darronb

I was out cruising around the back roads near Milton, Vermont a couple weekends ago, on my father's old Schwinn Suburban. I saw a garage sale sign at an intersection, and it seemed to beckon. Another mile or so found me at a lonely house with a few typical garage sale items scattered about the garage and driveway.

What caught my eye, though, was a tired looking Univega road bike unceremoniously dumped alongside the garage in a pile of seemingly unwanted items. I asked, and discovered that the owner had blown the rear tire years before when he lived in Burlington, and had never bothered to fix it. The old bike was slated for a trip to the dump, so they were happy to give it to me.

The garage sale was ending in an hour or so, so I pedaled the old Schwinn the 11 miles back home as fast as I could, and came back with the car to retrieve the Viva.

It's a 22.5" frame Viva Touring model, 12-speed with cantilever brakes and 27" tires. All the components are aluminum, and the frame is chrome-moly steel. It's in need of a thorough service, and has a flat rear tire.

It's a good fit for my mom, so I'll swap on a set of new flat bars to replace the bent Schwinn drops that are on it now. She'll also need thumb shifters, as I don't think downtube shifters would make her very happy.

Darron

stringbreaker

Nice find. Would love to see the finished product is that kind of a champagne gold color? Kinda hard to tell if so thats a great color

maureenkh

Nice bike, Darron. I'm glad it found a good home. If you are thinking of going with flat type bars, you might consider some of the Albatross type bars, available at Rivendell or Velo Orange. (the kind of bars found on old "English Racer" style bikes.) They curve back towards the rider and keep the wrists at a more comfortable angle. And be sure to post pictures.

Maureen