Auchencrow, the story itself is somewhat anticlimactic. The bike popped up on the local Craigs List. I drove out to see the guy - he's got a couple of sheds filled with some very nice bikes (along with a few other bikes that are just "meh.") I have no idea where he gets his stuff, but he is retired on disability, doesn't ride at all, and spends his free time (which appears to be substantial) tooling around with vintage road bikes, and re-selling them. Along with a bunch of high end Raleighs and Peugeots, a mixture of other nice bikes, he had this Katakura Silk. He named a price, I named a lower price, he hemmed and hawed and then we shook hands. When I call it a "winter project," it's really a misnomer: the bike came to me in good condition and needed very little cleaning even. The usual new lube took place. I swapped out the stem for a longer one (for some reason the original was the one kind of scratched up part…go figure.) Due to the geometry, I may try to find a 130-ish stem to give myself a touch more reach in the saddle and riding the tops, but everything feels really riding in the drops. I did swap notes with both dawesman and wrk101 after I first got the bike, either on here or over on Flickr.

So with the bike already in good condition, I really did have the luxury to experiment with small cosmetic things. Originally, I wrapped the bars in black cotton and paired it with a black Brooks Pro. Looked quite elegant, but I simply couldn't get my Brooksie to sit far enough back for my comfort. I tried a Brooks Colt and another Brooks Pro - I don't have a B-17, or I would've tried it too. In the end, I swapped it out for this brown Regal and changed over to brown Salsa wrap to see how I liked the look… in my mind, I wasn't sure I'd like the brown with the chrome. But once I also changed the tires, it all kind of came together for me. The addition of SKS chromoplastic fenders was a nice touch. Here's the bike with black touches - very classy, but as I said before, not able to meet my fit needs.



No, this one came to me locally (see above.) I was pretty surprised to see it pop up on Craig's List - as you probably know, they are few and far between (especially, coming as it did, from a guy's shed in rural Kansas!)