Backpanniers backaches

Driving back to town from the ferry landing today, I saw these guys on the road. Four in all, one of which had medium sized panniers, backpack, and one of those green three or four burner Coleman stoves bungied to his rear rack... ouch!

They must have been going to Moran State Park, another fifteen minutes by car and up a long steep grade... even by car standards.

Clearly they didn't know what they were getting into, and all this on a day when the temperature index was almost 80 F. I can't imagine they had to much fun biking. Anyone call for a chiropractor?!

Sakai Steed

For all intensive purposes, the Sakai is DONE!

The paint job is crap but then I wasn't expecting it to look professional - maybe a little better than I got but not professional. Eventually I might have my friend Paul Evans powder coat it for me... when I have more money than I know what to do with that is.



The rear wheel is a little skewed (the freewheel wobbles ever so slightly) but for an old bike, it's very rideable. I also had some trouble with the chain and had to take a link out making the chain too short. I'll pickup another from my LBS tomorrow.



I wrapped the bars with cloth tape hiding the brake cables giving it a little bit of a modern look along with the Tektro levers that I swapped out for the linears on Beth's Surly. The original stem I had to hack off, then notch so I could grip the quill with a vise to get it out of the head tube. Luckily I found (and stole) another but shorter one from an old Schwinn I found in the basement.



I will probably ride it around like this for a while but was also thinking I might turn it into a fixie just for fun, not that I'm interested in fixies at all (way to many long steep hills around here) . It was definitely a good learning experience though and I'm now thinking about my next project... maybe a mid 80s Trek tourer (420, 520, 620 or 720) series.

Sekai Sprint

A couple of weeks ago I was given an old Sekai Sprint probably from the mid 1970s. They were pretty mid range bikes with Suntour components and stamped dropouts but I still had visions of restoring it but as my LBS suggested, I was trying to make a "silk purse from a sow's ear." That said I like a good learning experience and so I decided that I would at least I would make it look like it could be NOS... from afar. The great thing about the bike though, is that it has all of its original components down to the last bolt and with a little polish and elbow grease, everything looks to be in excellent shape.

I didn't take pictures of the bike before disassembly but here's what the frame looked like before painting.