Tag Archives: Rivendell

Zunow KYGM Randonneur Restored

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I’ve been long overdue in sharing this restoration of my wife’s Zunow KYGM randonneur bike.  Originally acquired via Yahoo Japan auctions in 2020, it is a sibling of my own Zunow randonneur bike and an example of Kageyama-san’s early full-custom work.  Dating from the early 1970s, it is in the style of classic French randonneur bicycles, complete with Nervex lugs, 650B wheels, and Gilles Berthoud handlebar bag.  I wrote about the bike and its history in detail in this article from 2022.

After the initial build was complete, the plan was to put a few hundred miles on it to confirm it fit before kicking off a restoration.  She loved riding it so much that two years passed by quickly.

As 2024 rolled around, I promised myself that I would have it ready for her birthday in February.  That winter, I had it professionally repainted in a beautiful dark blue sparkle with yellow accents.  After the new paint, I began the rebuild, with help from Dave Perry at BikeCult.  Dave did a great job building the wheels and installing the fenders. Read on for all the details and a gallery of photos!

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Bianchi Backstreet Townie Commuter Bike Restoration

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I restored this little blue Bianchi last year, starting with just a beat-up old frame and fork.  It was a Bianchi Backstreet from 1990, an early “hybrid” that combined the frame of a hard-tail mountain bike with 700c wheels.  It was constructed from good quality Tange tubing and was fully lugged.

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After sandblasting the frame, I re-painted it a deep blue and gave it matching fenders.  Then I added a brand new 26-inch wheelset with a Sturmey-Archer S-RC3 three-speed internally geared rear hub.  I also added a brand new crankset with a single chainring.  The handlebars were NITTO brand, and I added cork grips wrapped in deep red cloth bar tape to enhance the grip.

The result was a classy townie bike / commuter designed for cruising around the city in style.  Mechanically, it was extremely simple: no brake levers, just a coaster (“kick-back”) brake and the gear shift lever up front.  It sold to a petite girl at the beginning of the spring season this year, and I hope she’s still riding and enjoying it.  

Click “Read more” to see a gallery of hi-res photos of this bike.

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1990 Schwinn Crosscut Cross Check style

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This one started out as just a frame, a 1990 Schwinn Crosscut, size 55cm seat tube with a 61cm top tube. This was their top-of-the-line cyclocross / all-rounder from the early 1990's, similar to the Surly Cross Check or the Pake C'Mute, and built from stout double-butted cro-moly steel tubing with a fully chromed fork. I stripped and repainted the frame in a dark metallic green with a subtle sparkle and shined the fork.  Read on for more details and pictures.

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Univega Alpina Uno Rivendell-style townie cruiser

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Inspired by the Rivendell "Bombadil" bicycle, I revisited the vintage mountain bike-as-a-townie concept with this build, starting with a 1983 Univega Alpina Uno hardtail frame.  Made of stout cro-mo tubing and featuring a gorgeous "biplane" fork crown, it makes a handsome base to build up a fun "around town" bike that can also handle gravel paths, fire trails, and the rough roads of New York City.  It has a 47cm c-c seat tube and 56cm c-c top tube, making it a good choice for riders 5' 5" to 5' 10".  Read on for more detail and pictures…

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Bridgestone MB-2 commuter townie

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This is a cute lil' commuter / townie bike I built up in the winter of 2011 for my girlfriend.  I found an old Bridgestone MB-2 frame, a high-quality lugged rigid mountain bike from the early 1990's.  It had a lot of scratches and small dents so I gave it a new coat of paint and a built-in top tube protector made of shellacked hemp twine.  Read more after the jump…

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Bridgestone RB-T randonneur touring bike

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1992 Bridgestone RB-T

The RB-T was designed by Grant Petersen to be  a “sport-touring” bicycle, a fore-runner of today’s hybrid bikes.  It’s intended to fill a number of roles, from putting in long rides on the road to tearing up off road trails, to weekend touring loaded with gear.  It does all of these things quite well, and has a classic style that harks back to the French randonneur / audax bicycles of the 1950’s and 60’s.

This particular example was found on eBay in dusty but barely used condition.  It’s a 1992 model, shown in the Bridgestone catalog here.  I cleaned it up and added a lot of new parts.  Like most of the Grant Petersen-era Bridgestones, the stock parts group on the RB-T is a well-thought out mix of reliable but affordable components.  It’s hard to “upgrade” a Bridgestone, but I replaced the brakes, handlebars, and saddle with my own selections, chosen for comfort and style.  Also, it needed racks and a new fork with the appropriate eyelets to mount them on in order to be truly tour-worthy.  The result was a classy, easy-riding machine that gets a lot of compliments.  Read on for details on the restoration and build.

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