Chombi1 

I see two Bell Tourlite helmets up front!
Had one of those in the early 80's.....

SurferRosa

Did a search and liked the thread title... This may have already been said, but I think all my bikes have one odd or even large idiosyncrasy. Gonna guess this is the only Miyata west of the Pecos with a Victory rear derailleur. Not only that, but this '82 912 has an Omas headset, Modolo brakeset, and Miche hubs. No one else has this bike. People should have it, or something very, very similar to it, but they don't. Imperfect world.




.

oneclick 

Here's mine:




So, the details are:
Moulton Mini.
Rear fork extended and widened. I made the bits, got the welding done.
Rear rack removed (have it, future project to braze a plug/sleeve/key/clamp arrangement so it'll seamlessly slide in and attach).
Shortened the BB shell - was 73mm, is now either 68 or 70, can't remember. To do this I installed an axle and a left crankarm, mounted a Dremel with a cutoff blade on the arm, and went 'round and 'round, bit by bit deeper and deeper until the cut was almost through, then took the axle/arm/dremel out, knocked off the nearly cut-off ring, and cleaned up the edge with a file.
Sturmey front drum hub.
Nexus 8 rear hub with roller brake. Might have an 11- or 9-tooth sprocket from some cassette (can't remember) that fit after I ground some of the sprocket splines off, but maybe that one is on another Moulton with a Nexus 7.
ERTO 305 rims (I built these wheels, cut down some stainless spokes and rolled threads on 'em).
Wingnuts I drilled and tapped to fit.
Campy NR (I think) headset.
GB stem.
Generic alloy bars with generic alloy extensions.
Nexus shifter and brake levers.
Nervar crank with 64-tooth TA sprocket, mounted on an adapter I turned from 6061 aluminium sheet.
Some sort of cartridge BB, can't remember, most all Japanese stuff looks the same to me.
Campy pedals (Victory/Triomphe I don't really know, they are just extremely comfortable)
Some long seatpost I can't remember.
And Brooks saddle, a must have.

All comes apart and fits in a smallish travel bag, never a second look at the airport, just another bit of luggage.

Piff 

Wow. Where in the hell did you find that chainring?
This is the sort of bike that deserves its own thread.

oneclick 

Braggs in Abingdon.

Not sure if they are still there.

jjames1452 

Kona Kapu.

JaccoW

My Koga-Miyata SilverAce. They do pop up on local eBay from time to time but never the way I customized it from the frame up.

aprieto28

P!N20

I don't need much of an excuse to post my Le Kypo:

ltokuno

Team 3V's pop up now and then, but haven't seen another yellow one. The frame took about two months to get to me on a special order.

jdawginsc 

Not "no one else has" but I recently heard that only 300 of the Crest Cannondale SR500 bicycles were made. Don't see many of them around.

I know someone on the forums has one, though.

oneclick 

This is the Moulton I rode mostly before I built the Mini above. It came to me with a FW 4-speed SA hub in steel 349 rims and nasty steel bits all over; after a bit I laced
a 5-speed SA alloy hub into 349 alloy rims, this pic is the version with a 7-speed (I think) Nexus and the same SA front I kept on the Mini, both on 305s.

Moulton cognoscenti will note the reinforced rear fork, yes it cracked (they all do that), but I was watching and made some gussets and took it to the welder. All better now.

You can sort of see a theme developing...

ellei.oh

I just got introduced to the existence of this beauty. I have done some light searching regarding the AD Vent Noir/Noir II particularly the mixte style and can't really find anything about them in terms of having the chrome paint. I don't know very much about them and will continue to search but I am curious if you (or anyone else) might have some insight as to whether or not it was made with chrome paint? I found an AD Vent Noir mixte on ebay that looks like yours but I have yet to encounter one that has chrome paint. Thanks!

dabac

Translated, I called this my ”Kooky Craft” bike.
It featured an unknown steel frame that came stock with a Shimano 600 Arabesque groupset. I fitted some plastic wheels from a Swedish ”Itera” brand bike. They originally had a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub, but I fitted a current Shimano cassette hub to it.
Bars weren’t taped, but stitched, as on a steering wheel. The leather was the same as I used for the saddle, The mounts for the levers were also covered in leather, sewn into place.
In the pic I think it has regular clincher tires mounted. The wheels - 630mm - were basically hookless. I’d tried different options to allow the use of firmer tires. For awhile I ran 700C tubulars. They sank too far into the ”trough” of the rim, making them very prone to pinch flats. I tried solid tires too. Since these are bought according to internal rim width, I had to run them through a planer to get them to fit through the brakes w/o taking the pads off. Even then they were discouragingly heavy, particularly with those wheels, so I didn’t keep them on very long.
Having done what I wanted with those wheels and that build, I sold it off to someone who was quite happy to have scored a 600 Arabesque groupset.
Have no idea what has become of it since.

rustystrings61 

This is my 1976 Puch Royal X that I got new in 1978, stupidly sold in 1987 and recovered in 2019. It is the only one I have ever seen in person, and I think I've seen maybe five others in photos over the last 25 years or so. The only catalog listing for this bike was a 1976 Puch poster with a reverse side made up of panels featuring each model. Silver-brazed Reynolds 531 throughout brazed in Graz, Austria along side all the fancier Austro-Daimlers, these came stock with a parts mix that never made sense to me when new - 42/52 x 14-22 gearing and short-cage SunTour Cyclone racing derailleurs, but with wide Weinmann 27 x 1 1/4 rims and 70 psi clinchers, Dura-Ace cranks and headset, Weinmann Carrera sidepulls ... almost like they were using up parts to build them.

This one has a Brooks B17 - when I bought it I had an Ideale 90 installed before it left the shop. The pedals are placeholders - I originally had Lyotard model 23 Berthe platforms fitted instead of the stock units. The stock stem is replaced with a Nitto Technomic, and the SunTour Cyclone's cage has been replaced with a SunTour VXs to allow the use of the 13-28 SunTour Ultra-spaced 6-speed freewheel. The wheels has stock Normandy Luxe Competition hubs laced to replacement Mavic Module E 27-in rims. I love this bike!

randyjawa 

Not sure if I showed either one of these in this thread already and searching the entire thread takes a lot of time. Anyway...

My late fifties Rabeneick, a German offering, seems to be pretty rare and unfeatured...


So does this Quintanna Roo that went into the work stand yesterday...

nlerner

It occurs to me that no one else has any of the bikes that I have because I have them. I must be missing something here.

steelbikeguy

it does seem like this thread is asking "got any custom bikes?"...

well, I've got two that I've shared a number of times in other threads, but let me offer them again.

The first was built by a small builder in Marshalltown, Iowa in 1989/90 time frame. He was a retired mechanical engineer who was having fun making mostly tandems, but also some singles. The focus on tandems led him to do mostly fillet brazing, which was certainly a novelty at that time. A fun detail is the gothic(?) letter B cut out of copper pipe that is used as the head badge.






The other is a touring/commuting/travel bike built by Rich Powers in Arlington Heights, IL back in 2000. Rich was (is?) a teacher, but did frame work as a hobby. He was listed on the S&S web site and was active on the Internet-BOB list at the time. This frame had a lot more weird little details than the one Borthwick made for me, so getting these worked out took a little time. There's probably some advantage to just making one style of frame and not having to spend a ton of time with customers haggling over details.
One fun detail was that Rich provided photos of the frame during the build process....



but it looks pretty good with paint too.


Steve in Peoria

fabiofarelli

I'm not sure this one is unique but I never saw another and never met someone who did. The lugs make it special.



All the lugs are like these.

Roger M

I have two Stan Johnson bikes. Stan built about 150 frames, from the early 80s until the late 90s. These two he built for his brother's, in 1988 and 89. I was fortunate to buy them from Stan and his siblings.

My third Johnson is by Michael. This is from 1979. I don't know how many frames he produced, but I have only seen pictures of four(including my green one).

bikemig 

I have a Roe bicycle. Stephen Roe was a very small British builder who at one time, I believe, worked for Falcon but I may not have this story straight.

The bike came to be second hand and it was my first race bike. It has a lot of beautiful little touches as a good hand built bike should.

Johno59

Pretty unique these days and always funny - 1983 EG Bates.

steelbikeguy

I think we need a photo of someone riding this while using the aero-bars! That would be a sight!

Steve in Peoria

Murray Missile 

Probably not what the OP had in mind and I doubt anyone else would even want one LOL but I've only seen one other and that was very beat up white one on a YouTube video. Guessing by the stars and stripes graphics maybe a 1976, made by Nissan..... it's a "Cherry"...... It appears to be about entry level LBS quality, aluminum wheels, Suntour derailleurs, etc. It was so obscure I just had to have it, plus it was wearing a brand new pair of Kendas that cost what they were asking for the bike.

Andy_K 

I forgot about this thread. It's perfect for this one.



If the identification I've received is correct (and I think it is) this is one of two bikes that Gitane custom made for Martina Navratilova and Judy Nelson. This is the Judy Nelson bike. Martina's had more-or-less standard Gitane geometry, while this one is super-relaxed, so this is the more unique bike. Also, the guy who has the other one got it painted in standard Gitane team blue (before realizing what it was).