bikes!

My brother and I scored sweet bikes from DI the other day.

They wheeled in a keeper: a mid 80's ten speed Takara road bike (Japanese)... it was a little tall for me... my guess is the previous owner was 6' 3'' or something... so its a taller bike. The tires were fine, the bar end (!?) friction shifters worked perfectly. It came with fenders and a rack... which I removed because the bike was dirty and needs to be cleaned up. Everything works... after a test ride, it seemed like a sweet find. The bike looks a little banged up.... the frame isn't bent, but there are some paint chips that show some rust.

I need to change the bar tape, and adjust the placement of the brake levers... too high, probably from the the tall owner. The handlebar stem is also dangerously too high... and unfortunately frozen in place after all the years. I tried banging on it with a hammer.... nothing... loosening the headset did nothing... I greased it down with WD-40... but the stem won't budge. I want to keep the original stem- so I'll just try some other penetrating oils to see if i can break the seal between the fork and the stem... My guess is the aluminum bonded to the steel fork and hasn't been adjusted in a long time, though scratch marks on the stem indicate that it was moved to its current position a while ago. I read that ammonia will eat away at aluminum oxide, assuming I don't pass out from the vapors. Or I'll have to keep lubricating the stem with stronger chemicals until I can break it.

While this bike would be an excellent candidate for a fixed gear or single speed, I'm going to keep the gears. Who knows. I may strip down the paint someday and repaint it. Right now I'm just going to keep working on the frozen stem and clean all the grime off of it, and it should look pretty sweet!

bah.