And then there were 5...

I mentioned in the last post that over the weekend I had sold the Trek 420, and then right after posting that someone bought the Novara,  I had the Ponderosa on both CL and FB and it was FB that came through. It sold for $50 so I got double what I paid for it.

Then today I sold the Takara which I also had on both CL and FB and it was also FB that came through on this bike also selling for $50.  To it break down for the Takara; I paid $75 for the bike and then stripped it of its SunTour bar end shifters and 700c Mavic/Ultegra wheels.  I got $26 for the shifters and $50 for the bike after I had spent $15 in parts and used some parts bin items to get it road worthy.  So in essence a very nice wheel-set cost me $14.00.  Because I purchased a vintage wheel-set for the Allez that is spec to the bike I will be selling the Mavic Ultegra wheels to offset my $90 outlay for wheels.  I think I should get at least $90 for the Mavics thus making the Allez wheelset effectively free.

Speaking of the Allez after getting the 700x28c panaracers mounted as I described yesterday I noticed that I the front tire looked very tall and on closer inspection I found it did not spin freely -the top of the tire coming in contact with the bottom of the brake caliper.  I kind of liked how the red tread looked... oh well.  I swapped over to the 700x23c Vittoria Zaffario's that came on the Mavic wheels.

In the mail I unexpectedly got the 7 speed FW I had ordered for the vintage Wobler, SunTour GPX wheels.

I had noted how nosiy the 28t cassette was so I ordered the FW with a 25t big cog,  I greased the threads got the FW mounted and confirmed the 25t cog is much quieter.  Not sure how hill practical the bike will be for me but I can always do a make over to a compact crank set and I already have long cage RD and a mega range 7 speed FW I would just need to change the shifters as the SunTour GPX don't play well outside their brand for indexing and I have been told by other owners that they stink in friction mode.

For now though the Allez is rideable and when the weather clears I will take it for a test ride with new wheels, FW and narrower tires. 

The nice 700c Mavic wheel-set I scavenged for the Allez is on CL and with any luck I can tell the story of how I got an Allez for a 6 pack of beer.

I spotted a set of Continental Ultra sport II 700x25c tires for down the road when the Allez gets the spa treatment, complete with red stripe.

I was happy to achieve my goal, from the spring,  of thinning the heard and getting down to 4 bikes; Cresta, 520, Handsome Devil and Moto_GT.  And then of course the Allez came to me out of the blue for bike #5.  I sold the 6 bikes I had targeted plus the 2 additional ones I picked up and now I just need to control myself for a while. LOL.  The next thing I want to do, aside from more coffee rides is to give the 520 the spa treatment, fortunately I have all I need accept a few shift cables so it won't require much $$.  And on sunny days I want to noodle around on the Allez and see how I feel about it.

Ride. Sell Sell Sell. Smile. Repeat.

Coffeeneuring Challenge 2019: Ride 1: Hotwire

Well my theme for this year didn't survive the incubation stage, I was going for NIMBY rides this year but that wasn't the case for ride 1.  I wasn't feeling great yesterday and ended a streak of 16 consecutive days of riding my bike.  I was better today but between not being 100% and the possibility of rain meant I wasn't feeling like a longer ride.  I went with a old stand by in the neighborhood, Hotwire Espresso which started life as a internet cafe, remember those?

I did implement my secondary theme, which I alluded to earlier this week.  It is simply to ride all 7 of the vintage steel bikes I currently have in my possesion during the course of coffeeneuring 2019, and to that end I started off with the Takara.  I am secretly hoping this theme also goes off the rails because 3 of those bikes are on CL and I am hoping at least one sells before I can ride it to coffee.

I am still hopeful of getting a few coffee rides outside the neighborhood but I felt it was more important to get a ride in than to adhere strictly to my theme.  I have a pretty flexible schedule and our weather has been fairly mild for October but you never know what may happen so better to bank rides early.  I plan on taking the Trek 420 for tomorrow's ride.

The data:

1. Where: Hotwire Online coffee house, 4410 California Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98116
2. Date: October 12th at 11:15 am.
3. Consumed:  Mexican Mocha and a tiny donut
4. Details:  Overcast and in the low 50s, bike parking near store entrance 
5. Mileage: 2.0 miles
6. Bike Used: Late 70s Takara Road bike

Ride. Caffeinate. Smile. Repeat

Finishing the Takara

When we left the Takara it was ready to cable up but of course I couldn't leave well enough alone.

I had a couple kickstands laying around so I put one on to increase the bikes utility.

And I had this  rear fender left over from the Trek 420 so why not put it on the bike to get it out of my way and again increase the utility of the Takara.

And while we are adding utiltiy why not a rear rack?  I happen to have one that I took off the Motobecane Mirage and and never put back on, I did have to spend a few $$ in nuts and bolts but it looks good on the bike and frees up some storage room for me.

Now you can't have a bike with just a rear fender right?  So I was able to find an orphan front fender at Bikeworks and $5 later its a fully fendered rain bike!  Oddly the Takara fender eyelet braze-ons rather than using the standard M5 bolt actually take an M6, fortunately I had some.

I finally got around to cabling the bike up, I reused the shift housing because its that old style braided metal housing and I liked how it looked, the brakes got new cables and housing.  I had to spend time fiddling with truing the front wheel to get the front brake dialed in and the limit screws on both derailleurs took some adjusting but it shifts and stops now which is more than it did when I got it.

I did fight the urge to use a new SunRace claw RD and 34t big cog 7 speed FW I have in the parts bin that would have made this bike a better climber.  Once you start peeling away the onion layers it just never stops and pretty soon you have the bike torn down to the frame, doing a complete overhaul and the best you can hope for on an entry level bike like this after upgrades is to break even especially trying to sell in the fall/winter.

And finally the pre-used bar tape got wrapped up around the safety levers with some tips from RJ the bike guy.

I ended up spending an additional $15 on the bike for the stem shifters, front fender and rack hardware but I think it will do better as the fendered and racked commuter at this time of year.

The bar end shifters ended up selling for $26 on ebay not great but respectable and that lowers the initial cost of the Mavic/Ultegra wheels to $50.

Its a bit of a dogs breakfast as the English would say, with mismatched tires and fenders not to mention scraped and faded paint and decals, but if someone is looking for functional transport they can lock up downtown or at a transit stop without worrying about it, this is their steed.  I have basically priced it to cover costs so I hope someone will see a deal.  That makes three bikes on CL for October and hopefully by November it will be zero.

Ride.Smile.Repeat.

Making Progress on the Takara

Working through the issues with the Taraka, took the screw off another, derelict, Suntour RD from the parts bin and got the one on the bike secured to the frame and I cleaned it up a bit.

Got the broken reflector off the front brake stop/reflector mount and got the new one attached after cleaning a bit of rust off the under side of the mount.

In my stash I found a screw that would work with the threaded hole on the inside of the FD cage but was too short, and found the one in the correct length that too big for the hole.  I took them both to the hardware store and found an Goldilocks M4 bolt that was just the right pitch and length, so the FD is sorted.

And the bars, oh the (expletive deleted)  bars.  I got the stock bars cleaned up and greased and then when I was trying to install them I remembered the hex bolt in the stem was an odd size and I couldn't get the right hex wrench, metric or standard to tighten it.  Kind of a miracle I got it out in the first place, oh well I have lots of bars and stems laying around.  I will use something from the parts bin...he thought naively.

I pull a different bar and stem out of the stash and move the levers over get it greased and....the (expletive deleted x 2) new stem is too big for the Takara Headtube!!!  They must have been like Schwinn and had some funky one-off size and looking closely I see the Takara stock stem is tapered, narrower at the bottom than the top.  Dang.

I end up canablizing the stem bolt from a Pivo stem that was on a set of bars that I took off my friends late 60's Raleigh Super Course  when I converted it to a city bike for him, that meant I could tighten the binder bolt on the stock setup.  It was an odd 12 mm hex head but I could get a wrench on it and tighten it down, so the bars were sorted.  I also cleaned up the seat post while I was at it and mounted it too.  I even used the brake hone on both the head tube and seat tube just to clean out the old crummy grease.

Here are the stem shifters, which had to go high on the stem due to that was where I could get the clamp to work due to the tapering of the stem, so shifters sorted.  The SunTour Barcons I scavenged from the bike to sell, I have a pair or I would keep them, have 50 views and 5 watchers on eBay currently, we'll see if that translates to bids in a few days.

After all the trouble with the bars I did end up cleaning them up a bit and they have some nice engraving near the stem.  I called it a day there and left the wheels for Saturday.

I gathered my old tubes, that I tested overnight to be sure they held air, the mismatched but decent tires and the old 27" Araya rim/Suze hub wheels I had from the beat up Nishiki I bought a few years back.

The FW on the rear hub was rusty and not really turning so I knew I wanted to change it and I have plenty of used spares around.

The old one is off the rim, and although not in great shape it is a SunTour Perfect which the C&V crowd likes so I may offer it up on the forums for the cost of shipping in case someone wants to rebuild it or use it for parts.

I would rather slap on a working spare in much better shape,

I didn't service the hubs but I did clean up the rims and made sure the wheels weren't noticeably out of true and now they have tires and tubes and the rear even got a new rim strip in addition to the FW.

With wheels it actually looks like a bike, next up cables & housing, some dialing in of the brakes and shifting and then a short test ride and then the bar tape.

Ride.Reuse.Smile.Repeat.

Takara Tuesday

Last night, with the Novara finished and listed on CL I decided to take a look at the Takara I had picked up for its 700c wheelset as a remedy for the lack on the Allez.

One thing I wanted to do is remove all the clutter, bike lights, mounts for long gone lights and computers and the lock mount.

By the time I had them all off the bike it was an impressive array.  I think that uncluttered bikes are more attractive (easier to sell) and I will leave it to prospective buyers to add what they need.  I did gain a nice kryponite bike lock and two functioning easy to attach lights out of this bike that I wasn't expecting.

One of my cardinal rules of looking at a prospective bike is to check that neither the seat post or stem is stuck.  In the case of the Takara I skipped that step because this bike was about the wheels and a stuck stem or seat post wouldn't have mattered so long as the wheels were good.  I didn't want to start in on making this a functional bike project without checking for the dreaded stuck part however and although the seat tube had a hardware binder and not the original you can see the seat post moved so its ok.

The stem had me a bit more worried, when you loosen the bolt an it comes up that means the wedge is stuck but a smart hammer blow to the bolt solved that issue, but my initial efforts to move the stem didn't work.

So I put a spare front wheel I had laying around in the drops, trapped that between my legs for leverage and after some twisting and tugging got the stem to move as you can see.

Turns out I am probably lucky the stem wasn't stuck with as rusty as it is, it will need a clean up and fresh grease.

My prize the Mavic/Ultegra wheels are off the bike and await the new 7 speed cassette and spacer before I test fit them to the Allez.   I checked eBay and the lowest price I could find on a set of used Mavic Open Pro 700c wheels with ultegra hubs was $250 (before shipping) so I am very pleased with this find and even if I didn't get a cent out of the Takara it will have been worth it for the wheels.

And I got the SunTour barcons off the bike, and this morning (Wednesday) I cleaned them up checked them over and listed them on eBay, so we'll see what they bring in.  If there is no interest there I think  I could sell them on Bike Forums to the Classic and Vintage crowd.

So I have harvested the parts I wanted and verified that I don't have a stuck stem or seat post issue and therefore this bike could be put back on the road as a functional beater,  I have no desire to strip this bike down and do a total overhaul, the idea is to get it functional and safe and give it a honest listing on CL and price to sell so it can become someone else's project.  That said I am going to have to overcome some issues to get this bike functional.

The front derailleur is missing the screw that connects the cages at the back, I checked the parts bin to see if I had something I could cannibalize but no luck, but I am hoping I can find a screw in my collection that will work, failing that I can go to the hardware store.  I would like to avoid removing the chain but in a pinch I could use one of my spare quick links to put it back together but I hope to avoid that.

The rear derailleur is missing the hardware that connects the claw to the drops so as you can see it was sagging on the bike and only held in place by the skewer but not truly functional.

I put a random screw in place for now just to keep the RD out of the way, the RD has an open cage design so I can thread the chain back through without having to break it.  I also came up with not one but two claw RDs I can cannibalize for the hardware I need.  I do have a brand new Sunrace claw long cage RD like I have used before and it might even let me use a new 7 speed mega range FW I have laying around but I will save those new parts for something else, besides going that route would require a new chain too which I have but plan to use on the 520.

To round out the drive train issues would be shifters, or lack thereof since I am selling the barcons it came with but knowing that might be an issue I spent $5 on a set of stem shifters when I was at Bike works on Saturday.  I was a bit ahead of myself, not having checked for stuck parts, but knew if I was going to make the Takara road worthy it would need shifters and these SunTour stem shifters are what the bike would have had originally.

Another, more cosmetic issue was the broken front reflector, on the right above, the sample on the left is what it should look like.

The reflector mount is also a cable stop for the front center pull brake so I would like to reuse it but I don't need the bike to be any uglier than necessary and the broken reflector doesn't look so great.

When I was getting stem shifters at Bike works I noticed a basket of free for the taking reflectors by the door so I got an intact one that I will swap for the broken one and issue solved.

Another place I was willing to spend some $$ was a cheap set of cables and housing, these Bell sets go for about $5 on Amazon and I had one in the stash.  I really don't care about putting new cables and housing on the bike, this $5 spent is for my sanity.  The bike has a rear brake that doesn't want to respond with the current cable and housing and I am going to have to change the configuration of the shift cables since they were set up for barcons and need to go to stem shifters and starting from new will just be alot easier than making the old crusty stuff work and for $5 its a no-brainer.

From the parts bin I have a set of 27" wheels like what would have been originally on the bike and I have two used tires in good condition, I had other tan wall tires but they are all very dried out and I would rather have supple mismatched tires than matching sketchy tires, and I am going for the functional beater bike here anyway.

I also have a used FW, right above, that is in better shape than the one currently on the wheel-set and I have some lightly used red bar tape that was originally on the Cresta but came off for fork repair.  It will replace the old faded ugly tape on the bars currently.

So that is where the Takara stands right now and after giving the frame a wipe down and de-glazing the brake pads I plan to start sorting issues so I can get this bike road worthy and listed to sell.

Ride, Harvest cool parts, Smile. Repeat.