Paris street bikes

I've been in Paris visiting my new French family for the past week. As a bike junkie, I have been scanning the streets to see what kind of sweet bikes French people ride. As France is one of the places most involved with the development of multigeared modern bikes, you'd think the place would be brimming with sweet bikes, but mostly people seem to be riding some real clunkers with a preference for the mixte. I have however seen a few bikes of note, and found a couple of early MTBs.
This thing is a MBK (I think). Nothing too special, but I've never seen these Cantis before:

You guessed it, French biopace:

I couldn't resist this Vitus 979 Mixte, like I said they love those Mixtes. The frame was unbranded, so it is possible it was actually a ALAN, but to the best of my knowledge they are the same bike.
An early 80's Norco. Lots of low end components but still has bullmoose bars and a Biplane fork crown.


Also, not a MTB, but a rad chainring on a Motobecan.

Some random early 80's lugged mtb.

I've been shooting pics on two cameras and one of those I forgot to bring the cord for. So eventually when I'm back in the Etats Unis I will post some pics of my amazing trip to Cycles Alex Singer, and an incredible Jo Routens randonner bike I saw crusted out locked on the street.

Obsessed dudes report to BJA

I know I'm obsessed, but I can't help myself. I'm gonna turn myself in to Bike Junkies Anonymous, just one more fix...
Just got this sweet thing for a hundred bucks. I almost pissed my jeans when he pulled it out of his garage and I saw that chrome chainstay. As always the picks on craigslist were crap, so I was surprised to see all the details in person. Although the model is Stumpjumper, each year has several other designations as well, like Sport, Pro, Team, and Comp. The frame doesn't say anything, but this is certainly radder than the 85 Sport in the basement. MOMBAT has specs but it's hard to decipher because none of those specs match what I have. Anyway enough yammering, here's the candy:




Chrome chainstay with a little piss on it


Sweet lug

Reinforced brake bridge

Fastback seatstays

Embossed fork crown

Futuristic slingshot stem with Specialized alloy bars

Tomaselli grips and levers, suntour XC shifters

Best guess is 1985 or 86.

bikes on the brain

Just goofing off drawing the other day. I love the names of those early mtbs.

Emma's project bike

Q: What are these dude's doing?
A: Thinking about vintage mountian bikes of course


This is the little bike I've been working on for Emma. The frame is nothing too special, and has bad paint and some dings, but it fits and it's still a Bridgestone. In cobbling this thing together I ran into a little mystery. We had a set of these old specialized touring triple cranks in the basement:

Cool cranks, but I couldn't find the BB spindle length. Sheldon Brown is really the only database I could find that had BB specs but nothing on the old Specialized crankset. Luckily the orange stumpy in the basement has the same cranks so I just took those off and measured, and came up with 120mm (I have janky calipers, but I tried to be accurate). So if you've got the same problem, now it's on the web somewhere.

Changes to the Runner

As I mentioned in the last post I took the Ridgerunner out last weekend on a long trial ride. This week I sorted out some of the problems. So it just got some new stuff like: Jitensha studio bars, nitto riser stem, problem solvers cable guide mounted to the stem, thread tape on the bb shell that keeps trying to come out, a newer front der., a VO saddle, and a cheapie Carridice knock off seat bag.


I built it up and took it out for a little sunset test run and got to see this gnar-gnar fog scene:

A pic of the old Suntour Superbe TECH front der. I like how the design looks like an old Campi nouvo record. I had to take it off because the spring is losing its juice and I couldn't get it to consistently drop into the little chain ring.
I also bought this heap for 20 bucks hoping to find a diamond in the rough. I ended up finding a cubic zirconia in the rough. I almost didn't get it when I saw that the rear canti stud had been broken off, but when I noticed that it had an old Atom tandem rear wheel with a drum brake and a 5 speed cluster I decided to go for it. Also has cool stem bars and suntour power ratchet shifters. Maybe some day I'll actually get a brazing kit and fool with this thing. I believe it's an 1985 Norco

Infinity tubes

MT TAM

I saw this Schwinn High Sierra this weekend while I was out on trip to the summit of Mt. Tam. Part of the trip was a test for my Ridgerunner, to see if it could handle the ride and if it would be comfy for a 70+ mile ride. Unfortunately, it kinda failed, I mean, it made it, but it's gonna need several changes to make it sweet for longer rides. But for now, pics:

Roller cams, and tiny fork crown lug

Cable stop/rack mountRad stem

I also went to see some art shows in SF this weekend, and scored this jewel at Adobe books:

And yes, it's as rad as the cover makes it seem like it would be.

Tilden ride, stumpy score

Here are a couple of pics from a recent ride with some old timey mtbs and a couple of new ones too. We came home exhausted and then I scored this 1986 Stumpy that we're hoping will become Bob's new old ride.