Strange Magic: Part 2

First Ride

Well, I got la moto familia Europa out for its first ride last night, even though it isn't 100% complete quite yet. I scrounged a UN-74 bottom bracket, and then found out that the old square taper LX cranks weren't going to clear the chain stays without a ridiculously long bottom bracket spindle.

Back to the drawing board! I scrounged a set of low profile Sugino 94BCD cranks in silver ano from the bin, found a pretty decent Salsa chain ring with 34 teeth that fit it, and a stamped steel 16T cog to go out back. But did I have the spacers for the cassette body? Hmm.......

Cranks were fitted and clear just peachy. Now I decided to work on the brakes. Cables! bah! I didn't see any mountain bike brake cables around. Scrounging everywhere I thought I may have some squirreled away at, I finally came up with two and one extra for a straddle cable. Oh yeah! The brake straddle yokes! Only one found.......so far.

Now for some cable housing ferrules. Search mode on! As I was looking, I found more cassette spacers! Oh yeah! Juuuuust enough to do the job too. Lock ring found and installed. Now about a chain. That was easy. Had plenty of old ones that were suitable to choose from. Quickly cut and installed, I had a drive train! Grabbed some cheesy flats and screwed them on there.

Then it was the rear brake. Cantilevers! Old cantilevers. Uggh! But I dialed one in, and there was rear brake! Well, well well! I had a bike that was rideable. So.........

The test ride went well. I have to tweak some stuff. My! This bike is definitely old school 26"er geo. My Mountain Goat "Goat Horns" aren't really long enough in the stem for this rig, and I felt too far over the bike to the front. Hmm..... Moving the saddle back some should help, and if not, I can always opt for a lay back seat post. I'll get the front brake up and running soon, but there she be!