1989 Specialized RockCombo For Sale

You may already know all of this, but for those who are unfamiliar with the RC:

The RockCombo was an early try at producing a do-everything bike...what eventually evolved into the hybrid bike, as we know it today.  It predated the iconic Bridgestone XO series by 3 years, but was a less than stellar sales success.  As such, it was only sold for one year.

I bought this one from a fellow in The Netherlands, as a frame and fork.  I had a Specialized headset in my parts stash, as well as a Specialized seat post QR.  The rest of the equipment is Shimano Deore (except the hubs, which are Shimano from the same era, but with no model name), plus Ultegra 7-speed bar-end shifters, DiaCompe aero brake levers, a basic one-piece seat post  and a SRAM 7-speed cogset. 

I even found some Deore pedals, a while back, to top it off.

The seat post and stem are extended for my 5'10" height.  I think the 18" frame would be better suited to someone an inch or two shorter.  The bike currently has 1.5: knobbies on it, because I was using it primarily as a commuter.  It has clearance for 2.0"+ tires.

I'm not a big fan of Dirt Drop bars, which were original to the bike, so I used these mustache-like On-One Mungo bars.

The paint has some wear (I spent hours touching it up, when I first got it), but the decals are all good.

 

I will sell the bike complete, minus the saddle, for $425.00 plus shipping (approximately $70.00 within the Continental U.S.), or I will sell the frame and fork for $300.00 plus shipping (approximately $50.00 ConUS).

If you are interested, shoot me an email at jjgrinder  msn com (you know the punctuation, I assume..), or if you are local call 303 916 5800.

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Mid-80s Nishiki Road Bike

Here is the text I posted on Denver Craigslist:

"I think that this is a 1984 International, but I can't swear to it. The Metallic Beige colorway is right, but the DiaCompe centerpull brakes are wrong. Of course, just because they were on there when I got the bike doesn't mean that they are original...

The gold-anodized SunTour crankset is certainly not original. I actually got this bike specifically to mount this crankset on it. 
 

As it's built, the bike is basically a poor man's Rivendell, complete with "Beausage", as Grant Petersen would say (there are some chips in the paint, normal wear and tear on the decals, but no dents or serious rust). The frame is lugged steel (cro-moly, as far as I know), with a chrome-tipped fork, and it has a sweet ride which lends itself nicely to cruising the backroads all day long.
 

The 51cm mustache bars are mounted in a Dirt-drop style stem, to get your hands up even with the saddle. The 700c wheels feature a Shimano 8-speed Parallax rear hub with an 8-speed cogset, and Alex X-Rims. The original SunTour derailleurs are controlled by SunTour Bar-Con shifters. I updated the seatpost to a modern alloy TCO with an integrated clamp.

The bike is currently shod with 700x35c tires, and I have ridden with 700x42c tires on the bike. You could run fenders with the 35s, but not with 42s.

The pedals are currently Crank Brothers clipless. If you don't want them, they can come off, and I will install your pedals for you so that you can ride home.

 


I was a bike shop Service Manager for 8 years, and I built this bike up right. It has all new cables and housing, the bearings are lubed and adjusted, the wheels are trued and tensioned, and the brakes will stop you. It is set up nicely and will require no more than seat height adjustment to be ready for you to ride. All this for the price of a new 11 speed cogset...
 

Frame Dimensions (measured center-to-center): Seat tube - 57cm, Top Tube - 57cm, Ground to top of top Top Tube - 32-3/4 inches

$325.00 is cheap for this bike. Take a look at what the newer Taiwanese tig-welded bikes such as the Handsome, or the Rawland cost, and you will see that this is a definite bargain for a Japanese-built lugged frame with the cool vintage parts."

For everyone outside of Denver:

If you want the bike, and are in the Continental US, I will ship it to you for $350, total.

Just hit me with an email  (jjgrinder  msn  com) You know the punctuation...

Bill's Bike

I got this bike, this week, a 60 cm (or 24 inch, as the Trek catalog refers to it) Trek 710, from 1981.  It was updated, sometime in the 1990s, from the looks of it.  The changes that have beed made are all the "upgrades" we did in the bike shop, for owners of older road bikes, back then.

Here it is just after I test-rode it, with the seat and bars set to my height (5'10").  Actually, now that I think about it, I had raised the seat, for this photo, because it looked stupid with the seat at my setting.  About half of the fluted part of the post was inside the tube, when I rode it.

Here it is with the  SR seat post and Nitto Technomic stem both at full extension, according to the factory markings.

SunTour indexable barcons...

controlling CX 9000 derailleurs rear...

and front.

The mtb derailleurs allow the use of this:

A Specialties TA crank set up as "half-step plus a granny" (50/44/28 teeth rings).

The crank arms even have the original dust covers on both sides.

There is an 8-speed Shimano cogset (note the Shimano dropout, as well)...

mid-90s Shimano 105 hubs...

laced to Mavic Open 4 CD hard-anodized rims.  That is a nice wheelset, from back in the day!

Tange headset is probably factory stock.

The cro-mo Tange fork is not.

Old-school Trek headtube bade and pantographed seatstay caps.  (Too bad the Reynolds 531 tubing sticker is damaged.  That can be replaced, though...)

Single-pivot Gran-Compe brakes could be improved upon.

The aero-style, perforated Dia-Compe levers are fine, though.

They are mounted a 42 cm...

flared SR World Ranonneur bar.

The frame was Proudly made in...

Unfortunately, the bike is just too big for me.  Fortunately, Bill is looking for a Rando rig.  So, this bike is heading to the Great Midwest, before long.  I hope it gets a lot of happy miles (kilometers, I guess I guess, in a rando context) piled onto it!
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Christmas Present

Mike, at work, wanted a bike for his daughter to ride at college. I've had this pink Univega frame set sitting around for 2 or 3 years, waiting for me to get inspired to build it.  So, I showed it to him, and Mike gave me the thumb's up to build it.

He likes the Performance Dartmouth tires which I put on the bike I built for him, a while back, so I went with them on this bike, as well.

The handlebars, stem, headset, seat post, brakes and levers are all stock to the frame.  The wheels and drivetrain came from a pre-Trek Gary Fisher that I got from Mark, recently.

 The brake pads, WTB women's saddle and Wellgo platform pedals are all new.  The bike rides great, and I think it will serve Mike's daughter well.  I hope she likes it as much as I do.

I actually almost sold this frame as a fixed gear, a couple of years ago, but the buyer wanted me to have it stripped and powder-coated.  I refused to do it, because I love the pink bikes, and he ended up not buying a bike from me.  I still have no regrets about that...

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Photo Archive

Cross-post from Two Wheels:

Check out the Grinderbikes Photo Archive (it's in the blog list, to the right).  I loaded the rest of the photos from the Grinderbikes website, which should disappear in about a week.

I will work on some descriptions and anecdotes about some of the builds, as time goes by.

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DiamondBack Voyager II Cruiser Conversion

 

Built this up for the wife of a buddy at work.  More pictures and details here.

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Liberia Singlespeed

The little 49cm Liberia went home with a gal, today, as a birthday present from her boyfriend.  Grant bought my Raleigh Sprite/Clubman project, which was too big for me, last year and emailed me looking for a bike for his girl, earlier this week.

I swapped the the drop bars for one of the original Bridgestone Arc Bars (from a 1993 XO-3), installed a basket and converted the drivetrain to a singlespeed set-up.

I thought the white grips and seat gave it a bit of flair.  Some vintage mismatched tourist levers control the Mafac Racer brakes.

Here it is without the basket and kickstand, for those who appreciate the more streamlined look.

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