bike wank, part 3

[kirkcudbright]

1987 Raleigh Technium. Premium lugged steel, designed in England, manufactured in Kent, Washington, on March 28, 1987, according to Sheldon Brown. I bought this off a guy in the Want Advertiser sometime in the late '90's. (Hmm, that would actually put it before the Gary Fisher in the sequence. Oh well.)

Anyway, I bought it off this guy in the Want Advertiser, but I really shouldn't have bought this particular bike. It had what we call a theft-deterrrent paint job - spray-can yellow, not well masked, so I found bits of paint on non-frame parts of the bike. I also found evidence of a previous amateur red paint when I stripped it down to repaint it. Lord only knows what color it was originally. I tried to paint it with a black krinkle paint, but I didn't like how it came out, so I stripped it down again, and re-repainted it with a green/purple color-shifting paint, although it looks mostly black here. (I blogged it here, almost 2 years ago).

The funky handlebar is a Nitto Moustache Handlebar, from Rivendell. I like it, because it's weird and funky, and it's comfortable. Hidden behind the handlebars on the stem is a dingy-bell. Again, because it amuses me to have a racing bike with a dingy-bell.

This one is definitely designed for racing - you can see it in the head tube angle and the shallow rake of the fork. Or maybe you can't see it, but you can see how close the front wheel is to the down tube. That's supposed to make the bike handle more aggressively or something. I recently replaced the freewheel with one that has a decent climbing gear, because I occasionally ride in New England, where it's hilly.

This is also the bike I took to Britain for the amutee tour of Europe (blog starts here). Ultimately, it turned out to be the wrong bike for the job, because we routinely ran into stiffer (albeit shorter) climbs than I encountered crossing the Rockies.

It's not the bike I'm taking back to Britain, but it definitely has a place in the stable. It's the one I've put the most work into, and put the most modifications on, so it's the one I'm most invested in. So far, I've replaced the handlebars, saddle, freewheel, and shifters. I've also been thinking about changing the double crankset to a triple, which would mean replacing the bottom bracket and front derailleur as well. And maybe getting it professionaly painted.

If I had to have just one bike, this might lose out to the Bianchi (tomorrow's feature) on the grounds of sheer practicality, but it would make me sad. It's old and crufty, but so am I.

Comments

[c1.livejournal.com]

If you're up for powder coating it, I can HIGHLY recommend going to see Jeff at Central Mass Powdercoating in Clinton. Quite simply, you'd be hard pressed to find a guy who takes as much care on producing an amazing finish. When I was working for PM, that's the only place we'd get stuff powder coated. He's not satisfied until the finish is robust enough to take 20 wipes with a xylene soaked rag in a conspicuous location.
And if you want it painted, I can suggest a guy for that, too...

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

I'd love to get it powder coated. I have to say I'm better with a spray can than the previous owner, but it's still kind of homely, and not as durable as even the factory paint job.

[c1.livejournal.com]

I'll get you a phone number for CMPC. He's really the guy you want to trust this to.

[totient]

Not just racing, but criteriums. I wouldn't want to ride more than 40 miles on that; it'd be hell on one's back trying to keep it in a straight line that long.

So saith the man who rode a criterium bike to Florida. But still.

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm not the one who wants to ride her first century on a fixty chopper; that's just nuts. I'm just the one who rode a century cold last year, and that was kind of nuts too. We're none of in a position to cast stones, and stupid things make for better stories afterwards.

[totient]

First century on fixed wheel chopper isn't why I think that particular one is nuts. It's the 6 months pregnant on a hip injury part that's nuts.

I've ridden centuries cold, too; that's not nuts, but it is kind of tedious.