Classic & Vintage - The Senator from Sacramento

Good evening.

I never thought I'd need more than one bike - now I have a Trek 500, an old sturdy Pro Spirit Tandem that I rescued (take it or we're tossing it at the recycle center!), a Mongoose frame someone gave me for filling with parts (so I can have an extra in case the Trek breaks, yeah, that's it) and something that's a real puzzle.

This bike I rescued from rotting in place: It's a 10 speed, the brand name is Senator, the most recent registration sticker I(there are one or two underneath) on it shows "City of Sacramento, Expires 12/31/77." The only other identifying marks aside from Shimano on the derailleur is a bit where the front tire hasn't completely lost its rubber; the paint protected it enough that I can just barely make out the word "RIDGERYDER."

The frame (male type) is perfect for my inseam, it's light, and sweet, and for some crazed reason I want to get it riding again. This means learning the Tubular Tire rituals, and lots of de-rusting and so on. I don't have any photos at this time; best I can describe the frame is "It looks like a 10 speed." No references on the web anywhere I could find to the brand name, only reference I found on the Forum here is not quite a year old and in reference to another bike - the writer mentioned Senator as a Japanese brand.

Any ideas? Mostly I want to know how old it's likely to be, and a bit about the company.

This bike is a Senator with tubular rims? (Tubular tires have a casing all of the way around the innertube and the tire glues to the rim....) The brand was, I believe, one of the many that capitalized on the OPEC embargo, and tubular wheels would be sort of suprising...

I think it does. I just brought it indoors, so here, let me pull harder...

(It helps to look at this thing in daylight, in a brightly lit room. The one day a week I'm not working 'til after sunset, and it's rainy.)

OK. No, they're regular tires. I'm a bit disappointed, because it would have been cool to learn something new. They're just _really_ skinny, or maybe I've been riding fat tired things too long. On the other hand, there are *lots* of blackberry and raspberry brambles along the bike paths here - better to stick with what I know for now.

I'm sort of pleased to hear about the "Oil Embargo" history - We Were Poor then as children, and history's repeating itself for my kids now.

Spouse found the "Made In Japan" words, very faint (silver/white) on the decal.

Other things bright light let me see - the frame's actually a little on the large side for me, that's fine because I like bikes a little on the tall side. The paint's pretty beat up, and if it's not terribly valuable that's even better - once I filet it down to the frame I'll consider stripping it to the metal and repainting.

Eventually I'll have pics on a link, if anyone cares to see.

Thank you very much!

...Blanche

post some pix!

i love the recycling center. i got a raleigh,lotus, trek 1000, and a hard rock from the recycling center. all my bikes are freebies, except a few. haha

Pictures of the bike before I started pulling it apart. It's been pretty easy to do, lots easier to work on than anything even only 10 years older. I just hope all the pictures help me put everything back together. :) But, man. Filllllllthy. The pedals for example, I can't tell if there's a load of caked on old grease or a rotting o-ring where the pedal is next to the crank. And one of the pics (front derailleur, I think) shows how rotted the tires are.

Here's the link: http://www.oldepharts.net/jnork/senator/

Thanks again!

man. That bottom bracket is waaaaay up in the air. I dunno if i've ever seen a bike with quite this geometry...it looks to be in really good shape, tho, and will clean up really well, I'm betting.

Not having loads of experience, I don't (and can't, it's dark out again!) see the difference in height of the bottom bracket. Heck, I even had to go look up what you meant by that. :) Is it possible to get a bit more information so I can understand better?

(After I got the break calipers off, I was shocked by how heavy they felt. I whipped out the digital scale for the heck of it - close to a pound for each set of calipers. Feels like anyone riding with those things being attacked by a lion could yank 'em off and use 'em as bolos.)

I doubt if anyone else has one of those, when u get it done it will look good too!

Most bikes have chainstays (between the cranks and the back wheel) that have some slope downward toward the front of the bike. The bottom bracket is where the cranks fit, and the slope lowers your center of gravity for a little more stable ride. Road racing bikes and touring bikes have a lower bottom bracket, criterium bikes, cyclocross and mountain bikes have a higher bottom bracket (crit bikes for cornering clearance, mountain bikes for obstacle clearance). But your bike...well, it looks to me like the chainstays are parallel with the ground, making it the clearance champ of road bikes.

i like the cranks.

well, get some some steel wool, crome polish and if necessary a brass brush/drill to get off the heavy rust.

Definitely needs some TLC, but I love that three spoke chainring - looks great.