Originally Posted by
aeshultz
Having heard of all of this in the few years I've been following this forum, I have to ask- what type of bike makes a good base for one of these projects? It's something that's very appealing to me.
I brought just the fork from my ‘79 Miyata 912 (previously measured as unsuitable for 650B conversion) to @
gugie at one of the late, great and much-missed Portland Velo-Cult gatherings to request mid-fork mounts for low riders so that it could become my travel bike for credit card touring. Conversation ensued about the advantage of a lower trail fork for carrying a front load, and he’d be happy to do the re-raking.
Amongst the many cool bikes typical of those events, there was a brazed-post centerpull-mounted front rack on a Norther custom.
Further conversation: ”Mark, could you do that on my fork, including a front rack?”
Here what Mark accomplished, working with just the fork:
- Re-raked the fork, being careful to keep the resultant steering not too different from my ‘87 Marinoni Sports Tourer.
- Subtly relieved the underside of the fork crown to compensate for the loss of effective fork length from the re-rake. Fenders still fit over 700x28’s, as they did pre-mods.
- Added centerpull posts for a front Dia-Compe brake that he also supplied. Rear is still a dual-pivot, with no difference in brake performance/feel, both with KS salmons.
- Added mid-fork mounts, as well as a second set of appropriately stout dropout eyelets.
- Custom rando bag rack
- Custom modular low-rider racks that break down to fit inside my panniers for air transport.
- A Gugie-style decaleur, with the tubes inverted to suit the tall custom Waxwing bag, and an integrated cable housing stop since there isn’t room for a steerer-mounted stop. He coordinated extensively with Dave Cain of Waxwing bag fame on bag dimensions to ensure that it would all fit.
- Had the fork powder-coated black that easily matched the original Miyata paint. I re-applied gold fork crown highlights to match what it looked like formerly.
The result has, by far, exceeded my expectations. Here’s what was returned a few months later (less stem and bars shown). Many more photos can be found here:
https://dfrost.smugmug.com/Bicycles/...wesome-Photos/
It normally has just the rando bag on its rack, but I used the whole setup on the very windy Willamette Tour with Mark and other C&V friends including the OP several years ago. This engine wasn’t great, but the bike worked fantastically well.
It certainly deserves the matching gold Gugificazione! decal:
P