Thursday, April 19, 2012

Far-Stumpy-Farer

I thought this would be of interest to folks out there. As Nick said in the last post, he finished building up his n'old (new old) stumpy last weekend at my little shop space. What he didn't mention was that he hauled the stumpy off that day on the back of his Bruce Gordon with his Farfarer. It was pretty great that it worked and a bit of an inspiration.



Saturday, April 14, 2012

1986 Specialized Stumpjumper

I just finished building up my '86 Stumpy that Mark found last month.
I installed an old Brooks Conquest saddle and drilled holes in the sides so I can lace it up to keep the leather off the rails. I think it needs the full Grant Petersen treatment to bring it back to life since the leather is torn around the front rivets.
The crankset, rear derailer, front brake, and brake levers are both '93 Deore LX off my old Yokota Yosemite that I bought when I was 13 years old. The shifters and front derailer are early 90s XT.
I did some serious metal grinding to shave off enough of the LX brakes to fit the XT thumbshifters. I'm also rocking old Onza barends. I haven't followed what's happened in mountain biking in the last 15 years, but I hear that barends aren't cool anymore. That's crazy because barends are great, so fashion be damned, I'm going with what works.

The clearance is pretty tight with the undermount break. I wonder why they didn't just go with cantis in the back.
Sweet original Saturae rims.
And a sweet original Stumpjumper stem.
The bottom bracket is a little longer than it needs to be, but it works.
Also, my buddy Quentin in Santa Cruz just had his new custom made bike stolen. Please keep an eye out for it--it's super unique. Quentin makes rad trailers that are great for everything, including touring on dirt. I'll write about mine soon which I've been doing everything with, including hauling my Stumpy home. He's also super sweet, rides bikes more than anyone, and is super generous about sharing his crazy dirt touring routes. Let's get his bike back.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

1984 Bianchi Grizzly

I just found this old Bianchi Grizzly, that I'm guessing is an '84. Compared to my '84 ridgerunner this frame is lower quality and has lower end parts. I can't find any database for Bianchi's serial numbers, but the parts and the lugged build, and since the serial starts with LS4... I'm guessing it's 84.

oh, and she's huge... I love how they used to make mountain bike frames so big!

Looks like the same fork as the Ridgerunner. Definitely the same fork crown. Yeah I know the cable is inside the yolk, I just got it like that, soon to change. Oh, yeah and it's got those nice super long Dia Cope brakes, love those.
Oh man, so much head tube!Check that bend in the bars, similar to the ones that came on the 86 stumpy sport.
But the stem is something else. Kinda like stumpy "golf club", kinda bmx, kinda like a snake head.
The head lugs are properly spoon shaped on the underside.
The seat stays are sloppy and the brazing and mitering was done poorly.
Shimano Unisift model. I've never seen this style before with the small steel clamp and the angular cable stop. Unishift seems like a bad name for a multi-speed shifter...



Very similar again to the Diamondback. It's got a lot of room for a fat tire. Unfortunate crimping from a kickstand, I hate those things!

A closer look at that crazy bend.
Clunky braze-ons, kinda like a Miyata no?
Biopace, ugg. Tourney GS cranks are cool though. At first I assumed that the Biopace might have been an add on from a later date, but a little research shows that Shimano was making Biopace as early as 1983. Suntour bear trap pedals.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Port costa

Some of the dirt owls rode out to Port Costa this weekend. It was mostly a road ride but we all have fat tire road bikes so we found some dirt on the return trip.




This guy from the Warehouse bar

weirdo terracing
The big picture. This part of California is amazing this time of year.