This “catch of the day” story is from a few months ago, but I wanted to share it:

Last summer, I knew only two things about road bikes: 1) I wanted one, and 2) I didn’t want to spend any money to get one.

I combed craigslist and the local “freecycling” listings daily, and eventually saw “Pivo bike – getting thrown away, pick it up and it’s yours free.” Um, what’s a Pivo bike? The picture showed a skinny, dented blue thing with its skinny wheels off, leaning dejectedly against a garage wall. But it had the loopy handlebars that I knew signaled “road bike,” and the price was right, so I grabbed it first and asked questions later.

Sekai 5000 1970s YJ Special Order Road Bike_08-16-06.jpg

The donor knew nothing about the bike – she was storing it for a friend who’d moved away. She called it a Pivo because of the Pivo engraved on the handlebar stem. Other parts had funny names on them like Campagnolo, Specialités TA, and Fiamme Ergal. Thus began my research and restoration project. I pestered the donor’s friend with questions, visited Yellow Jersey (our vintage-specialty LBS), got a couple of bike repair books, became an eBay junkie, and discovered some great Internet vintage cycling sites, including a wonderful discussion site called bikeforums.net.

The Yellow Jersey store owner identified the bike as a Sekai 5000 he’d sold new around 1977, for $900 or so. “We sold hundreds of those … Mark Pringle won the US Nationals on one in 1975 and so they sold very well.” Then a mechanic weighed the bike at around 19 lbs. and said “holy sh*t!” I began to think that maybe this piece of rescued junk was something special. And it even fit me pretty well.

My cyclist friend laughed over the tubular tires. “You’ll get so many flats!” (Not one yet, fingers crossed.) The first time I rode the bike any distance, the rear derailleur cage fell apart.

Six months later, I’ve spent about $350 (a lofty sum for me, cheapskate that I am … so much for not spending any money) on parts, tools, LBS service, and assorted bike gear. Plus uncounted late-night hours working on the bike. I’ve touched up the paint job since these pictures. I’ve learned some vintage bike arcana. And I’ve also learned that my wife and friends really don’t care about the difference between cartridge bearings and cup-and-cone bearings, or how hard it was to find a 23mm crank puller for $20. There’s plenty more I could do to improve the bike (like getting it dent-rolled and repainted) but I’m trying to keep the costs down here, so I need to pace myself.

Bikeforums.net has been an terrific resource, and I just wanted to thank everyone for all the helpful advice!


Sekai 5000 lo-res_11-05-06.jpg Sekai 5000 front lo-res_11-05-06.jpg Sekai 5000 head lugs lo-res_11-05-06.jpg Sekai 5000 seat lug lo-res_11-05-06.jpg