I can finally post my bike here!
I was looking for a bike to have customized into a somewhat upright ride that I could do centuries or light touring on. I'd narrowed my choices down to a few contenders, and combed Craigslist for about a month. Meanwhile, I lined up a talented restoration guy to restore and modify whatever bike I found.
I'm not tall and I have a short torso, so finding something in my size that wasn't a mixte was a bit of a challenge. Then I saw a posting for one of the bikes on my "want" list -- a Voyageur 11.8. It was a good price, in my size, and it was CHROME! SOLD!!
Took it to my restoration guy and he completely tore it down, polished, cleaned, rebuilt and repacked everything. Then he added fenders, a front rack, a Brooks B67, and flipped Albatross bars with inverted brake levers. While there is still a lot I want to do to this bike eventually, I'm beyond thrilled with how it stands now.
The black bartape is temporary until I'm certain I'm happy with the handlebar position (not sure if I'll keep them inverted -- I like the look, but my nerve damaged wrists might need me to be more upright). Then I'll be putting on some VO sewon Elkhide covers.
Oh, and my restoration guy is the very talented John Zeni, a man with a passion for bringing old bikes back to life, and shows it in all his work. Check out his blog and the extensive documentation he does for each bike he restores:
John's Bicycle Restorations
(Photo credit to John.)
