I swear I'm going to put some tires on it before it leaves the shop. The woman who will own this bike used to work at the local university bike co-op. Showing her roots, this buildup has some scrounged parts that although not new and shiny will be functionally sound. I date the hubs as Phil Woods from apprximately 1978-1984 era, give or take a few burnt brain cells along the way. The bars are Specialized WTB drops, probably from the early eighties and really getting hard to find. The bulk of the other stuff is new such as the rims, spokes, fenders , brakeset and headset. The seat is a spanking new Brooks and it will be a punisher for the first few months but after that it will be like family, that is if you have a happy one. Working with old stuff is something I don't do all that much any more but this build inspired me to get some sort of beater together out of a few of the hunereds of old bits I have laying around. My worry is that it will come out like this one, way too nice to be a real beater.
Back in the mid '80's I got the notion to build a single speed mountain bike. People were riding single speeds in the dirt and a few races even had a single speed class but nobody was building a bike specifically for such racing, at least until this one was built in about May of 1987. It might have been the first time I used a wishbone style seatstay, a primitive handbuilt one. The bike also had a 24" rear wheel and a 26" front , a combo that I thought would make the bike accelerate easier while kepping the front end stable and familiar. At the time single speeding in the dirt was a hard sell but once I tired it I was pretty much hooked. It was fun to sprint away from folks on thier fully laden geared bikes weighing much more .The lack of chain slap made the bike almost silent on the trail, a real treat. I guess it caught on eventually...
