That appears to be a generator lamp mount. There are small loops for wiring on the underside of the down tube and the back of the seat tube, and I am assuming the original owner planned to run the wire up the underside of the left seat stay, down the back of the seat tube, underneath the BB shell and up to a headlamp. No boss for a headlamp, nor for front racks of any sort. If I decide to electrify it, I'll build a front wheel around a dynohub and shorten the wiring, and probably in the near future I'll use the generator boss to mount a battery-powered blinky tail light. If I ever have it repainted, I'd consider having small bosses added to the fork for a rando bag and its required rack, and mount a headlamp on that.

Probably. The last time I had a nice bike with bar end shifter cables routed like this, I put short lengths of surgical tubing over the bottom bits of the shift cables to protect the head tube, and that seemed to work. Or I could get those little discs of clear plastic and put them where the cables touch the frame.




I ran the Rivendell with this setup from when it arrived new in late 2000 until 2006, when I switched over to Silver downtube shifters.

In many ways, the Lighthouse picks up where the Rivendell left off, and in other ways it is what the Rivendell was meant to be, but never quite achieved. No fancy lugs, but really finely-crafted fillet-brazed joinery combined with a fork that I fell in love with the moment I saw it. There is a certain stark simplicity honed by the lack of lugs, raised fork crown, etc., and the term Shaker sensibility comes to mind, a kind of artistry in making everything clearly functional and elegant at the same time with zero adornment. The standard diameter 531 tubing is a lot springier and livelier than the OS stuff on the Rivendell, which I wound up selling in 2012 after realizing I hadn't ridden it in 50 miles in three years.

On the road the Lighthouse captures all of the best traits of my 1982 Mercian Colorado, which started out as a team-issued bike for the Harvest/The Spoke/Mercian team - zippy, eager feeling on the road, but shockingly stable and smooth - but the greater tire width of the Lighthouse soaks up road shock better and makes it surefooted on gravel and hardpacked dirt as well, something I discovered when I had to take a shortcut home after biting off more than I could chew.




The bike really needs fresh bar tape and two white cages, and I may later on splurge and build up some fresh wheels on CR-18s - but it's fine right now, and I'll be riding it for some time to come pretty much as it is.