I have been a forum member for some time but admittedly been much of a lurker (specially at the For Sale section). The wealth of knowledge and friends I have come across through this site is priceless so thank you for that.
I decided to make my first bike post about a project build that I have recently completed. This is actually my wife's bike as she was the one who found it, also it seems she owns the Ti lot of the bikes and I own the Cro-Mo section.
One of the reasons I like old bikes is because, often they have a story to tell. If this bike could talk, it would probably tell of its life and journey from Japan to the Philippines. My wife found this bike amid a hoard of bikes in a Japanese Surplus store we decided to randomly stop at.
Oddly enough it has sat there for some time as evidence of the rust spots on all the other parts that came with it. In a country where there is a deluge of surplus bicycles from Japan, I'm sure a Titanium bicycle would have been snagged even before they opened the shipping containers. I guess the reason why this was left in the lot because the seat tube had separated from the bottom bracket.
The shop owner had decided to keep it and have a fixing bracket fabricated by a local machine shop to make the bike usable. He decided that the bike frame was not as rigid as he expected so he stripped off the XTR M900s that came with the bike to build it up for his other bike. Fortunately I knew someone who could TIG weld Titanium so I managed to have it repaired even just for light duty use.
We got a good deal for the bike (around 30 GBP in local currency) had it repaired and decided to convert it to single speed.
A very good friend who is also into retrobikes, had a well worn pair of Sun Chinook Rims which he gave me and I was able to polish to a shine, I made replica decals on my computer and printed it on sticker paper and laminate.
I mounted a set of Magura Quick Silvers I kept from a while back and decided to break the cold grey color scheme with a NOS Tioga Alchemy Ahead Stem.
Of course no photoshoot would be complete without my favorite bike website for all things retro. A big shout out to Ed Edwards for the stickers. Thank you so much!
This was a fun, frustrating even at times infuriating build. But I guess it is all part of the fascination we have for old bikes.
Happy riding!
I decided to make my first bike post about a project build that I have recently completed. This is actually my wife's bike as she was the one who found it, also it seems she owns the Ti lot of the bikes and I own the Cro-Mo section.
One of the reasons I like old bikes is because, often they have a story to tell. If this bike could talk, it would probably tell of its life and journey from Japan to the Philippines. My wife found this bike amid a hoard of bikes in a Japanese Surplus store we decided to randomly stop at.
Oddly enough it has sat there for some time as evidence of the rust spots on all the other parts that came with it. In a country where there is a deluge of surplus bicycles from Japan, I'm sure a Titanium bicycle would have been snagged even before they opened the shipping containers. I guess the reason why this was left in the lot because the seat tube had separated from the bottom bracket.
The shop owner had decided to keep it and have a fixing bracket fabricated by a local machine shop to make the bike usable. He decided that the bike frame was not as rigid as he expected so he stripped off the XTR M900s that came with the bike to build it up for his other bike. Fortunately I knew someone who could TIG weld Titanium so I managed to have it repaired even just for light duty use.
We got a good deal for the bike (around 30 GBP in local currency) had it repaired and decided to convert it to single speed.
A very good friend who is also into retrobikes, had a well worn pair of Sun Chinook Rims which he gave me and I was able to polish to a shine, I made replica decals on my computer and printed it on sticker paper and laminate.
I mounted a set of Magura Quick Silvers I kept from a while back and decided to break the cold grey color scheme with a NOS Tioga Alchemy Ahead Stem.
Of course no photoshoot would be complete without my favorite bike website for all things retro. A big shout out to Ed Edwards for the stickers. Thank you so much!
This was a fun, frustrating even at times infuriating build. But I guess it is all part of the fascination we have for old bikes.
Happy riding!
