Bikes, Beer and Brunch

Centurion Elite GT

Went to the Farmers market today under somewhat threatening skies and was not too surprised when the converted parking spot bike corral where I usually park was empty.  As I crossed the street to the market I scanned for bikes on the sidewalk bike racks as usual and spotted a few nice vintage bikes, more than I have seen all year.  Above is a Centurion Elite GT, with the cool center down tube mount shifters, this former road bike has been converted to city use with north road bars and a rear rack.  I see this bike around West Seattle quite a bit, always warms my heart to see old steel getting re-purposed into useful bikes.   Next I saw a couple Fuji's, small and tall.

Fuji Del ray

This is a very tiny road bike that I am guessing by the unicrown fork is from the later 80s it also has been converted with straight bars and its sporting some spiffy new gum walled tires.

Fuji Allegro

And just down the street is the tall sibling, a nicely maintained Fuji Allegro, retaining its drop bars but adding fenders and rack for usefulness.  After wandering the market a bit I make my traditional stop at the Beer Junction.   Recently, instead of ordering a pint I have been getting 4oz pours which allow me to sample more beers, this part is for you Jim, it was a hard job but I was happy to do it.

Started off with the Coca-Fied Imperial Stout on the nitro pour from Fortside in Vancouver WA, strong and smooth.

Next was the Bottom Cutter Imperial IPA from Bale Breaker in Yakima WA, I have had their Top Cutter IPA a number of times and like this one too as you can see I got a bit thirsty before remembering to take a picture.

The gentlemen next to me recommended the next and last taste, Camp Stories IPA from Georgetown, Seattle WA.  A nice way to finish my visit, it lives up to their motto of Darn Tasty Beer.

As I headed back to the bike I realized I was a bit peckish and that one of my favorite restaurants, Jaks Grill, was at the tail end of their Sunday brunch so the Mothers day crowd had died down.  Now before you go thinking I'm a bad son I will let you know I had flowers delivered to Mom and beat the rush, and my 3 siblings, by calling her Saturday to wish her happy mothers day and tell her I love her, she also had the company of my two older brothers in Portland today so Mom was covered.   I usually can't stay away from Steak and eggs here but decided to go with the smoked salmon bene and rather than my usual 12 oz MANmosa I had my friend Mick at the bar make me a boymosa.  It was all delicious as usual.

As I walked back to get my bike I noticed that the skies were much bluer and that resulted in..

quite a bit of company for the Handsome Devil at the bike corral.

And in the next stall over was a Japanese built Schwinn Le Tour ladies bike, still with drop bars but in a very functional form with p-clamped rear rack equipped with fold out Wald baskets, an errand runner if I ever saw one.  I think the bike gods were making up for my lack of garage sale success yesterday, by showing me lots of vintage bike goodness today.  Next time I hope to have a report on bikes and ball parks, until then, Ride.Smile.Repeat.

A New Obsession - Vintage Touring bikes

1986 Schwinn Passage

I swear sometimes I am worse than a Storm Trooper looking for droids with how easily influenced I am.  I stumbled across the excellent blog  -The Simplicity of Vintage Bicycles a while back and Josh has refurbished some very nice mid 1980's Touring bicycles there and it got me thinking about how nice it would be to come across one to refurb.  This era is considered the Golden age of Touring bicycles and I am not the only one with an interest.  Just trying finding a legendary Miyata 1000 for sale south of $1000 bucks.

1984 Centurion Elite GT

 Not long after this thought popped into my head I started "causally" looking on CL and came across a 1984 Centurion Elite GT.  Oddly the one on CL had the reverse colors of the example above -light body dark head tube- and some issues like; no wheel-set, partially disassembled (the bike was in pieces) and a relatively high price for all that IMHO.  Usually a lack of wheels isn't too big of a deal but mid 80's touring bikes had a 40 spoke rear wheel and those don't grow on trees, and I was also concerned that with a disassembled bike I would find out that some key piece (washer, spring, bolt etc.) was missing when it was too late.  I sent in a low-ball offer, after it had been up for a week, which I had never done before, which only ended up insulting rather than interesting the seller.  Oh well.

1986 Raleigh Alyeska

I even did a bit of Ebay trolling and found a very nice Raleigh Alyeska from that era in my size, but the price, nearly $400, and the color scheme -bordeaux and rose - doesn't do alot for me.   And if I am honest part of the fun is finding a deal and something that makes the heart race a bit and spending 4 bills for something that leaves me a bit Meh doesn't seem wise.

1986 Panasonic Pro Touring 

When looking at the interwebs I also came across the bike packing blog where someone with a similar obsession and alot more money turned the musty slightly rusty Panasonic Pro Touring pictured above into the sweet Rando machine pictured below.

Panasonic reborn

I guess what is truly frustrating about this experience is that I was so close I could taste it, to the point of making an Amazon wish list - yeah I know.  The bike at the top of the page is a 1986 Schwinn Passage, made only in that year and kind of a little brother to the slightly higher zoot Schwinn Voyageur.   I was trolling CL on Sunday morning and without actually looking for Touring bikes I came across a Passage for $80, it was pretty obvious from the listing they didn't really know what they had and in my brief amount of searching I knew this was a deal.

Web shot similar to the CL listing

So I texted at 10 am, crickets, at 5:30 pm I get a text back saying they've been out but their back and still have the bike if I want to see it, but they don't give me an address (really?!), I immediately text back saying yes I can come can they send me the address?....nothing finally at 8:30 pm I text again that I am still interested and I don't work too far from the city listed on the CL post and can I come by after work, can they send me an address and a good time to come by? nothing. The next day the post is removed, I suspect someone called them and offered more than $80 for it.  Sigh.  It is the way these things go sometimes.  I did happen to see another in my area in my size but I can see some changes have been made to it and its more than I really want to pay.   And further looking I do find touring bikes of that correct vintage but they all fall into one of 3 buckets: too small, too big, too expensive.  I realize what I want is something a bit tatty, mostly original and for a reasonable price that I can bring back to life.  

VO Campeur

If I truly wanted to tour I could buy and build up a very nice VO Campeur frame, and maybe I will someday but that's not what this is about.  For that matter my Handsome Devil could be built up as a very capable tourer and in one of its iterations it even sported a Sugino triple crank.  But no, this is about the same chapter- lust for vintage lugged bicycles, different verse- Touring bikes.  Maybe if I stop obsessing one will pop up when I least expect it?  Hmm...wonder whats on CL down in Portland?

Until next time Ride.Smile.Repeat and try not to obsess....