My Bicycles

In 2019, when I made the decision that I wanted to do an aquabike event, I was going to do the event on my current ride, the 1993 Cannondale M700 mountain bike. It was already gone through and road worthy. My long term idea was to use the 1987 Schwinn Super Sport, but that bike wasn't going to be ready for a while, as it needs a full strip down and new paint job.

As I was talking about this plan with my brother, he mentioned that he had the right bike for me. I was kind of perplexed by what he was talking about.

Apparently he found this Multisport on Craigslist but it was in need of some TLC. It had been converted into a single speed bike and most of the original components were missing or replaced. He got such a deal on it that he basically stole it!

He brings it home and proceeds to disassemble it. Luckily my brother has quite a stash of parts in his garage, so he was able to return it to a much more usable state. At this moment we are going to do some minor work on it, like installing a set of pedals that match my road shoes and it will be my "triathlon" bike.

After taking a long break away from cycling and gaining way too many pounds, I took my first step to getting back in the saddle and dropping a few of those pounds that seem to have settled in. Sure, I had a great collection of road bikes, but I feared with my weight, that I would be unsafe to myself and to my skinny tire beauties. I did some thinking and research, and I decided that my best bet for a ride-able bike would be a mountain bike.

At the time, the best place I knew of to shop for a good used mountain bike was eBay, so I pointed my browser there and did some searching. My first thought was a Klein mountain bike. The early 90s saw a great generation of Kleins, so I thought what better else than a Klein mountain bike. Those early 90s Klein were (and still do!) command a high price, regardless of age, so I had to adjust my focus. Eventually I came across this 1997 Pulse Pro.

From the eBay ad, the Pulse Pro looked to be in good shape with some good parts, all for a good price. I had saved some money in the bank for this investment, so I placed a bid for it. As was the norm at the time, my bid was the top bid up to the last second, when I was outbid. I lost the auction and I was bummed. It meant that I was going to have to do some more research. A few day later, I receive a message from the seller. It turns out the auction winner never contacted the seller and never replied to the seller's messages. He offered me the Klein for my last bid! It was mine!

In the end, I had my first Klein mountain bike. I gave her a tune-up, changed out a few parts (notably the minimalist race saddle, in exchange for a comfier saddle for a guy of my stature), and installed narrower, higher pressure tires for my use on the road. I rode her off and on for a while, but I never really put the miles on her that I had hoped. Life was changing and my heart wasn't into being on a bike.

She has become a valued member of my Klein bicycle collection, and I am looking forward to giving her a complete going over. She has been a good bike for me and she deserves to properly restored.

Shortly after I moved to Laramie, Wyoming in early spring of 2016, I was talking with my brother and he mentioned that he had collected most of the pieces for a bike for me. At the time, I had left all of my bikes in California, as we didn't have a garage or similar place to securely store my bike in Wyoming. We needed the room in the moving for furniture and other important items.

My brother said the frame was a 1993 Cannondale M700 and he had most all of the components at home that we could build it as a pretty cool ride. I had to buy a few items that are common "consumables" like tires, tubes, chain, etc. Since this was going to be my cruiser, I decided to splurge and invested in a Brooks B-17 saddle. Brooks saddle has been around forever, they come highly recommended (especially from fellow clydesdales), and my brother loved it on his commuter bike. (photo album)

Anyways, I drove down to Fort Collins for a few Saturdays to clean the M700, inspect it, test the fit the parts, build it, and tune it. After the test fit build, I assembled my parts list and headed over to my favorite LBS (local bike shop) in Laramie, The Pedalhouse. As would be expected of a great bike shop, they had all of the consumables I was looking for. The surprising part was that they actually had the B-17 saddle model and color that I was looking for! I had my parts to finish the 'Dale!

Another Saturday I drove done to Fort Collins and we finished the bike. A month or so later, my wife and I moved into our new place: a house with a small garage. That meant that I could bring the 'Dale home! I rode a off and on at the new house until the cold, snowy season settled in Laramie. As of this writing, I'm looking forward to putting in many more miles after the snow has thawed and the mercury has risen to a more comfortable range!

During the summer of 2016, I was voluteering at the Fort Collins Bike Co-op with my brother and little did I know what was going to cross my path that night. As I was working on breathing life into a Kona Dew for retail sale by the co-op, my brother calls my name and asks me to turn around.

As I turned around to see what he wanted, this beauty caught my eye: a 'Backfire' Klein mountain bike! There she was, an early 90s Klein mountain bike, with one of the wildest paint jobs to have ever graced a production bicycle. It had the desirable 'Mission Control' handlebar/stem combo. I was in shock!

Well luck was with me, as we got to looking at her and it became apparent that the bike wasn't my brother's size (he's generally one size up from me when it comes to bikes), so he said that if I wanted it, I had dibs! The bike was part of a donation to the co-op, so we consulted with the shop manager about the price. We discussed it and came to a fair price. It was mine!! I now own two Klein mountain bikes, for a total of three Klein bikes!

At this moment, this beauty is my current project. She is disassembled, being cleaned, inspected, and rebuilt. Stay tuned for progress, as I will be posting more about this beauty!

With the Trek 560 starting to show its age and with all of the exciting stuff coming from the bicycle industry, I was window shopping for a new ride. After a lot of research, I decided on two different manufacturers that seemed like they could provide me with the type of bike I wanted: Cannondale and Klein.

My first pick was Klein. It was a more niche brand, and they had a reputation for building a frame that was designed solidly for criteriums and sprinters. The summer before my senior year of high school, I landed a job as bicycle assembler/mechanic at my favorite bike shop. That was my opportunity to save money that summer and build my Klein, my way, from the ground up. This 1989 Quantum was specially ordered for me. My shop assistant manager and I built her from (mostly) brand new parts we ordered from our suppliers. I say mostly because I carried over a few upgrades from the Trek that I had done: a Modolo Speedy stem, Modolo Professional handlebars, and Specialized carbon fiber water bottle cages. As I was looking through the shop's used parts bins, I discovered something I knew belonged on the Klein: an American Classic seatpost and Selle Italia Turbo Special.

To this day this is my favorite bicycle I've ever owned. She was built as my dream bike and she still is. She is slated to get a future cleanup and rejuvenation, and I'm looking forward to seeing that "Very Fast Red" paint gleam again!

This is another bike that came my way from my brother. This American made Schwinn was going to be recycled as the frame has been painted over in what is probably a rattle can black paint job. The only distinguishing mark was the Schwinn head badge.

My brother and his friend noticed that the head badge had "Chicago" on the Schwinn logo, meaning this bike was manufactured by the Schwinn plant in Chicago. Upon further inspection, they discovered the original color was found on the fork's steerer tube. It was white and "pink". That meant that this bike was a 1987 Schwinn Super Sport, a higher end production Schwinn with Columbus Tenax tubing.

It was too nice a bike to allow it to be recycled, but it was the wrong size frame for either my brother or his friend. Chris knew it was my size.... so that is how I ended up getting it.

It does featured the original 600 SIS gruppo, Cinelli bars and stem, etc. I plan on having the frame repainted, reinstalling the original parts, adding my original LOOK Sport pedals, and making it my general purpose road bike. I will post updates!

After doing a lot of research and talking with the best bike shop in my area, I decided that my best investment for a new bike (especially for a kid in high school) was a 1987 Trek 560. This Trek featured all of the shopping points I was looking for: frame made with Reynolds 531 tubing, 700c wheels, Shimano 105 gruppo (with SIS and SLR), and an easy path for upgrades.

My first change to the bike occurred before I even rode it: I swapped over the LOOK Sport pedals (white) that I used on my Peugeot. They replaced the standard quill/toeclip setup that came with the bike. After having put a lot of miles in on the LOOK pedals, there was no way was I going back to toeclips!

I rode this bike regularly for the next two years, putting a lot of mileage on her. It was a fabulous bike and she never left me stranded (unlike the French thing....). The only reason for my next upgrade was for two reason 1). she was starting to experience some rear triangle frame flex with my sprinter/criterium style of riding, and 2). I wanted something with the newer equipment. That led to my next bike.... 

This French beauty was my first road bike. I got her from my parents for Christmas, about five days before my 15th birthday. I put a lot of miles on her and had some build issues with it. Before I share the details of my difficulties with this bike, I have to explain that as a teenager, my bikes were well taken care: they were kept cleaned, stored in my bedroom, and I never took them off road. I always appreciated the fact that I had a nice bike and wanted to keep it that way.

That being said, this bike was an exercise in frustration. The two big failures I had on it were a collapsed fork (that occurred around the corner from home) and a "taco'd" front wheel (which happened about 10 miles from home). This coupled with some "weird" components that doing upgrades rather difficult to impossible. Case in point, the freewheel on this bike wasn't the standard freewheel setup, but a Heliomatic model. There was zero interchangability with the Heliomatic, so if I wanted to change the gearing, I was going to have to find a Heliomatic. The cost for it was outrageous!

After a couple of years, the bike was starting to show its age and the upgrade difficulties meant that it was wiser to just start with a whole new bike: a Trek.