What is this old Miyata I got?
 

I recently came across an old Miyata bike that had been converted to single speed. I'm going to replace a bunch of the parts and probably have the frame stripped and painted. But I would like to know more about the bike. For example, I don't know what year it is from and I don't even know what model it is. The serial number on the bottom of the frame is A189456. The paint is a dull gold color. The top tube says "PIONEER'S BICYCLE IN JAPAN, MIYATA INDUSTRY CO., LTD. It has this cottered crank that is going to be a pain in the rear to get off. There are a couple stickers on the seat tube with Japanese writing on them, one of which says, "Iwakuni". The other sticker has a six-digit number beginning in 101. Most of the seat tube is covered by this shiny silver sticker that has a Miyata Industry crest on it. Oh, and the frame is lugged. I have very little knowledge of bikes, so I hope someone out there can tell me a little about this bike, particularly the frame since I'm going to replace almost everything else because it is old and a little rusty.

Can you post some pics? It would help.

Reviving an old thread. I just looked at a very similiar marked Miyata myself but can determine what it is. Serial number is A734979. The description in the OP pretty much fits what I looked at except the bike is white. Any one have any ideas what it is?

Can you post some pics? It would help.

Here ya gohttp://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=170724http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=170725

Wow, do we get a prize for stumping everyone with this one, LOL!!

Please post some pics taken from the drive side. Any decals and closeups of the components will help a lot, too.

Miyata apparently started using serial numbers starting with letters in the early 70s. No idea why--they'd been making bikes for decades at that point, maybe that was when they started to export. Anyway the research of T-Mar, a C&Ver who doesn't post much anymore, revealed the 'code' as starting with A in 1971, IIRC. The following digits are the fortnight (2 week period) of the year, then the actual sequential number of the frame for the year. Bikes built late in a given year are usually for the following model year.

That's an old one, and looks to be in good shape!