the paint comes through after a thorough clean and wax, the Italians didn't have the best reputation for paint.  On the other side of the coin; its a cool green color, it has internal cable routing (which I have never worked on before) chrome head tube lugs, chrome fork ends and the aforementioned raft of Italian parts.

the ol' disappearing cable trick

Should be fun but I need to finish the Peugeot AO-8 project currently hanging in the bike stand, the last little lost 10 speed I brought home from B4HS, before I even think about taking apart the Torpado.

seat tube decal 

Down-tube decal- really its Torpado, Not Tornado or Torpedo

A very small freewheel group must have belonged to a racer.

Until next time I hope to take my own advice and ..

Ride.Smile.Repeat.