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.

1979 Fuji Royale (September 2012)

Make: Fuji
Model: Royale 
Year:  1979 
Obtained: September 2012 
Found: Bike Works 
Paid: $25.00


While visiting my favorite place for project bikes, Bike Works, on a Wednesday  I spotted a Fuji frame-set that gave me pause.  I thought to myself  "stop buying frame-sets! its easier to do complete bikes" and so I passed it by.  I really liked the look of it, however, especially the world championship-like banding on the down tube and I had been hankering to work on a Fuji for a while so on Thursday I was back to buy it.

The excellent site -Classic Fuji- helped me identify my prize as a 1979 model Fuji Royale

My frame-set came with a front derailleur, stem, seat post, brakes, bottom bracket, and a crappy headset.  I bought a new Tange headset and got most of the other parts out of the parts bin.  Unfortunately I did not get a frame-set only picture.  Have I mentioned that I really like head badges?  The Fuji's head badge is a classic.

I ran into issues with the rear derailleur and the crank-set I had out the parts bin so I put a new Shimano TZ-50 RD on the frame (cheap but effective) and lucked into a Fuji panto-graphed crank-set at Recycled Cycles to fix the crank issue.  I even found a (modern) Fuji branded saddle for this build.  The crank cleaned up nicely with the application of some Mother's Aluminum polish, a  great tip from my friend Hugh -Mothers really does the trick.

When I brought this bike home I had a vision of doing some orange accents to tie into the orange band from the world championship looking rainbow stripes and the orange lug lining on the frame.  I think the orange bar tape and toe straps add some color to an otherwise understated silver frame.

All in all I am happy with how it turned out and it was snapped up off Craigslist fairly quickly, so I guess the orange accents worked.

On a side note a new job, hurray for income!,  has kept me away from regular posting on the blog but I am hoping to finish up both the Raleigh curbside find project and the Fiorelli project soon. 

As always. Ride.Smile.Repeat.