obrentharris 

Motobecane LeChampion









Brent

70sSanO

My wife’s 1986 Univega Viva Sport.
- first thing was immediately swapping out Suntour derailleurs and freewheel for newly released Shimano 600 SIS.

- changed chainring sizes, 110 cranks, went to 7 speed RX100, another crank change, went to 130 dropouts, Fulcrum 7 wheels, cassette, 7 speed brifters, then 8 speed brifters, changed to flat bar, dirt drop stem, changed to mtb triple crank, trigger shifters.

John

bwilli88 

Either my 74 Raleigh Grand Prix or my Fuji Stratos

Not C&V but very much like an early MTB.

cyccommute 

A 1998 Specialized Stumpjumper Pro. I don’t have a picture of it so I’ll borrow this one from Bikepedia



It broke a few years after I got it and the frame was replaced with a 2003 Stumpjumper Pro frame

93590004 by Stuart Black, on Flickr

By the time it had been replaced the only thing was original was the front hub. The picture above was after a few more changes. That bike gave way to a 2011 Specialized Rockhopper. I had lost the front hub by this time

DSCN0167 by Stuart Black, on Flickr

The Rockhopper gave way to a 1999 (or 2000) Dean Colonel

Untitled by Stuart Black, on Flickr

Lascauxcaveman 

1972 Lambert Grand Prix (which I've owned since ~1982):









Those last two pics are with an Alfine 8 drivetrain; works pretty sweet for my local terrain, though a bit bit heavy. I have't tried setting up this bike as a light fixie, but that seems the next logical step

rustystrings61 

I kick myself for not taking pictures of this bike almost as much as I kick myself for not keeping it. I had a c.1971-ish Raleigh Competition that started out in white and lagoon blue before losing most of its parts and gaining multiple coats of Krylon and exterior latex house paint. I plucked it from a trash heap on the side of the road when I saw the curve of an alloy handlebar shining with the last rays of the sun as I drove past. I got it home and discussed it on the old CR list before we finally figured out what it was based on color, construction and headbadge hole spacing. I wound up removing the junkier parts, pulling the Stronglight 93s with the lone 42T drilled ring to polish it, and setting the frame on top of the bookcase in my kitchen for a couple of months.

One afternoon off I was bored, saw the frameset and started assembling it. I had some junky old 27-in wheels I had repacked and respaced the rear for single-speed use, so I assembled the bike with those and a total dog's breakfast of parts and took it out for a spin. I think I might have ridden it three miles, maximum. I promptly rode it back home, disassembled it and began hanging better parts on it. The second version of this bike used old 27-in alloy wheels with a 5-speed cluster and non-aero brake levers as a beater/commuter. Then I replaced those wheels with a mismatched set of 700C 7-speed wheels from the back of the LBS and built it up in its third incarnation with the scary, sagging Wright's W3N saddle, running 46/42T chainrings.

Mk. IV came when I sold off my Falcon fixed-gear conversion and ordered a Mercian. I rebuilt the Raleigh (known from this point on as Lazarus) with my scarred B17 that had been on my crashed Bianchi Pista, a set of vintage Weinmann 730 sidepulls, Dia-Compe aero levers, Nitto Tech Deluxe stem and model 176 handlebars, Lyotard mod. 23 Marcel Berthet pedals, the Stronglight crank with the 42T ring, a Maillard track hub with a hollow axle and q/r and a Maillard road hub, both laced to recycled Module E 700C rims and a pair of black Planet Bike fenders a fellow rider just gave me. It got even better when another club mate decided she had to go with 23 mm tires and just gave me a perfectly good set of 28 mm Continentals that actually measured 28 mm.

Lazarus was an AWESOME bike, so much so that I wound up masking off the components one day and doing a quick and dirty paint job with flat black barbecue grill paint. It was a trouble-free, reliable mount that got me to work and back, and on some later rides I realized it could have become my primary mount. Alas, the Mercian arrived, and Lazarus remained a work mule, until eventually I was allowed to park my bike indoors under the bottom of a secure stairwell. In a misplaced effort to reassure my bride that I wasn't just hoarding stuff, I decided to sell Lazarus, so I did version 5, replacing the bars, stem, saddle and pedals with generic units and listing the bike on eBay. The Canadian guy who bought it paid almost as much in shipping as he did for the bike.

I missed it almost immediately, realizing a couple of months later that the mad-scientist tinkering is just as much fun as riding. I tried to build replacements - there was the '82 Mercian Colorado that went through being built up as a budget road bike, then briefly being a 650B bike, then being built up with rolling upgrades into a nicer road bike, including one planned but never completed upgrade that would have set it up with 9-speed Campagnolo. Another mad scientist bike is the '71 Gitane, but that was more a matter of refining and refining a fixed-gear knockaround bike concept until it reached its funky tatterdemalion Gallic perfection.

Nothing would do except an early Raleigh Competition - so when this '73 came along, I converted it from this -






- to this -



- as it currently sits, running a Surly Dingle 17/19T with 44/42T chainrings for a 70-in pavement fixed gear and a quick change to a 60-in gravel fixed gear. And someday I'll get the right freewheel for the other side of the flip-flop hub to run a 50 to 54-in singletrack gear ... until it's time to build it up differently ...

Kabuki12

For me it is my Kabuki Diamond Formula. I bought it new in the latter part of the seventies and rode it pretty much stock for almost a year. I had a friend that owned the bike shop where I bought it that built his own frames for racing (Stan Johnson) who told me to leave it with him and he would take it to the next level. He put a set of 700c Super Champion wheels with SS spokes and a few other tweaks that I can’t remember. Then in 1990 I took it apart to paint it and I changed out the headset and the seat and put some slightly wider tires. In 2010 or so I started changing it over to a full Campagnolo build with period correct Campy , Cinelli , Regida, and Brooks. I kept the original SunTour stuff in a box. It is not the best bike I own but always fun to ride. A lot of miles over the years on that bike, two years of not driving and my Kabuki was my transportation. I was quite fast in my twenties and that bike would take on the best of them.

cyccommute 

Even when I’m not changing frames, I change parts constantly. This is the Dean just after I swapped parts from the Rockhopper (1/17).




I found a Dean seatpost at my co-op, a Dean stem on Fleabay, added a Tubus rack, changed to Paul brake levers, and had braze-ons added for the rack and fender mounts added by Dean. This is the configuration May, 2017.

DSCN0377 by Stuart Black, on Flickr

I found a Dean handlebar with integrated stem at Velo Swap in October, 2018 and decided to go with a red/blue/yellow/green color scheme on the cables and other places throughout the bike. July, 2018

DSCN0934 by Stuart Black, on Flickr

I even had a stem cap made to keep up the color scheme

Untitled by Stuart Black, on Flickr

I got a pair of Paul’s Klampers for Christmas, and found a pair of Dean labeled barends. I also added Paul skewers

Untitled by Stuart Black, on Flickr
Untitled by Stuart Black, on Flickr
Untitled by Stuart Black, on Flickr

I may be done but probably not. I’m always thinking of things to add.

Dfrost 

This 1979 Miyata 912, bought new when I worked in Boulder, CO, has gone through four major generations. It was improved throughout Generation One with many component changes, including seatpost - hated that original, think it had an Avocet(?) two-bolt toward the end; brakes eventually with Suntour Superbe calipers and Modolo levers; and saddles, settling on a Brooks Team Pro eventually that is still used by my now-adult daughter on her '85 Miyata 310.

No digital photos of the first two Generations, so here’s the photo from the actual catalog picked up before the purchase:


Generation Two in in 1992 had the rear triangle spread to 130mm and counter-bored fork crown by Elliott Bay Bicycles in Seattle, and 700C wheels. My son used it in 7-speed Sora form in The Hague, Netherlands, throughout his high school years at The American School there with his mom and step-dad.

Generation Three after I’d rebuilt it in 2013 with parts from my inventory, including my favorite Sachs Ergo shifting. It was a bare frame in the basement after my son’s return, while I enjoyed a long love affair with a Klein (too small as I aged), endured a few years with a second Masi GC (a great learning experience in bike fit, but a surprisingly scary descender, unlike most Masi), and unsuccessful attempt to love a Rivendell Rambouillet for another 10 years. No problems falling back in love with this one. It’s been through many more saddle and seatpost variations. This Selle An-Atomica slid back far enough for my long femurs but had other fit issues. A Fi’zik Aliante LS is a really nice saddle, but plastic bases don’t work past 30 miles with my weird asymmetry. A Lepper required too much tilt, and the Rivet Independence shown in Generation Four, a lovely saddle shape and fit, never broke in to me in 2000 miles..



Generation Four as the dedicated fender and travel bike (2017) was converted by the very talented Mark Guglielmana with brazed-on centerpull front brake as rack mount, custom front racks, bag, and low-rider bosses on the reraked front fork for better handling with front load. Works fabulously with any load from empty rando bag to full with loaded panniers. Those gold cable housings added in Generation Three help this bike to get many compliments. Thanks to this very long setback Truvativ 26.8mm seatpost, the Rivet mentioned above and now my all-time favorite Gilles Berthoud Aravis (no photos of that one yet; I have another with almost 12,000 b***- happy miles on the other bike) can be located far enough back so I feel really comfortable and “in” the bike. Shown here before I’d reinstalled SKS fenders over the 700x28’s.

mstateglfr 

Not old, but certainly c&v inspired frame.

My Black Mountain monstercross frame has been a gravel bike, commuter/touring bike, and single speed river bottom single track bike.
- It was my first dedicated gravel bike for 3 years with a 2x11 drivetrain.
- I turned it into a commuter/touring bike last summer once I got a different gravel frame since I had recently sold my old touring frame. 3x9 drivetrain with mostly 20-35 year old components. I did a handful of commute rides to work last fall, and then a couple this spring before covid, but it otherwise hung on a hook for way too long since I now work from home and the 2-4 day camping rides I was going to do this year were set aside.
- Since I sold my mountain bike earlier this year because it is ill-fitting for the singletrack I ride(its twisty and tight, so i dont want a monstertruck with 140mm of suspension), and I slapped 50mm tires and a single speed drivetrain on the Black Mountain frame. Twisty flat river bottom single track is great for this setup.

Depending on if/when I go back to working from an office, ill change the frame back to commuting.

Gravel build


Commute build. When I go back to this setup, ill use a front rack instead, I think.

thinktubes 

Would be my Battaglin. I'm the third owner. Got it from a kid in the Gold Coast who just passed the bar examine. Had to carry it down 22 floors from the guy's condo.

It's a TSD bike that was originally equipped with Shimano 600, 7-speed.

Reconfigured as follows:

• 8-speed Ultegra
• 8-speed Ultegra with STI
• 9- speed Ultegra STI
• Stripped down to a single speed
• Built up as a 1x7
• Built up as a 2x8 "hill bike"

Here's the single speed version



Here's the current configuration