Its not what it looks like!

late 70s something Takara

It appears you have bought another bike

well yes but,...

And we thought you were "thinning the herd"?

I am but you see...

And we thought you had sworn off entry level bikes with safety levers...

I have, the Motobecane Mirage was my last one but.....well look can I just explain?

Well ok, but it appears to be exactly what it looks like ....

You may recall that for essentially a six pack of beer I picked up a Specialized Allez in my size recently, the caveat being it had no wheels.  I wasn't going to let that stop me but it has been interesting looking into finding a 7 speed wheel-set for this bike.

First of all because 7 speed was a transition from FW hubs to Cassette I had the option of either one.  I searched ebay and actually found a Suntour GPX wheel-set to match the group on the bike but it was about $90 with the shipping and I discovered that Suntour cassette hubs are very one off and only work with Suntour cassettes which are as rare as hens teeth and therefore expensive so I didn't want to go down that road.

Then I looked into Shimano 7 speed cassette hubs and found that those are of the uniglide variety pictured above.  They had a unique feature that the last few cogs screwed onto the hub, they aren't as rare as Suntour cassettes but are out of production and only found on  ebay and are NOT compatible with the more modern Hyper glide standard.

I could go with a newer 700c free wheel hub wheelset, and I even have a nice Amazon gift certificate that I got as a parting gift from the last job. even with the gift cert, however, after taxes I was looking at about a C-note, and a no name rim/hub 700c 9 speed cassette wheel-set on the web was about the same. a little more after tax.  Bike works is my go to for vintage parts but not much help for complete matched wheel-sets.  Hmmm

So I started to scour CL and FB marketplace for complete bikes with 700c wheel-sets in the under a $100 range.  I found some nice candidates but inevitably the wheel sets didn't match, dark front rim, silver rear or mismatched hubs etc.

Finally I stumbled across the unlikely candidate of the Takara, which originally would have been an entry level bike with 27" wheels.  The CL ad specified it had been updated to a 700c wheel-set and I could make out the Mavic sticker from the so-so photos.  I had no idea what the hubs were but I figured with Mavic rims there was a good chance the hubs were at least something I would recognize.  The bike was priced at $75 and while I could have waited another week for the price to soften or at least make a lower offer more palatable I decided to go look at the bike last night.

I thought  I  might find Tiarga hubs or if I was lucky 105, so when I saw this hub badge I was very glad indeed and promptly paid the man.

After checking that the rear hub and rim matched of course.  Ultegra was more than I hoped for and this wheel-set was worth the $75 all by itself  considering most of the used 7.8 speed  wheel-sets on ebay go for $50 to start and then you have to pay $40 for shipping and the tax.   I have a 7 speed cassette and a spacer (needed to make a 7 speed cassette work on a 9 spd hub) on order so the Allez should be taken care for a wheel-set.

The wheels weren't all I noticed about the bike, it had also been converted to bar end shifters from Stem shifters and those SunTour bar ends have a value of their own and appear to be intact, no missing nuts as sometimes happens, so I will sell them separately from the bike.

I have a few options for the bike itself, the rear claw derailleur needs the screw that fixes it to the drop out, as you can see its slipped down.  I have a set of 27" wheels and plenty of used but in good shape tires and tubes.  A set of stem shifters from bike works would be about $5.

I think I can get this bike back to it original configuration and up and running as a beater and sell it as such without too much effort (knock wood).  With any luck my 700c Mavic Open pro wheels with Ultegra hubs will end up being free.


Ride. Think outside the box. Smile. Repeat.