Here's my total POS 1989 Nishiki Alien.
'Brought this bad boy home with me from Florida to Ohio (we're in the states eh?) when my vacation trip was up. I was mostly down there for the nature, but i couldn't help but check for deals on the local craigslist all the while and this popped up right along the route home. I love old bikes with weird frames, and this is just that so it came home with me.
Wow... one of the previous owners must have had some fun with this bike. It has approximately 1 original part on it... the front xt shifter. The rest is um... a mix up.
Alright so i don't have the craigslist photo, but here's my photo along with what i recall being able to discern about the parts and condition of the bike before seeing it in person.
So it looks like it's a complete bike... the owner says there's nothing wrong with it. From front to back... The fork looks like a judy, and the headset looks like a 1" threaded deal. Cool, the legendary... 1" threaded steerer fork... at long last. No idea on the condition of the springs and damper. Front brakes are some sort of suntour cantis... maybe SE's? That would be neat...
There's a speedometer on there... no way that is any good. Brake levers look like xtr- cool, i don't own anything xtr... i bought some xt levers recently and that was exciting. Let's just hope the shift pod attachments are still on there and the PO hasn't sawed them off for whatever reason people like to do that.
shifters might be original? Cool! Thumbies!
The bar says gofast on it... i like to go fast... ish.
The stem is a salsa... is that exciting? It's fun for me...
The seat is... something old, and it's on... some kind of seatpost. There's some weird clamp on cable stop on there for some reason. The crank has alfa decals on it, but it's probably shimano. I can see... a number, and xt... or is it lx? I hope its xt...
Rear derailleur looks like an ancient xt, score for original parts. The front is a dx... if not original, it's at least old.
Wheels are sun AT18's... i'll probably have to put something nicer on there (but not much nicer, since i work on a budget
)
Then i bought it:
The fork is a judy xc from 1997 i believe- 1" steerer and bolt on crown, wowie zowie. Feels like there's a lively spring in there but no damping... i'll have to open that up. Both stanchions have oil on them. No self energizing brakes... just suntour xc's which are nice but one appears to have a metal backing plate while the other doesn't... not sure what's up there, but they work fine and have the original pads (in hardly used condition i think).
Front hub has a bearing trying to escape through a smashed dust shield. The hub is packed with sand, naturally as this bike spent it's whole life until now in Florida- Ha!
Of course... the xtr levers had the shift pod mounts ground off. Nice... The rear brake was changed out for a v-brake at some point, and the lever doesn't work with the V...
The rear shifter is original, but the front looks to be a suntour of a similar vintage. The bar is a club roost thing, and i like it.
Jeeze... what's goin' on here? a 600 headset with cracked cups... The top and bottom cups sport a couple nasty cracks so it looks like i need a new one of those. I'll probably get another old 600 to make it easy and to keep it POS status.
Seat is a fuji... post is a GT. I own a couple GT's, it's a little weird havin' this post on one of my not-gt bikes, but i don't think it'll fit on anything else. I think it's a BMX post... Seat binder has a presta valve cover on the exposed bolt, for extra lolz.
Nope, no xt crankset for me... stuff above lx grade continues to elude me. Not even an alfa, it's just an old 300lx with an xtr big ring, and i think SR middle and granny gears. Pedals are just wellgos... again, xt stuff eludes me.
Rear derailleur is an m735 or something... not the original m730, so i guess the only original component is the front shifter. Hey, i like it... POS old bike status eh?
I've already fixed the sandy hub front wheel... turns out the cups, cones, and bearings were in terrific shape despite being exposed for however long. The xtr levers and suntour front/tektro rear (stupid tektros... they have a plastic bushing for some reason -_- ) brakes have been swapped out for m739 levers and brakes. I would have gone with suntour cantis, but i already had this junk and i didn't want to buy canti pads when i already have a bunch of v-brake pads eh.
I have some sun rims cr17 or something in the garage... they're double wall but the brake track ont he rear is uhh... a little* worn down in spots thanks tot he PO riding around with a ton of metal in his pads (me too, to some extent). The bike came with some cheap specialized enduro tires and the front was worn pretty flat. The rear is still good, but if they fit i have some kenda h-factors i'll put on there. We're not tryin' to go for vintage or anything, this is all about cheap POS factor eh?
I'll probably take the fork apart at some point... the only experience i have with Judy service is from when i took apart one with a blown damper, melted elastomers, and a cracked bridge. I took it apart, and threw it away (should've kept that damper...) but maybe i can take this one apart without needing to pitch it afterwords.
Hey, you know the best part? The bike computer works! Yay! It's got a clock and a speed and some other stuff that i don't care about... this is super exciting. I've bought lots of bikes and parts that came with bits of computers (magnets, mounts, sensors...) but never a working one. Waow.
Thanks for reading my musings, more musings to come maybe if the damper explodes oil everywhere (this happened one with the shock absorber from a car... and it was awesome.)
'Brought this bad boy home with me from Florida to Ohio (we're in the states eh?) when my vacation trip was up. I was mostly down there for the nature, but i couldn't help but check for deals on the local craigslist all the while and this popped up right along the route home. I love old bikes with weird frames, and this is just that so it came home with me.
Wow... one of the previous owners must have had some fun with this bike. It has approximately 1 original part on it... the front xt shifter. The rest is um... a mix up.
Alright so i don't have the craigslist photo, but here's my photo along with what i recall being able to discern about the parts and condition of the bike before seeing it in person.
So it looks like it's a complete bike... the owner says there's nothing wrong with it. From front to back... The fork looks like a judy, and the headset looks like a 1" threaded deal. Cool, the legendary... 1" threaded steerer fork... at long last. No idea on the condition of the springs and damper. Front brakes are some sort of suntour cantis... maybe SE's? That would be neat...
There's a speedometer on there... no way that is any good. Brake levers look like xtr- cool, i don't own anything xtr... i bought some xt levers recently and that was exciting. Let's just hope the shift pod attachments are still on there and the PO hasn't sawed them off for whatever reason people like to do that.
shifters might be original? Cool! Thumbies!
The bar says gofast on it... i like to go fast... ish.
The stem is a salsa... is that exciting? It's fun for me...
The seat is... something old, and it's on... some kind of seatpost. There's some weird clamp on cable stop on there for some reason. The crank has alfa decals on it, but it's probably shimano. I can see... a number, and xt... or is it lx? I hope its xt...
Rear derailleur looks like an ancient xt, score for original parts. The front is a dx... if not original, it's at least old.
Wheels are sun AT18's... i'll probably have to put something nicer on there (but not much nicer, since i work on a budget
)Then i bought it:
The fork is a judy xc from 1997 i believe- 1" steerer and bolt on crown, wowie zowie. Feels like there's a lively spring in there but no damping... i'll have to open that up. Both stanchions have oil on them. No self energizing brakes... just suntour xc's which are nice but one appears to have a metal backing plate while the other doesn't... not sure what's up there, but they work fine and have the original pads (in hardly used condition i think).
Front hub has a bearing trying to escape through a smashed dust shield. The hub is packed with sand, naturally as this bike spent it's whole life until now in Florida- Ha!
Of course... the xtr levers had the shift pod mounts ground off. Nice... The rear brake was changed out for a v-brake at some point, and the lever doesn't work with the V...
The rear shifter is original, but the front looks to be a suntour of a similar vintage. The bar is a club roost thing, and i like it.
Jeeze... what's goin' on here? a 600 headset with cracked cups... The top and bottom cups sport a couple nasty cracks so it looks like i need a new one of those. I'll probably get another old 600 to make it easy and to keep it POS status.
Seat is a fuji... post is a GT. I own a couple GT's, it's a little weird havin' this post on one of my not-gt bikes, but i don't think it'll fit on anything else. I think it's a BMX post... Seat binder has a presta valve cover on the exposed bolt, for extra lolz.
Nope, no xt crankset for me... stuff above lx grade continues to elude me. Not even an alfa, it's just an old 300lx with an xtr big ring, and i think SR middle and granny gears. Pedals are just wellgos... again, xt stuff eludes me.
Rear derailleur is an m735 or something... not the original m730, so i guess the only original component is the front shifter. Hey, i like it... POS old bike status eh?
I've already fixed the sandy hub front wheel... turns out the cups, cones, and bearings were in terrific shape despite being exposed for however long. The xtr levers and suntour front/tektro rear (stupid tektros... they have a plastic bushing for some reason -_- ) brakes have been swapped out for m739 levers and brakes. I would have gone with suntour cantis, but i already had this junk and i didn't want to buy canti pads when i already have a bunch of v-brake pads eh.
I have some sun rims cr17 or something in the garage... they're double wall but the brake track ont he rear is uhh... a little* worn down in spots thanks tot he PO riding around with a ton of metal in his pads (me too, to some extent). The bike came with some cheap specialized enduro tires and the front was worn pretty flat. The rear is still good, but if they fit i have some kenda h-factors i'll put on there. We're not tryin' to go for vintage or anything, this is all about cheap POS factor eh?
I'll probably take the fork apart at some point... the only experience i have with Judy service is from when i took apart one with a blown damper, melted elastomers, and a cracked bridge. I took it apart, and threw it away (should've kept that damper...) but maybe i can take this one apart without needing to pitch it afterwords.
Hey, you know the best part? The bike computer works! Yay! It's got a clock and a speed and some other stuff that i don't care about... this is super exciting. I've bought lots of bikes and parts that came with bits of computers (magnets, mounts, sensors...) but never a working one. Waow.
Thanks for reading my musings, more musings to come maybe if the damper explodes oil everywhere (this happened one with the shock absorber from a car... and it was awesome.)
