49cm Liberia Road Bike For Sale -SOLD (see post above)

I just picked this early-70s French bike up, today.  It is a Liberia, a brand I've never heard of and can find little info on.  It has a 49cm seat tube, 54cm top tube and a stand-over height of 30-3/4 inches.

It has a pretty odd mix of parts (which appear, with the exception of the tires, saddle and bar wrap, to be original).  Lyotard pedals on a cottered crank...

Nylon-bodied Simplex derailleurs (in good working condition)...

But, the wheels have quick-release hubs and alloy rims.

It has been recently overhauled, from the looks of things, and everything is in good working order.  I rode it around a bit, after adjusting the squeal out of the Mafac racer brakes.

Unfortunately the model name is illegible.  It is "Type Somethingoranother".

The rest of the graphics are in pretty good shape.  I love the logo on the fork leg.

Olympic rings on the seat tube.

Down tube.

Head tube.

I have a set of tourist (upright) bars with brake levers on them, out in the shop building, if someone would rather not have the drop bars.  I think it would be a cool little city/campus/commute bike with the tourist bars.

Somewhere around a hundred bucks, depending on what you want.

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Miyata Six-Ten on eBay - SOLD

As part of the deal on the Six-Ten that Mark got from me, he agreed to list it's near-twin on eBay for me. With all of the stuff that's been going on this week, I forgot to post the link to the auction, until now.

Of course, it's Superbowl Sunday, and the auction ends right in the middle of the game, so I'm not really thinking of this as a marketing move. Just thought you might be interested in seeing how it ends up.

Right now, it's sitting at $230.00, after 9 bids.

Look HERE.

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XO-2 vs. Red RockHopper

I built up a 1992 Bridgestone XO-2, yesterday, and now I have two bikes built for essentially the same use. That redundancy of bikes is something I am trying to avoid. So, the Red Rocker is going away. I've always wanted an XO (the red bike is obviously built up to emulate one), and I think it's a better suited bike for the use to which I put my daily rider (as opposed to the commuter).

Enlarge the picture above, and take note of the differences in the two frames. Compared to the red bike, the XO has pretty low bottom bracket and steeper frame angles, making it a bit more lively on the road. It also has less tire clearance, making it necessary to go with a slightly skinnier tire. All of these things could be viewed as disadvantages if you were using the bike for a lot of off-road use or loaded touring. There, the bigger tires and more stable steering of the RockHopper would give it the advantage.

For years, I rode my 700c cross bike everywhere I went and was pretty happy with it. The XO fills the cross bike niche, with smaller wheels (stronger and more agile) and will handle the occasional off-pave' jaunt just fine, once the 1.3 knobbies arrive (I don't care for the slicks that are on it).

Anyway, the upshot is that I am going to pull the Campy stuff off of the 18" RockHopper, rebuild it with some cool vintage mountain stuff, mustache bars, maybe bar-end shifters and sell it. Once it's built up, I'll post it here, if anyone is interested.

Also, if you are interested and want to spec it out as a custom build, let me know. It's pretty cold here, right now, so I probably won't be out in the shop to get started on it, for a while.

More details about the XO are posted up over on Two Wheels.

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Formula One Is Going Away

The ebay auction is ending, tonight. It has bids on it, so I know it's going away. If it goes at its current price, somebody is getting a heck of a fun bike, pretty cheaply.

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Selling the Formula One

I have put the fixed gear F1 bike up on eBay.

As much as I hate to let it go, I am so excited about this new project that I am trying to fund that it makes it worthwhile.

More on that, later.

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To Sell Or Not To Sell...

...that is the Formula One question.

The couple of long-term readers I have might remember that I bought this unfinished F1 frame from Rockfish Cycles and then removed the vertical dropouts and brazed in track-ends to convert it to a mini-velo fixed gear. (Of course, now you can buy frames like this from Sillgey, purpose-built.)

I originally had a set of bullhorn bars on the bike, but I ended up putting them on a buddy's bike. Since then, I have had a couple of different bars on it, none of which looked too good to me.

Today, I pulled the bike down and installed these old BullMoose style bars on it, and I like it. This looks pretty similar to the setup that Formula One bikes had from the factory. The proportions look good, and it's quite comfortable to ride.


Kinda hard to see the bars from this angle...

and this angle gives you a feel for the drop from the seat, but not of the shape of the bars...

Ahh, there we go. The curve, and the one-piece aspect show up pretty well in this shot.

Now, the problem is that I was changing bars out as preparation to sell the bike. I was going to put it up on eBay, starting at $125 plus shipping, and see if anybody bit.

I am trying to raise some cash for a pretty cool upcoming project, so I could use the dough. But now, I'm not sure I should get rid of it. I suppose I could always get a Sillgey frame, later, if I felt I had to have another small-wheeler...

Opinions?

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Metisse Is Gone

Click for big, and you should be able to see the nice Exage Mountain rear shifter, which matches the rear derailleur.

I slightly re-specced the Ghetto bike and listed it on craigslist at a reduced price, along with a novel-length description of the bike and the build process. After having listed it twice, and having 10 people make appointments to come see it (yet, no one ever showed up), I was anxious to make it clear that this bike was a bargain at the price, and a nice-riding bike at any cost.

It sold in two hours, to a really cool guy named James. James and his girlfriend just moved here, after having lived in Prague for years, and he had no transportation. A short train ride and a half-mile walk got him to my house, and he rode away on the bike, apparently happy as a clam with it.

I kinda hate to see it go. It was the longest-lived of my commuters, and I thought it made a cool cross bike. But, I am trying to raise funds for a new project, and I need some quick cash. So, things are getting sold...

The changes to the bike: I set it up with a 6-speed freewheel (rather than the freehub wheel which was on it), and mounted a nicer 6-speed indexed shifter so that I could dial the shifting in. Removing the Dura-Ace hubbed wheel cut my cost, and allowed the reduction in price.

Different rear wheel...

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