Back on the bike blog

It’s been a long quiet stretch here. Last steady writing was years ago, and a lot of life filled the gap, graduations, jobs, weddings. I’ve got more time now, and I want to write here again as a creative outlet — short notes on bikes, trails, and the miles around Seattle and Whidbey Island in the Pacific NW. Some words next to the photos, when there’s something worth getting off my chest.

A New Build

I rebuilt my father’s old Miyata Triplecross. It was his RV travel bike that he kept on the rack when he travelled back and forth in retirement. Lots of dust from the trips from AZ, and some good beausage. The base is a Taiwanese-built triple-butted steel lugged frame that’s a real gem. Rides like a champ.

I went through a few upgrades/changes: new Compass drop bars, brake/shifter cables, flat pedals, and some new old stock Longboard SKS fenders for the coming deluge. Shifters are some Silvers from the Rivendell stash, on Shimano bar-end pods. I had the pods, but no related shifters, so had to order a few parts and figure out how to set up a friction setup that worked. I also had to find a brake cable stop for the front. I had an older part I had modified that attaches to the fork crown and works great.

Bar tape is my signature harlequin green/orange with 2 coats of amber shellac. I had to remind myself how to do this via my old video: harlequin wrap video if you want to geek out on the pattern. I kept the 7-speed Biopace drivetrain and Exage deraileurs. It is barely used, so still shifts quietly/quickly in friction mode – almost perfect for this. As for the Biopace, I feel it on the downstoke mostly when climbing hills, so it is a win.

I replaced the saddle with a really old Selle Anatomica from a trade. I added this, after the shakedown bare-bar 20-miler around Seattle (Golden Gardens, the canal) reminded me I needed something kinder to the taint. Major bruising from the terrible Brooks Cambium C15 I had laying around. Felt like a brick after 10 miles. Nope…

On the geometry, the bottom bracket sits higher than I’m used to, it being a hybrid/cyclocross style, but I set it close to my Homer Hilsen, and it feels pretty good. I basically set the rear of saddle to bar center, and then the center of crank to seat height, and bar height to seat height relation (about 1-2cm higher bar).

It’s pretty well set up – I do need to add new tires and will probably order up some soon. Now I need to ride this thing…

Pics from the rebuild: Miyata album on Flickr.

More soon when the miles pile up.