Post up what you pedal (5 Viewers)

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what do you ride? I’ve found for me the best set up is a super grippy front (when the front loses traction it is a bad day…) and faster rolling rear.

Also I can’t recommend specialized tires enough. They perform amazing and if you watch sales can get them for half price of most other major brands. I got four (two 29 and two- 27.5) front tires and four 27.5 rear tires new this past fall for $280 total. I have 3 of the 8 still in the box for next summer. On most of our bikes, we go through a front tire, every summer and a rear tire every one to two summers, we ride a lot.

My go to for the last 4 years on all the families bikes is specialized Butcher T9 front and specialized purgatory T5 or T7 rear. On everything but my daughter’s DH bike where she runs the butcher T9 front and eliminator T9 rear.

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Dry decomposed granite & hard pack soil are the local trails. Not rocky or rooty, no moisture. It rains so little here that if it does rain, I'll just wait & ride when its dry. That wasn't an option when I was living on the North Shore of Vancouver.
 
Dry decomposed granite & hard pack soil are the local trails. Not rocky or rooty, no moisture. It rains so little here that if it does rain, I'll just wait & ride when its dry. That wasn't an option when I was living on the North Shore of Vancouver.
I miss the dry, grew up in Tahoe. Almost 20 years in Alaska now, wet is my reality.
 
Nice Spinergy wheels. I don’t think I’ve seen a set of those in ~30 years. Pretty awesome!
Full transparency., every (and I mean every) bike forum warns against building anything with Spinergy or Allan Record Carbonio as the polymer/glue is likely cooked.
I decided to do both.
The Spinergys lasted 10 miles.
The Allan lasted 34 miles and fell apart like a house of cards underneath me.
It is mounted on a wall of shame in my basement but DANG it looked good for those 34 miles!
 
Dry decomposed granite & hard pack soil are the local trails. Not rocky or rooty, no moisture. It rains so little here that if it does rain, I'll just wait & ride when its dry. That wasn't an option when I was living on the North Shore of Vancouver.
 
Loose over hard pack is the most puckery for me. But dry like that, I prefer Thunder Burts (Schwalbe) or Maxxis Aspens or Icons. My xc bikes are wearing Ikons right now because I've been riding more varied terrain, and they have the most tread I can ride and still go fast while under pedal power. Ain't no gravity in my woods.
 
@RodrigzCrzr That Raleigh turned out so nice. The white cable housing was the way to go my friend.

@EscapeWagon62 I'm drooling over that Mercian. I built a road bike last spring and was looking at pretty much any of the small to medium sized British companies, and specifically for a Reynolds 531 frame. Mercian was on the list, but I ended up with a Bob Jackson. I just really like the Mercian font and their paint schemes. Some have really great lugs too.
 
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@RodrigzCrzr That Raleigh turned out so nice. The white cable housing was the way to go my friend.

@EscapeWagon62 I'm drooling over that Mercian. I built a road bike last spring and was looking at pretty much any of the small to medium sized British companies, and specifically for a Reynolds 531 frame. Mercian was on the list, but I ended up with a Bob Jackson. I just really like the Mercian font and their paint schemes. Some have really great lugs too.
It’s a Fuji nothing special. It was just a quick project to bring it back to life. But Thank you!
The owner of property where it came from is buying it back. Just what I put into it.
 
New build! This is a super funk build. Frame is a 1983 Cannondale ST-500 sport tourer, first year they made bikes which is cool. I had a Mavic 851 rear derailleur I fell in love with and really wanted to use. But I wanted to run a triple. So I designed and had a custom long cage cut and machined for it. Local cruiserhead helped me with the final machining. Works awesome! Mavic made a prototype of this so I had a photo to base it off of.
Running a Campy 10speed rear cassette, Sexy Ritchey Logic triple cranks. Campy Racing T front derailleur, Shimano bar end shifters, Campy 9 speed brifters I gutted into brake levers (I love the chunky feel and look), 700x35C Rene Herse tires, Paul and white industries hubs and H-plus son rims I had already, Brooks saddle, period correct Cannondale handlebars and a random campy seatpost. A real mish-mash of parts that work pretty well.
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Man this thread is making me regret getting rid of some of the (now) classic bikes I owned. But with as much as I moved years ago there would have been almost no way to keep them. Also thinking back the sale/trade of one paid for all/part the next.
 
Back on my bvll****…

My partner and I want to do some light bikepacking. I already have that 84 Trek ATB that could be kitted out nicely for dirt roads, but she didn’t have anything. So I’ve been watching Martkeplace, which I’m always looking at anyway…

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1984 Miyata Terra Runner. Miyata-made plain gauge CroMo tubing and mostly original components, including the cool bullmoose stem. She wanted a rigid ATB like my Trek, and one of the main criteria was a lugged fork crown because we both think it looks way better than a unicrown fork. Silly, I know, but whatever.

Anyway, this thing is long and slack and really comfortable to ride. There will be some mods soon: Brooks B17, new stem and swept back bars, early Suntour thumbies, new tires, etc. updates to follow.

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No headway made on this yet, but Karen and I did sit down and map out resources a few nights ago: where to look for cool bars that she might like, where to get cool bar tape/grips, we identified my unused Nitto dirt drop stem in the garage as perfect for this, where to get consumables like brake pads and a chain, and where to find cool non-boring cable housing. She'll start getting stuff delivered to the house soon. We had an extra Brooks B17 laying around so that already got slapped on the seatpost. Progress!

One stumbling block is going to be tires. 26" is obviously an outmoded size and pickins are gonna be slim. I've earmarked a few that might be good for this build but I want to ask y'all - or at least those of your still using 26" wheels - what do you like? We're looking for city/dirt, we don't want any heavy/big lugged tires. Something that can grip on dirt roads and very light technical stuff (like fire roads and XC trails), but also won't be annoying, loud, or squirmy on pavement. So ... anybody running 26" tires and what do you like? Or are we the only ones left on the planet chasing these stupid dreams?
 
Oops … I did it again

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Early 1984 Fuji Sundance. On top of general deferred maintenance, this is one is going to undergo some significant changes. Haven’t decided on a direction yet but I have a couple ideas. I couldn’t say no to the color and price.
 
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I put these Maxxis Ardent EXO/TR in 26x2.25 on an old Schwinn Homegrown.

According to Maxxis they are "a light duty trail tire that rolls fast in dry conditions."

They may be an option.
 
I put these Maxxis Ardent EXO/TR in 26x2.25 on an old Schwinn Homegrown.

According to Maxxis they are "a light duty trail tire that rolls fast in dry conditions."

They may be an option.
Those look pretty good. I’m a gumwall snob but I need to get over that and just buy black tires haha. The GravelKing SK are on my list too.
 
Those look pretty good. I’m a gumwall snob but I need to get over that and just buy black tires haha. The GravelKing SK are on my list too.

It was either the Maxxis or GravelKing's - don't think you can go wrong with either option.
 
God dammit, I did it again. Couldn’t say no for $30. 1978-1982 Bob Jackson. Went to buy some mint vintage XT wheels from a guy and he said “um, you interested in this too by chance?”

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I’ve already stripped a bunch of parts in this photo: Ideale leather saddle in great shape, Suntour barcons, Gran Compe levers that match the brakes. The TA Cyclotouriste crankset will go on the mauve Fuji as a wide range double (running 1x most of the time, but has an extra small bailout granny ring). I’ve wanted one of these 50.4 BCD cranksets for years and finally got one.

The Reynolds 531 frame has been abused but is still solid. One small dent, lots of scratches and surface rust. Somebody scratched off the “Bob” in “Bob Jackson” on both sides … maybe the previous owner’s ex-boyfriend was named Bob and she couldn’t stand to ride this bike with his name on it?
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It’s a bit small for me but I’m eventually going to build this bike into a sort of classic British “gentleman’s bike”, something I’ve wanted to do for a while.Single front chainring, Sturmey-Archer rear hub, cruiser handlebars. It’ll be a city beater.
 
'Upgraded' my winter commuter to a single speed. Cleaning out the garage, I came across my old rear wheel from when this was my SS MTB bike, Chris King rear hub.
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It took all I had to get the drive side BB (old square taper, steel threads bonded/galled to the aluminum BB shell) removed. Cheater bar w/pipe, wife holding the front of the bike, heat gun and PB blaster, finally got it out.
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New BB, old 104BCD XT crank, and a $20, 52 tooth hipster front ring off Amazon. I had a 19 tooth rear cog and singlulator on-hand...2.75ish:1 gear ratio.
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Only ridden it to work twice, but I like it so far. I've been commuting on my Larry vs. Harry Bullitt for a few years, forgot how twitchy this old 26 mtb can be, especially compared to riding a forward cargo bus.
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'Upgraded' my winter commuter to a single speed. Cleaning out the garage, I came across my old rear wheel from when this was my SS MTB bike, Chris King rear hub. View attachment 4007169

It took all I had to get the drive side BB (old square taper, steel threads bonded/galled to the aluminum BB shell) removed. Cheater bar w/pipe, wife holding the front of the bike, heat gun and PB blaster, finally got it out. View attachment 4007168

New BB, old 104BCD XT crank, and a $20, 52 tooth hipster front ring off Amazon. I had a 19 tooth rear cog and singlulator on-hand...2.75ish:1 gear ratio.
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Only ridden it to work twice, but I like it so far. I've been commuting on my Larry vs. Harry Bullitt for a few years, forgot how twitchy this old 26 mtb can be, especially compared to riding a forward cargo bus.View attachment 4007170
This is sick ... what a machine! What's the frame?
 

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