Nishiki Townie

This is a basic road-bike-to-townie conversion of the kind that I do fairly often with older, entry-level road bikes. These bikes are usually too heavy and slow to be of interest to anyone who plans to do much recreational riding, but they make perfect, affordable city bikes with a few new parts. You see these bikes being ridden all over town by students, but they usually have the original drop bars, down tube shifters, and no carrying capacity, all of which make for a very uncomfortable, awkward ride to campus. Come on! You can be a hipster and ride in comfort, for not much money at that!

The wine box on the back was salvaged from one of my local liquor stores, Ledger Liquors, which also happens to have a bomb-ass selection of craft and imported beers :)  As usual, I waterproofed it with shellac and lined it with cork to absorb vibration and keep things quiet. The cork grips are shellacked too. At least, one of them is. Oops, guess I took the pictures before I was finished.

(Personal confession: This is a tall bike, made for someone over 6', so I was a little surprised when an Asian dude emailed me about it and subsequently bought it. Shit, does that make me racist? For the record, he was unusually tall... for anyone.)

Raleigh Portage (58cm)

This one's up for sale right now. I bought it from a dude in the Coast Guard who rode it once in the last 20 years. It sat outside under a tarp somewhere near Petaluma until he decided the time had come to pass it on to someone who'd actually use it. I took off a lot of a lot of rusty hardware and dirt to get it looking and riding nicely again. It's a really rugged road bike, meant to travel thousands and thousands of miles with a full load of camping gear. I really hope someone buys this in order to go touring.

Update: Just sold it to a fellow who's lady friend was kind enough to drive in from Marin to pick it up for him.

 

'83 Fuji Touring Series IV

Here's one that I recently finished and sold. It found a new home somewhere in San Francisco with nice, neurotic lady who planned to turn it into a townie. I almost sold it to a hipster from the Mission who wanted very badly to turn it into a fixie, but I decided I couldn't let that happen to a nice bike like this one.

#2 & 3

#2 The bike that I usually ride when I want to spend a few hours pedaling, sweating and regretting those last couple of beers the night before is an '86 Trek 500 Tri Series. Well the frame is, anyway.

#3 My newest bike is one that I'd been looking for, for quite a while. It's an '85 Team Miyata that I ordered from a very nice fellow in upstate NY. I've only taken it on a couple of short rides so far.

Welcome, bike lovers.

Let's get things started with my own personal bikes. At the moment, they are three. I'd like to keep it that way, or even slim it down to just two. It's hard.
#1 The bike I ride most often is an '88 Miyata 615, a touring bike. But right now I have it configured as a more than slightly foppish townie:

It took me more time than I care to admit to build the wooden crate that I use to carry my personal belongings and groceries.

Not long ago, the same bike, with some different parts, carried me from San Francisco to Ventura, CA:

Sometimes, when the road got steep or I got girly, those roles were reversed and I carried, or rather, pushed, the bike. Lousy photos, but you get the picture. Yeah, that dork in the Black Butte Porter jersey is me. I have a rule that I can only own bike jerseys if they're beer themed.