I've been repairing and restoring vintage bicycles for quite a few years now and I've developed a few rules (or attitudes) about the right way to do things. Some of these were taught to me when I was young and some are just from experience.

Since the early 70s bike boom, components and standards have evolved considerably, but old steel frame bikes still live on. In fact, many are better built and nicer to ride than most new bikes. These are the guidelines I follow.

1. Brakes
Brakes are the most important part of a bike. If you can't stop, well, that's a big problem.

​Almost all vintage bikes use rim brakes. Older bikes usually  use centerpull brakes, which have a wire yoke connecting the two brake arms across the top. These are finicky to adjust but work great. Newer bikes use dual pivot brakes, which are super easy to adjust and also work great.

​Bikes made in the late 70s and throughout the 80s, however, often used sidepull brakes, which are not my favorite. They tend to be weaker than centerpulls and dual pivots and are prone to misalignment, where one brake pad insists on rubbing against the wheel rim. I never use sidepull brakes, even nice ones, and will usually upgrade to modern dual pivot brakes on a restoration. 

V-brakes and cantilever brakes, usually found on hybrid, touring, or mountain bikes, are usually great. I avoid cheaper models that use plastic bushings. 

As for brake levers, most are super simple and work just fine. For some reason, however, mid and low end road bikes always came with brake lever extensions that allowed the rider to brake while riding with the hands on top of the bars instead of on the brake hoods or drops where they belong. Also called turkey wings or suicide levers, these extensions are trash. They diminish brake pull strength and are prone to failure. I recycle them all.

I also make sure brake pads are still in new condition, which means I usually replace them with new. Brake cable housing can often be reused, but I always install new brake cables as well.  

2. Kickstands
Kickstands are dumb. They rattle when you ride. They add weight to your bike. They often fail and your bike tips over anyway. We should all just lean our bikes against a tree or lay them down. I recycle old kickstands.

3. Wheels
Lower end vintage bikes often came with steel rim wheels. Steel wheels are heavy and they don't brake well when wet. If an old bike is worth saving, it deserves alloy wheels. I recycle all steel wheels. 

Old road bikes also came with either 27" wheels or 700c wheels, two slightly different standards. Today, 700c wheels are far more common and it's possible to convert a 27" frame to use 700c wheels. However, there's nothing wrong with an alloy 27" wheelset and it's still possible to buy nice new 27" tires from Continental, Schwalbe, and Panaracer. 

4. Bearings
All the moving parts of a bicycle require grease and bearings to move freely. Over the years, the grease gets crusty and bearings wear out. Every vintage bike I service gets a fully rebuilt headset and bottom bracket with new grease and bearings. Often, the wheel hubs require new bearings as well. I use loose bearings instead of caged bearings because they spin better.

5. Grease
Grease isn't just needed for bearings, it's also necessary to prevent parts of the bike from seizing together, especially if the bike is ridden in rain or snow. The seatpost, stem, and every bolt should all be treated with a bit of grease or terrible things will happen. 

6. Chains
A restored bike needs a new chain. A good quality KMC chain isn't expensive. Every bike gets a new chain. 

7. Shifting
Derailleurs can be a bit tricky, but there are a wide variety of vintage and new derailleurs that work great. The list of crappy derailleurs is too long to list, but I have have a particular disdain for Simplex derailleurs, which were often used on otherwise very nice French bikes. Simplex mechs look kinda cool, but even the best don't perform well. Simplex also used plastic delrin parts, almost all of which have cracked. A vintage Shimano or Suntour derailleur is vastly superior. 

Likewise, many newer bikes use plastic twist grip shifters, trigger shifters, or "brifters", where the shifter is integrated with the brake levers. All of these are prone to failure. I much prefer bar end shifters (barcons), thumb shifters (thumbies), downtube shifters, or even stem shifters, all of which will perform perfectly for ever and ever.  

8. Cranks
Life's too short to deal with cottered cranks or Ashtabula cranks. Both are usually, but not always, a sure sign of a low end and heavy old bike. Stronglight invented the square tapered crank in the 1930s and to this day it is the best method of attaching crank arms to the bottom bracket.  

9. Gas Pipe Bikes
Speaking of low end bikes, the vast majority of bikes sold in the past 60 years really aren't worth saving. Models like the Schwinn Varsity, Suburban, and Continental vastly outsold lightweight models. Other common examples include the Peugeot UO8, the Raleigh Record, and almost any bike by Huffy, AMC, Murry, Sears, Montgomery Wards, etc. Today, although some people love and even collect these old heavyweights, they're really not worth restoring as a riding bike. 

New department store bikes are just as bad, even when they're made out of lighter weight materials like aluminum. The components on department store bikes, especially the brakes, are so outright terrible they ought to be illegal. 

10. Stems
Finally, a word on vintage bicycle stems, which attach handlebars to the steerer tube and fork. Stems are an important part and they carry a lot of weight and torque.

Vintage stems were made in two styles, one of which used a metal wedge (usually steel) to secure against the inside of the steerer tube. The other style used a cone that expanded inside the bottom of the stem to secure against the steerer. Cone stems were more common on European bikes than Japanese or American. Because the cone shape requires bending the alloy metal, they tend to develop stress cracks. Some vintage French cone stems were particularly prone to failure. When I'm restoring a bike with a cone stem, I always replace it with a similar wedge stem. 

As a final note, I should say that I greatly value safety and rideability over historical accuracy. I don't see the point of restoring a bike to its original factory condition if that means using parts which haven't stood the test of time.

​I probably have more than ten opinions about old bikes, but these seem to be the most important. Let me know in the comments if you disagree with anything or if I missed something important. Thanks!

A common approach to riding through winter here in Minnesota is to get yourself a winter beater. Find an old bike, put some studded tires on it, and don't be too sad when salt and moisture absolutely destroy it. I followed this approach for a long time, but I didn't actually ride much in winter. Riding a beater isn't a lot of fun.

So, for the past couple years I've relied on a mountain bike with studded tires and a road bike with skinny slicks, both from the 1980s. Both are fixed gear, which is the best approach to winter riding for several reasons (anther whole blog post, perhaps). And both needed some work this year.

Two years ago, I built my fixed gear all weather road bike from a 1983 Trek 600 frame I bought on ebay. (It shipped from Florida, poor thing!) I built it to replace my Trek 500 which had just ripped in half. Since then, I've put about 3,500 miles on it, riding through two winters and dozen of rainstorms. It's a light and fast bike, with a Reynolds 531 steel frame and classic early 80's Trek styling.

Not only are winter roads slippery and sloppy, they're also incredibly bumpy. Ice forms in lumps and horrible potholes open up on every street. Not the best conditions for a vintage road bike. 
​
I suppose I'm like most bicyclists who develop a kind of emotional attachment to our bikes. I immediately set out to repair the frame and get it back on the road as soon as possible. The great thing about steel frames is they're repairable as long as you know a framebuilder. My framebuilder of choice is Erik Noren, the founder of Peacock Groove. I think probably Erik has forgotten more about bikes than I'll ever know. Trek, meet Erik. Erik, Trek.

A couple weeks later, Erik returned the bike with new brazing behind both seatstays. The next step was to repaint it. 

First, I had to sand the paint down a few inches away from the repair on the seatstays, downtube, and top tube. Then, I carefully taped it with masking tape and primed it. I found a rattle can of paint that almost matched the bikes's original Imron pewter grey and I used some vinyl electrical tape to conceal the transition between old and new. Finally, I gave it a few coats of clearcoat and then it was ready to ride. 

I still need to add a new Reynolds 531 sticker, a replica I ordered from France. The original was singed off during the brazing. 

The result is a very visible repair but, I hope, somewhat artful.  What 40 year old doesn't have a few scars? I could have sent the whole frame off for a full powdercoat, but I like the idea that a bike should tell a story. Perhaps a little like the Japanese art of kintsugi, the art of obvious repairs. If anything, I feel like my connection to this bike has grown stronger because of this failure.

I didn't actually miss the Trek during most of January because we were plague but a series of light snowstorms that kept roads icy. Studded tires were needed most of the month, which meant riding my 1987 Schwinn Mirada, an early hybrid upright mountain bike built to withstand daily punishment. It's a heavy frame, but it won't crack on me.

The Mirada's one drawback was its wide 26"studded mountain bike tires. They ride great on ice but they feel kludgy and slow. And they tend to float on top of fresh snow, making the bike hard to control. Even before my Trek broke, I had been keeping an eye out for a bike that could take narrower 700c wheels and still have room for studded tires.

In early January, my wife found a perfectly good single speed 700c wheelset in a dumpster just down the block from our house. With nice wide rims suitable for studded tires, all I needed was a frame and everything else to build a new winter bike. 

But, I thought, what if these wheels could fit on the Mirada? What kind of bike would that be? Only one way to find out!

The first issue in a 26" to 700c conversion is tire clearance. Will the tires clear the frame? The Mirada passed this first test with maybe 4mm to spare. But, the second issue, the brakes, was clearly a problem. 

Due to the difference in wheel diameter, my old V-brakes were now located about an inch below the new rims. There is such a thing as V-brake adapters that would allow them to reach up to 700c wheels, but they're spendy and hard to find. The other option would be to install road brakes using the existing reflector mounts on the fork crown and seatstay bridge. I tried this first with some modern Tektro dual pivot calipers, but they didn't have enough clearance for the tires. So, I grabbed a set of 70's centerpulls that are probably 15 years older than the Mirada and hey presto they worked. 

Luckily, my brake levers could be set for either short pull for V-brakes or long pull for calipers, so I didn't need to swap them out. A little bit of fussing with the chain and the brake lines and I was good to go!

I immediately learned that due to the change in wheel circumference, my gear ratio was far too high, so I ordered a new fixed gear cog on eBay (shipped from Hawaii, poor thing!)

The third (and biggest) issue with a 26" to 700c conversion is bike geometry. The larger wheels ride about an inch higher off the ground. With a more aggressive mountain bike frame, I think this would likely make the bike somewhat unpleasant to ride. The Mirada, though, is a more relaxed hybrid and it feels great to ride, almost like a modern gravel bike. My center of balance is higher, making it slightly less stable, but I think this is offset by the narrower tires, which cut through snow and grip better. The bottom bracket is also higher, which makes it easier to clear snow banks.

All of which adds up to the idea that old steel bikes are durable, repairable, and adaptable. And affordable, even with occasional repairs--especially if you can find parts dumpsters.

This past spring, I came across a listing on Craigslist for an interesting looking Peugeot. It was hard to tell exactly what it was but it looked amazing. The bar end shifters in particular seemed to indicate a bike worth riding and upgrading.

i has just finished refurbishing my Motobeecane tho and really didn’t need another bike. But day after day I kept checking on the listing, obsessing over this bike and trying to figure out what it was.

Finally, I gave up and wrote the seller, who lived across town in Edina. After several emails trying to figure out where and when we could meet, he told me the bad news: he’d just sold the bike to another buyer.

Damn! I was kinda salty about that. I’ve missed out on lots of great deals but this one was probably the most disappointing.

A few days later, I was totally bowled over when my wife wheeled the Peugeot out of a closet as my Father’s Day present. She had been the other buyer and my daughter had driven across town to pick it up. I was truly speechless.

It turned out to be a 1981 PFN10 with a Vitus 181 frame, the original Simplex derailleurs, the original Mavic 700c front wheel, an upgraded Grand Cru rear wheel (with a freewheel instead of the archaic Helicomatic hub)i and 32c Panaracer Pasela tires that just barely clear the chainstays. It fits me perfectly and feels fast and spry.

Since late May, I’ve ridden 1570 miles on it. I fell in love with it, as one is apt to do with a great bike, and it seems to have sated my desire to keep searching for the perfect bike.

I sold the Motobecane to my friend Jared (who intended it to be a utility bike but fell in love with it as well, polishing it to a mirror finish. It looks amazing.)

i’ve had to replace a tire, the chain, bar tape, and the bottom bracket (luckily English threaded, which was rare for Peugeot in the early eighties).

Most definitely, this was the best Father’s Day present ever. 😍

I'd like to take a moment to offer an appreciation of the humble 1970s Raleigh Grand Prix. A simple, well-built bike that takes decades of abuse and keeps on rolling, the Grand Prix is supple, not too heavy, and fun to ride. 

Based in Nottingham, England, Raleigh distributed worldwide and was second only to Schwinn in size during the bike boom of the 1970s. With high tensile tubing, the Grand Prix was their mid-range offering on par with the Schwinn World Sport or Traveler. 

And yet, the Grand Prix punches above its weight so to speak. It's just a classy, well riding bike. They're a great bike to convert to single speed and they have lots of clearance for wider tires. They've also got excellent center-pull brakes and sturdy alloy wheels that can usually be resurrected. 

Last year, I built a single speed Grand Prix for Duncan, my 14 year old son. He's ridden it all over town, including in last year's Powderhorn 24. He bikes to school, to work, and to play Magic at local game stores. 

One of my favorite things about the Grand Prix, tho, is how great they look. Raleigh seems to have used the highest quality paints--they have a lot less rust, chips, and scratches than other vintage bikes. My one complaint would be Raleigh's insistence on loose vs. caged ball bearings. There's nothing worse than taking a headset or bottom bracket apart and having bearings go flying everywhere. 

I'll be buying another Grand Prix this afternoon. From the FB marketplace listing, it looks like it's been hanging upside down in a garage for 30 years. It'll be fun to get that one back on the road, too!

Ellie, my almost 7 year old daughter, has been riding scooters, bikes, horses, trikes--you name it--since she was 2 years old. She keeps me young just keeping up with her. Until this spring, her bike was a Specialized Hotrock, which is basically a kid's mountain bike. 

Seeing my road bikes, tho, she told me last summer that she wanted her own "skinny tire bike". So, when I found an old 80's Schwinn Caliente broken and abandoned in the gutter near our house, I told her I'd fix it up for her.

This Caliente was a tiny bike, with a steel frame, steel 24" wheels, and steel drop bars. As I found it, the derailleur was broken, the steel wheels were done for, and the brakes were super crappy. I had a used 24" track wheelset that I thought would would perfect for this bike--All I needed would be tires.

Since Ellie was used to single speed with a coaster brake, I didn't want to overly complicate her riding with gears. Even I ride single speed half the time. I also thought a more upright posture would with swept back bars would be better than drop bars. 

I broke the bike down and rebuilt everything. I cut the larger chainring off of the cranks, installed new brakes and a new chain. One challenge was to figure out appropriate gearing; I didn't want the gear ratio to feel too different from her Hotrock. So, I measured the crank lengths and counted the cogs on the Hotrock and the Caliente and figured out that an 18 tooth freewheel should be just about right. 

The hardest part was finding tires for the wheelset. It turns out that there's a bunch of different 24" wheel sizes in the world, all of them slightly different. These happened to 650c wheels, which were strictly made as racing wheels for shorter adults. As such, most of the fires made for them are extremely narrow, 23c or smaller. After searching a couple of local bike shops, I stopped in to Farmstead Bikes in South Minneapolis. Greg Neis, the owner, ordered me up a pair of Terry Tellus tires, which at 28c would be wide enough to provide a comfortable and stable ride. They came in quick, too! I biked back later in the day and picked them up. (There was some urgency--Ellie was getting more and more excited about her new bike and wanted to ride it ASAP!) 

And ride it she does! She's kind of remarkable because the bike's actually too tall for her to stand across the top tube, so she has to hop off and on every time she stops. At first, she would pull over to a curb to help her out, but she's now taught herself how to climb on--she looks like she's mounting a  tall bike in a circus.

Unlike her Hotrock, the Caliente has room for a bottle cage--super important! After riding for a few weeks, Ellie insisted on one additional feature: a rack with panniers. I found a pair of small panniers at Mr Michaels Recycles Bicycles ("kid size!" says Ellie) and now we can bring all the water and snacks we need wherever we go. My only trouble? Keeping up with her. This girl is fast!

Bicycle technology is a marvelous study of evolution. In many respects, the bikes we ride today are not a lot different than they were 100 years ago. Sure, modern bikes have all sorts of improvements to make them lighter, shift quicker, or brake better. But for the most part, they'd still be recognizable to a rider from the 1920s.

All those technological improvements didn't happen overnight. Along the way, a lot of funky ideas came and went, consigned to the backwaters of bicycling history. My Kabuki has a few great quirks, but I've never seen as many oddities on one bike as I've found on my new Motobecane Jubilee Sport.

The French manufacturer Motobecane evidently came unto hard times in the early 80s as the 70s bike boom waned. They'd always been know for quality bikes and were second in France only to Peugeot. Unlike Peugeot, Motobecane was an early adopter of Japanese componentry, which at the time offered higher quality at a lower cost compared to European derailleurs. They also used Swiss threaded bottom brackets like my Juvela, which is great if you don't want your bottom bracket to unthread while you're riding, but not so great if you ever want to replace it.

With the Jubilee Sport, Motobecane got even quirkier. The frame uses Columbus Cro-Mo steel and "inexternal" lugs, meaning the lugs are brazed on the inside of the tubes. I'm not sure what the advantages to this method were, but it gives the frame a nice clean look. Instead of calling this frame lugless, which is common today but in the 80s was associated with cheaper department store frames, Motobecane coined the odd word inexternal. To confuse the issue further, they stuck a decal on the headtube to make it look like the frame had lugs after all.

While they were at it, Motobecane gave this frame internal brake cable routing through the top tube, a feature I haven't seen before on an 80s bike.

Mounted to the downtube are Suntour Symmetric Shifters. Like Motobecane, Suntour met rising competition and decreased sales in the mid 80s with innovation. Symmetric shifters automatically adjust the front derailleur when you change gears in the rear. This keeps the front derailleur cage from rubbing the chain when the front is in high gear and the rear is in low (or vice versa). The result is extremely smooth and easy shifting. I'm not sure why symmetric shifting didn't catch on, but it may be because the system was so difficult to reassemble if it was ever taken apart. These may be the most complex vintage shifter ever.

The Motobecane's drivetrain is just as quirky. French-made Nervar cranks have a standard JIS taper that fits most modern spindles, a bit of an irregularity compared to Campy or Stronglight cranks of that era.

On the other end of the chain is a Maillard Helicomatic hub, another short-lived innovation designed to make gear cluster removal easier than a threaded freewheel. Shimano's cartridge system, which also debuted in the early 80s, quickly eclipsed the Helicomatic and is still the standard today. As a result, it's difficult to find tools or parts to service Helicomatics. If I ever need to replace a spoke on the rear wheel, I'll need to find myself the proper lockring removal tool or get a new wheel. 

The wheels themselves have 27" double-walled Wolber Gentleman alloy rims. What a great name for a wheel, right? Because they're 27" wheels, there isn't a great selection of tires available, but I picked up a set of Kenda skinwall 1 1/8' road tires that ride just fine.

Finally, the bike came with weird one piece rubber handlebar grips with integrated brake hood covers that were molded to look like stitched leather. I'm not sure how these were ever installed--I imagine it took about a quart of olive oil or something. The rubber was dry and cracking and wouldn't allow any adjustment of the brake hoods. Risking the ire of the bike restoration gods, I replaced these with new cork tape. 

My first ride was a 38 mile loop across the Coon Rapids Dam. This was the first time it had been ridden after decades of garage storage. The bike was quick and responsive and I sorta got used to riding on drop bars again. I'm not sure if I'll end up keeping to selling this bike, but its quirkiness certainly argues for keeping.  Even after picking up a used Brooks B17 saddle for it, I still don't have a lot of cash invested in it. Time, yes. But not too much money.  

When I bought it off of Craigslist, I was confused about the Kabuki's age because it had high-end components from the mid 1980s, including a Specialized "Flag" triple crankset, Phil touring hubs, and a Shimano Deore rear derailleur. The Gran Compe center-pull brakes seem to be the only original equipment. Obviously, someone had really enjoyed this bike and had invested a lot of time and money into it.

It also came to me with swept back handlebars, thumb shifters, and a funky touring seat. Right away, I swapped these out for a wide set of touring bullhorns, an 80's Brooks Professional saddle, and some Suntour stem mounted power shifters. I resisted the urge to convert to fixed gear, thinking that it'd be nice to have a bike better suited for longer rides.

At first, I thought its 25" frame was too big for me, but I quickly learned that the other bikes I had been riding were actually too small. ​ Large vintage bikes are a lot larger than today's large sized bikes and the seatpost is usually shorter, too. Call me a large frame convert.

I rode the bike all through the summer and fall of 2018, including during the second half of the Powderhorn 24, when I was glad to stop riding fixed gear after 70 miles. When the snows came, I hung the Kabuki up in my garage, taking the pedals off so I wouldn't be tempted to ride in the snow.

When I rode it again for the first time this spring, tho, it felt kinda sluggish, especially compared to my spry Juvela. I blamed the tires, but with 27" wheels, my tire selection was extremely limited. I had tried last year running some Panaracer Paselas, but I kept getting flats, including a sidewall blowout on my first ride. I ended up replacing them with some $12 cheapies.

The 80's Araya single-wall rims were also showing their age. They're pretty heavy and not very strong. More than that, tho, I wanted a bike built more for comfort that I could take on the occasional longer ride--maybe ride my first century or more. A bike that could handle gravel roads and potholes with a minimum of bone jarring.

So, I rebuilt the wheels with new Alex double-walled rims. The Phil hubs are still buttery smooth, so all I had to do was polish them and set to work lacing my new wheels. 

Lacing wheels is kinda fun. Very putsy, but fun. The hardest part is measuring everything and ordering the right length spokes. I used two different online spoke calculators to make sure I got the right results. Then, building the wheel is mostly just following a pattern and slowly working around the wheel to make the rim true and the spokes tight.

I chose 35mm Clement Ush tires, which can handle both pavement and gravel and run at 40-60psi. They still need tubes, which is fine with me--I'm not really sold on the whole tubeless thing.

I also cut down some old alloy drops bars to make some new bullhorns which are narrower than what I rode with last year. I really want the same bar and braking setup on all my road bikes so I won't have to think twice about how to stop. I thought briefly about using actual drop bars, but I really don't like them. No one ever rides in the drops and braking power is a lot less when riding on the hoods. 

On my first ride, I was surprised at how much faster the bike felt. I rode the Gateway Trail all the way out to the North Saint Paul snowman. Even at 60psi, I feel like I'm going as fast as I do with 120psi Gatorskins on my fixed gear bikes except I don't feel every single bump.

I will say, though, that I still kind of prefer riding fixed for most things. Thinking about gears and shifting seems to interrupt my mind, making the ride a little bit less relaxing. I seem to prefer less thinking and more pedaling. Nonetheless, I think I'll be riding my Kabuki quite a lot this year, especially for longer rides. At 45 years old, it's good for many many more years.

So, when my Trek 500 died this past December, I needed a new bike frame quick. Except, in the way of bicycles, I ended up buying two. I've already mentioned my new '83 Trek 600, which I outfitted as a bad weather bike with fenders and sealed components. It performed remarkably throughout the ice and snow choked weeks of January, February and March, dropping me only once on a partially frozen puddle on the Midtown Greenway a couple of weeks ago. Not bad!

But I also bought another frame, a 1973 Juvela Special, made in Switzerland by Mondia. And I'm kind of, well, liking it a lot. 
​
It's kind of a princess, tho, with a Campagnolo headset, bottom bracket, and seat post, none of which is very well sealed against the elements. It'll always be a fair weather ride.

It's built with the same Reynolds 531 steel as my Trek 600, but something about it makes it feel like it just wants to burn up the road. For one thing, it's got a long 63cm top tube, which really stretches me out and activates more core muscles than my other bikes. ​It also feels very light and responsive. Whippy.

The Juvela is basically a Mondia Special with a simpler paint job. They were imported by Montrose Bike Shop near Los Angeles; indeed, mine bears a Montrose decal. I bought the frame from a seller in Bozeman, Montana who was willing to keep most of the Campy components that I wouldn't be needing.

I'm sure plenty of restoration purists would object to turning such a fine bicycle into a fixie, but I regret it not at all. Truly, it's a joy to ride in fixed gear. Expect another post about that someday if you can bear it.

I built it up with a vintage Suzue track hub in back and a Shimano hub in front, both of which are laced to Weinmann rims with 25c Gatorskin tires. I chopped some alloy drop bars to make bullhorns (another gauche move) and added Dia Compe centerpull brakes. (Centerpulls are fussy to install but they will stop you fast. My favorite vintage brakes.)

The drivetrain has a 16t Surly cog and an old steel 44t BMX chainwheel bolted to a vintage Sugino Super Maxy crankset. (When I bought the chainwheel at Mr Michaels, they asked me if I was going to use it for a picture frame. I think they charged me $2 for it.) With a fixed gear, I like not having to worry about bending my chainwheel and a few extra ounces for steel is well worth it.

Ridiculously, the Campagnolo Nuovo Record seatpost has its two bolts on top, right under the saddle. It allows you to adjust the seat to the exact angle you want, but you have to wiggle a wrench down under the seat to reach the bolts. Luckily, my mother in law got me a Brooks cambium saddle for Christmas with a handy pressure relief hole that lets me get at the bolts from the top.

The only really tricky thing was the bottom bracket. I learned while I was riding through South Minneapolis that the Campy spindle was incompatible with my Japanese crankset. You learn this when your crank starts to fall off. For some reason Europe, Japan, and US disagreed for a long time about how these things should be built. I really didn't want to spend $200+ on a compatible Campy set.

Online forums suggested that Mondia used either Swiss or goofy French threading on their bottom brackets, meaning that the fixed cup threads may or may not be threaded in the opposite direction of every other bike in the world. Velo Orange makes a sealed French threaded BB, so I ordered one up for $60 and, well, if the Juvela's threading is French, its fixed cup is on there really, really tight. Or, it's actually Swiss threaded, which is the opposite of French but has the same weird threads per inch and I was probably just tightening the cup the whole time. Who knows? In any case, no one seems to make new Swiss bottom brackets.

In the end, I used the hollow spindle I pulled from my Trek 600 along with some new bearings and hey presto! it works great. I'll need to open it up and repack it every once in a while.

I'm glad I figured it out because, as I mentioned, I really like this bike. The other day, I caught a glimpse of it parked at our store out of the corner of my eye and thought, "Oh wow, that's a cool bike...Oh, hey, that's my bike!" The pleasures of a slow middle-aged mind.

The ride went from White Bear Lake to Saint Croix Falls. The first day was exhausting, but that evening I was kind of amazed I'd just ridden 50 miles. (It was my personal one day distance record all the way up until the Powderhorn 24 this past summer.) We ate spaghetti and slept on the floor of the St Croix Falls High School gym.

On the second day, I cut through some grass and hit a boulder. One of the support team riders stopped to true my wheel and said, "You know, if you're going to go on rides like this, you should really get a better bike." I was shocked. It had never really occurred to me that there were "better bikes".  I resented the idea that my Santa Fe wasn't good enough.

His offhand comment had a pretty sizable impact. I never rode another MS event and didn't roll on another group ride until I found Joyful Riders in 2017.  My bikes have always been pretty cheap and my riding mostly solo or with my kids. A lot of commuting, always valuing the utility of biking over the sport or the aesthetics.  It's not that I'm cheap--well I am kinda--I just never had the desire for a top of the line high performance ride. 

Have I been holding a grudge for 35 years? Maybe a little. And maybe it's time to learn to let it go. Objectively, the Santa Fe was kind of a crappy bike. Hopefully, I've learned to be careful about what I say to enthusiastic young riders.

In 1983 or thereabouts, my Santa Fe met its end when I crashed into the rear quarter panel of an AMC Pacer. I flew over the car, flipping head over heels. I'm pretty sure it was the nerdiest possible way to wreck a bike.  (Another lesson learned: don't ride on sidewalks.)

The bike shop in Osseo said the Santa Fe wasn't worth repairing, so my parents helped me buy a low end Raleigh which served me well all the way through high school. Today, I'm still riding old 70s and 80s 10-speeds. So are my kids. 

Thanks to my Mom and Dad for finding these old pics and scanning them for me.

So, when my '85 Trek ripped in half last month, I lost my main ride and needed a replacement ASAP. Naturally, I ended up with two new  bikes. (I understand this is a common problem for bike people. N+1 is almost always the answer.)  I'm still getting to know both of them, but here's the first--a 1983 Trek 600. 

This was my first ebay buy--I wasn't patient enough to find the right size bike locally. It still shocks me that a world class 35 year old bike costs less than a crappy new department store bike. A lot less if you're willing to cobble it together with used parts yourself. 

Made in Wisoconsin, the 600 has basically the same "sport" geometry as the 500, although I think the chainstays are just a little longer. It's made with Reynolds 531 steel instead of 501-- technically an upgrade, but I can't really feel much of a difference.  In '83, the downtube shifters were clamped on instead of brazed like they were in '85, so the downtube shouldn't have any weak spots.

I built it up to be fixed gear, of course, using a lot of parts from my old Trek. I added fenders and picked up some cheap bullhorns and cork tape at Mr Michael Recycles Bicycles, a true St. Paul treasure. I'm in there all the time scrounging parts. 

The wheelset is from the 500, but the tires are brand new 28c Gatorskins that I picked up locally for a song. The crankset I salvaged from another old Trek I'll be building up to sell. The pedals have straps instead of clips, which I kind of like. The gear ratio is 42 x 16 instead of 44 x 16, but because it has 165mm cranks instead of 170mm and slightly larger tires, the overall gain ratio is almost exactly the same. Math!

I think this will be my new daily ride. My other new whip, well...for some reason it seems to be just a little too special and possibly temperamental. More on that later. 

When this bike was made, I was tooling around on my first ten speed, a Huffy Sante Fe, which is hardly collectible. These vintage Treks are quite collectible, tho. Many now live in storage or on display and aren't used much. I plan to put plenty of miles on this Trek in all kinds of weather. ​After all, bikes were made to be ridden.