Handsome Cycles XOXO Classic

I recently came across Handsome Cycles that puts out pretty cool looking Bridgestone X0-1 replica.  Uses the same geometry as the original, but TIG welded, not lugged.  It's even the same snappy orange color, plus reasonably priced at $640 for frame and fork.  Putting one of these together would be a fun build.  Commuter/mountain/road rig.  Hell, maybe even race 'cross on it.

Here's a page from '90s era Bridgestone catalog with Pineapple Bob piloting the original X0-1.  Bridgestone, headed by Grant Petersen, put out some excellent bikes during that era.  The X0-1 was a mix of mountain and road bike - sorta - that created its own breed of bike.  Unsuspended quick handing frame, 26" mountain bike sized wheels, then "moustache 'bars" complete with road brake levers and bar end shifters.  Then add in that cool orange paint.  The bike is now a cult classic and eBay collector material.

When Bridgestone USA was folding shop later in the '90s, I remember receiving a BOB (Bridgestone Owners Bunch) newsletter, selling remaining XO-1 models direct to members.  I was milliseconds away from placing an order - but didn't - since I already had a Bridgestone RB-1, MB-Zip and MB3 hanging in the garage.  I still wish I did to this day.  Oh well.

Having Handsome Cycles produce a replica proves the interest is still out there.  Now is the chance to build up something in the same spirit. Place your order now...

Night Ride-O-Rama

Fun night ride tonight with Racer Boy Ian - only second nocturnal ride for him ever - and the first was quite awhile ago.  

Hour plus cruise through the woods, he did great.  Riding by headlight puts a whole new spin on the local trails.  Beautiful night to be outside and we didn't roll back into the garage until 11:15 PM.  Loopy or good parent am I?  You be the judge.

Blogger action has been a little lean lately, been swamped at work and home.  I've slowly ramped up my commuting to a whopping two days a week, partly due to a lingering cold and lower back issues.  My bike to work team however, still rules over all our company teams, thanks to a few other folks pulling my (lame) weight.  I'm crawling out of my winter slump daily.  Is it May already?

Night ride was also practice for something in the near future, that should provide some interesting blog fodder.  Stay tuned...

Ancient Miyata Fest - 912 and Team

Cruising eBay as I'm prone to do, searching for stuff I don't have the money or space for, came across two cool old Miyata bikes up for auction. Both in my frame size to boot.  Sweet.  Will I be bidding on these?  Of course not - but fun to look - and sure beats watching television.

Miyata?  Who cares you say.  Well, I do - since these are time travel machines for me.  During my shop days of the early '80s, we sold and assembled many Miyata models.  This was the age of lugged steel, toe straps, 6 speed freewheels, and quill stems.  Japan was the powerhouse of affordable, nice bikes at the time.  And out of all the bikes from Japan, and from the selection we carried, Miyata was always my favorite.  Especially their upper end road bikes - the 912, Pro, and Team.  Anytime I scored a customer assembly for one of these models, a little extra attention went into the build.

I remember one shop customer during that era.  Very friendly, short stocky guy, with a Romanian or Russian accent.  Older guy, well to 19 year old me anyway, seemed older.  Dude rode though, a lot.  He'd stop by the shop and chat with us, while we spun wrenches with the garage door open out to the parking lot.  During the early '80s in suburban New Jersey, didn't see many adults riding a race bike, complete with bike shorts, out on the street.  I always got a kick when he stopped by, like having a euro pro visit.   He rode a orange Miyata 912.

Joanne, one of our sales people, also rode a orange 912.  One day, another mechanic and I were goofing around, which turned into playful wrestling, which turned into Joanne's 912 flying in the garage door rail of the shop - denting the top tube.  Ouch.  We offered to buy her a new frame, she declined - though wasn't exactly happy.  Minor cosmetic dent, though I felt terrible about it.  My very empty wallet was relieved however.

Alas, I never owned one of these bikes, so still have a thing for old Miyata road bikes.  Call me weird.  I did score a new Miyata mountain bike in '84, but that's a different story.  

Back to the road trip...

Very orange 1981 Miyata 912 as spotted on eBay.  Only the modern saddle and water bottle cage spoiling the old school goodness.  Those cables could also use a trimming.  Nitpicks easily resolved.

Miyata head badge beams from the past.  Note the Shimano 600 shifters.  That be downtube and pre-index shifting.  Friction it be, yes indeed.

Shimano 600 derailleur with 6 speed freewheel.  Clear spoke protector still in place, amazing time specimen - really clean.

More old school 600 goodness.  Steel fork with clearance to run fatter tires.  Nice.

Fantastic condition.  Time warp, it's 1981, 912 in work stand, I just taped the 'bars.  Now time for a stromboli at Guy's Pizza...

Page from the Miyata catalog.  912 cringing with reflectors and spoke protector, usually removed within minutes of purchase.

Also spotted on eBay, a clean '86 Miyata Team.  The Team was Miyata's most expensive offering, the full race deal.  The '81 era Team went for $1250 or so, big bucks to me.  At the shop, the Miyata Team and a Raleigh Professional hung near the cash register, mostly to amaze folks shopping for bikes in a lower price range - much lower.  We sold very few of these bikes, but when one went out, a pretty big deal.  Huge score to assemble one of these as the replacement.

Clean example of '86 race technology.  Spare sew up included.

Dig the old school Campy Record.  Appears to be in great shape.  Still not as clean as the one I spotted awhile back, that one with Dura-Ace. Both in that cool blue however.

I'd get a grin out of having either one of these bikes hanging in the garage.  Especially the 912, even if the "lower" model of the range.  During my bike shop era, thought I'd be a poser on the Team, the 912 a bit more subdued.  The Pro model actually being the perfect middle ground.

I can't justify it, nor afford at the moment, otherwise I'd place a bid on that sweet orange 912.  I hope the new owner enjoys it, wherever it may land.

BB Watery Grave - Fix O Rama

While cleaning and doing a little drivetrain maintenance on Racer Boy Ian's bike today, noticed the crank would barely spin.  Popped the chain off, another test spin - yup - BB bearings were toast.  Two years of Pacific Northwest mountain' bikin' cooked 'em.  Seemed a little early though, especially since I transfered the crank and BB to this latest frame a few weeks ago and they felt fine.

I pulled the crank out and discovered the left bearing was okay, the right one was pretty rough.  Bottom bracket was also full of water, from washing the bike and general Wet 'N' Muddy riding.  I should also mention, if you're familiar with Shimano BB sets, bike was built up minus the plastic internal sleeve - which also helps protect the bearings.  I cracked the sleeve during the original build and tossed it.  So, maybe two years under those conditions seems acceptable.

Dead BB means no riding, quick fix in order.  Fine folks at Kirkland Bicycle, located strangely enough in Kirkland, had a Shimano BB set in stock.  After a quick install, this time with plastic sleeve in place, bike was rolling once again.  Oh yeah, I also drilled a small drainage hole in the bottom bracket shell to allow future water to escape - I hope.

Being old school bike mechanic with shop days from '81 - '84 (or so) - with knowledge of rebuilding old school bottom brackets that required a pile of tools and a bit of experience - these modern cranks still amaze me.  Sure, the bearings are not rebuildable; but with so few parts, light weight, and ease of assembly - impressive.  Even this LX crank, lower on the Shimano level of coolness, is a really great crankset.  If something like this showed up at the shop in '82, we'd have thought it arrived via Area 51.

Technology marches on, as well as riding - which is on the agenda for tomorrow.

For Those About To Commute - We Salute You

Happy Bike Month!  Get your Hallmark cards early, they sell out quick.  May is that magical time of the year when bike commuting percentage rises from .00001% to .001%  It then drops off promptly on June 1st.  Sort of like that dried out Christmas tree still laying in the backyard.

Enough wise-ass comments.  Here in the bike crazy Seattle area, it is cool to see the increase of folks pounding the pedals.  Part of the increase is due to the Group Health Commute Challenge, organized by the Cascade Bicycle Club.  Companies and individuals form teams, mark their progress on the website and go for bragging rights.  Trips and mileage tracked.  A few thousand folks signed up for the festivities. Awesome.

For the 9th year now, I've put together my own team at work, and helped organize some other teams - along with other bike minded folks earning a paycheck at the same place I do.  We have 10 teams total for this year, maybe 80 people signed on.  All good clean fun to get people out there.

It also kick starts my alleged fitness level, which after this winter is pretty lame.  I totally fell off the commuting wagon in, uh, November or so. I'm usually the hard core bike commuter, the last two winters not so.  Call me the soft core commuter now, which also describes the 10 pounds gained.  The occasional mountain bike ride and garage trainer session not enough to keep the pounds at bay.

Commuting to the rescue.  100 - 170 miles a week.  Painful at first, then the source of all goodness.  Let the riding begin.

Welcome to Paradise

Racer Boy Ian and I took the short drive over to Paradise Valley for a little mountain bike action.  We hit this place last year and had a blast, with a vow to return.  Today was the day.  

Loaded up the race ready '94 Camry Wagon (envy of the neighborhood...) with bikes and gear and off we went:

The map to it all.  Place isn't all that big, but enough twisty fun singletrack to satisfy.  Met some nice guy in the parking lot, riding a sweet Ritchey 29er in single speed mode, and we all cruised together for awhile.  Why is it that so many cool nice folks, ride mountain bikes?  Must be a DNA thing.  I'll contact the institute for a little grant dough and we'll get to the bottom of this theory.

My trusty 29er rests against sign pole.  Too bad it can't read.  It can ride though and does that pretty damn well.  I've been using this rig for two years now, no complaints.  Felt great on the rooted out, muddy singletrack; which this place has in spades.  There's even a few wooden stunts to attempt, most of 'em pretty tame.  This park is really about XC fun and frolicking.

Ian balances small rocks on the giant, moss covered trail side boulder.  A fun diversion, complete with some Clif Bar chomping.  Another fantastic father/son day out, bicycles being the secret key to it all.

Ian in action, he kicked my ass today.  Was riding smoother and stronger then old bike geek dad, since I was dragging a bit.  Eventually all rides will revolve around keeping him in sight.  He gets older and stronger, while I get older and slower.  That's okay.  At 50+ years old, I ain't doing too bad.  I would guess in the general population of semi-old dudes, only a small percentage of 50 year olds are splashing through puddles on a mountain bike for 2 hours.  I'll take it.  I like not being normal.  Normal is highly overrated.  Trust me.

Fun ride with 2+ hours of cruising around.  We don't know these trails well, so some backtracking and doing a few sections twice (or more).  Wet and muddy, all singletrack, Roots-O-Plenty, tight turns and plenty of smiles.  Ian enjoyed hitting somewhere new for a change.  Me too.

Great place, we'll be back...

The Slump is Broken - Commuter 'R' Me

As of today, the commuting slump is broken.  Finally.  34 mile round trip.  I'm embarrassed to admit how many months have passed since I've last commuted to work.  An extremely lame winter, haven't been this lame since, uh, last winter.  Some years I'm the pretty hard core commuter - lights blazing, pouring rain, snow - didn't matter.  The last two years, call me Mr. Lame.

Even so, once I start cranking again, wind up commuting 3 - 5 days a week.  That's upwards of 170 miles per week.  Not too shabby and during the course of a year, I still wind up putting more commuting miles on two wheels then four - usually.

Let the ramp up begin.  My wallet, mental outlook and fitness level, will thank me in a few weeks.  Until then, slow speeds and some ouch factor involved.  Bike commuting rocks.