microcord
Maximum Pace
- Aug 28, 2012
- 1,650
- 1,193
Morning all. I've recently had Y's Road (tip of the hat!) look over and tune up a bike I hadn't touched for a decade, while I was, uh, simply too lazy to ride it or anything else. It's now twenty years old or so and I realize that it's a bit of a museum piece, or dumpster piece, or whatever. Anyway it's all one color and you can't see any brand name on it from ten metres away; plus the design of gear levers and so forth follows the KISS principle. Thirty-six spokes per wheel, each crossing a number of others. Actually it still strikes me as a sensible design, and really all it needs is a rider who, unlike me, is in decent shape and has a few muscles here and there. Still, I've taken it into central Tokyo and back three or four times in the last couple of weeks, and even though the trip took half as long again as it used to and I had to use my tiny third chainwheel in a couple of places, I didn't collapse and didn't notice any mamachari overtaking me.
The topmost part of the (Maes, I think) handlebars of my Showa steed are a very few centimetres below the saddle, which is fine most of the time, but once every couple of km I'd like to sit up straighter. When I consider this and also the fact that I never want to use the drops, I infer that I should throw current convention to the winds and raise the bar. The stem's at its highest position but I already have a 2200 yen replacement on its way from Yahoo Auction.
All this reminds me that I (183cm or so) am far more comfortable riding what is still a big bike by Japanese standards. My oldie has a 58cm seat tube, and a 57 cm top tube. As it's a lovely old bike (at least in my misty, ageing eyes) and I'd be most upset if it got thrown into the back of a truck with lots of mamachari, I'm already thinking of supplementing it with a "beater" for commuting and quasi-mamachari use. I guessed that aside from enthusiasts keen on particular prestigious brands, there'd be a horror of six-sprocket cassettes and changers on the downtube (let alone non-indexed gears), so KISS options palatable for me would be cheap and plentiful at Yahoo Auction. And suitable-looking "road" bikes indeed are cheap and plentiful, for people shorter than me. Some store calling itself "cycle_1229" sells a lot of big new frames at surprisingly (suspiciously?) palatable prices, and this is one option, but if I assemble the beast myself I fear that I might develop so much affection for it that again I wouldn't want to leave it locked up outside supermarkets. Maybe a "cross bike" -- love the name! Annoyed with everyone, or just the rider? -- would be a better bet. But at this point, I'm both lost and worried. Lost, because I don't know what dimensions (or other indicators of size) to look for. Worried, because I (pessimistically?) imagine that, unless it's expensive, complicated switchgear on the handlebar is going to need lots of tuning in order to keep working decently. Any recommendations for old, cheap, big, trouble-free annoyed bikes?
(I did see this recent thread ["Hi from London"]: Standard advice is to go to Sports Authority (they usually have them on discount) and pick up something from Giant`s range of hybrids. I went to its website but had to give up looking for any bicycle before the site's gaudy design induced migraine. If the stores are anything like the website, you'd have to pay me to enter!)
The topmost part of the (Maes, I think) handlebars of my Showa steed are a very few centimetres below the saddle, which is fine most of the time, but once every couple of km I'd like to sit up straighter. When I consider this and also the fact that I never want to use the drops, I infer that I should throw current convention to the winds and raise the bar. The stem's at its highest position but I already have a 2200 yen replacement on its way from Yahoo Auction.
All this reminds me that I (183cm or so) am far more comfortable riding what is still a big bike by Japanese standards. My oldie has a 58cm seat tube, and a 57 cm top tube. As it's a lovely old bike (at least in my misty, ageing eyes) and I'd be most upset if it got thrown into the back of a truck with lots of mamachari, I'm already thinking of supplementing it with a "beater" for commuting and quasi-mamachari use. I guessed that aside from enthusiasts keen on particular prestigious brands, there'd be a horror of six-sprocket cassettes and changers on the downtube (let alone non-indexed gears), so KISS options palatable for me would be cheap and plentiful at Yahoo Auction. And suitable-looking "road" bikes indeed are cheap and plentiful, for people shorter than me. Some store calling itself "cycle_1229" sells a lot of big new frames at surprisingly (suspiciously?) palatable prices, and this is one option, but if I assemble the beast myself I fear that I might develop so much affection for it that again I wouldn't want to leave it locked up outside supermarkets. Maybe a "cross bike" -- love the name! Annoyed with everyone, or just the rider? -- would be a better bet. But at this point, I'm both lost and worried. Lost, because I don't know what dimensions (or other indicators of size) to look for. Worried, because I (pessimistically?) imagine that, unless it's expensive, complicated switchgear on the handlebar is going to need lots of tuning in order to keep working decently. Any recommendations for old, cheap, big, trouble-free annoyed bikes?
(I did see this recent thread ["Hi from London"]: Standard advice is to go to Sports Authority (they usually have them on discount) and pick up something from Giant`s range of hybrids. I went to its website but had to give up looking for any bicycle before the site's gaudy design induced migraine. If the stores are anything like the website, you'd have to pay me to enter!)