Year's end

 Well it was a pretty slow year around here at the blog thanks to a new baby and Instagram, but here are a some pics since the last post in August. Vintage MTB might not be the perfect fit namewise for the blog these days since my interest has shifted from solely old mtbs to bikes in general and fun bike projects. I still get stoked out by a rad vintage mtb, but I've been been riding everything and having fun with it all.

Here are a few from the Christmas ride:

 Some folks drove in so we hauled gear and food in from a parked car.

Stopped for beverages at a little hidey hole. 

 looks like we are gona be late...

Also went to France to visit family. The vintage city bike scene was off the hook!

 notice the rear brake placement, early mtb designers wern't the first ones to try the chainstay mount.

 Awesome CLB centerpull with brazed on studs.

 Brake line goes through the seat tube.

 Grizzled Ideale saddle

 Saint Christopher, protector of cyclists

St. Christophor bell and amazing brake levers.

 

 

 Nice high yolk on the rear brake.

 

 Pic of an Olympic vase from 1924(?)

From a camping trip in October

 Good canned beer from the road.

 

Sometimes it's hard not to take a shot on Ridgecrest.

  Mudballin Briones

Diablo peeping

 mud balls

 

Weekender, failed at camping the first night, stayed at Montara lighthouse instead.

 Made it to Butano the next night after dilly dallying around.

 On the way back checked out the road to Purisima Creek

Wildcats, rack hacks, and six packs

Spent the weekend riding out to Wildcat camp in Point Reyes, here are some highlights in no particular order:

 Shifting to granny the hard way

 Best blackberry bramble of the summer

 Found a little gravy too

 Then there's this funny thing. The night before I was getting the bike loaded and figeting with my faux Carradice seat bag. (note: It's a terrible idea to buy an imitation Carradice) Anyway, I've never been happy with the Bagman support and wanted something I could strap more things to. I had some time that night and some stainless tube around so I fired up the torch and made this thing. This has pretty much no finish work done and even has flux left on it but I was happy with how it came out.

I was inspired to make my little rack partially from helping Steven modify this VO  Randonneur rack a few nights before.  It's hard to make out here, but these racks don't work on old mtbs because the stays have a fixed angle and they land right on the canti studs area. We just cut off the VO stays and brazed on new longer ones a little forward of where the old ones were and with an angle that gets the stays below the brakes.

Ben's Rad Maruishi

 I hung out with a bud today while he readied his early 80's Maruishi Mountace MT18 for an upcoming tour. He got the bike as a frame/fork and did a nice job building it up with a bit of a Rivy style. Looks good to me. This frame has the semi dreaded 21.1mm stem/fork but Ben managed to find a nice Nitto stem for the job. I poked around a bit and it seems that Maruishi is still around and that they rebranded at some point for the US market and sold as Jamis. The bike is lugged and well made. Closer examination of the lugs and other details makes me wonder if Maruishi (or whoever made bikes for Maruishi) also made my 84 Bianchi Grizzly. The lugs/fork crown/cable stop/braze ons seem to be the same on the two bikes. The fork crown is no suprise because many Japanese bikes of that era used the same fake bi-plane crown but the other details really make me wonder. Whatever the case it's a cool bike with some unique details.

Just a better shot of the fast back style stay attachment.

Double dimple

Bad pic here but these babies were crazy long. I measured the chainstays at 480mm.

Nice long horizontal dropout.

And for reference the rack mount and cable stop on the Grizz.

more grizz

more grizz