It IS about the bike after all.

I really wanted black. I told Yama San BLACK, basic, boring, rugged, simple black. Somewhere there was a miscommunication. Hey it's a Bianchi, the painter was most likely thinking. It's a Freakin BIANCHI and it's going to be Freakin Celest. So, there it is, my old 1998 mega pro chromoly bianchi, in beatiful radiant celest and chrome.



My yearly Summer voyage to California is never complete without my bicycle. And I have brought it using a bulky heavy suitcase for the last three years. It has caused me to miss out bringing a big care package of American goodies back with me to Tokyo. It has caused massive problems at the LAX security check. It seemed reasonable to get a second bike to ride when I am in America. But it should be cheap, nice, fit me and be ready to ride right away. My old steel frame was spending it's last years hooked up to the trainer, corroding. I decided that refurbishing the old frame and rebuilding it was the best way to meet my requirments. Here's a rundown



First of all before painting Yama San and I discovered ten cenitmeters of sweet shiny chrome on the stays, so we asked the painter to keep those. Anyway, it's a nine speed with a chorus derailure, and a shimano cassette. The 105 crank is a new purchase for the bike. The old crank had to be violently removed to get to the BB so it was ruined. I added some dura ace chainrings I already owned because I had read that the only difference between 105 and Ultegra are the chainrings. Open pro Dura Ace wheel with 14 guage. Front derailure is (gulp) suntour supurbe pro. Brakes are new 105.



Shifters say Veloce but the guts were replaced with Record, very nice stealthy and quiet. The stem and seatpost say "dixna", they are in fact Richey Pro, nice Taiwanese aluminum stuff. Same thing for the bars that say "Scott anatomic", exactly the same as Ritchy Pro. Fork is a kestral ems with chromo steerer. My first test was in the rain but the bike seems fine and fits me as well as it always has, it's weight is almost exactly 20 lbs. The final cost came out to about 900 bucks American.
I'll be in California the whole month of August, I will be in the LA area and the SF area, I will definitely be looking for friends to ride, race and tour with. Thanks for reading.

By the way, the bike suitcase is really nice. It's just that getting it through LAX was tough. But if you really must travel long distance with the bike it's the only affordable way to insure not getting your bike screwed up. Which leads to the next point, I planning on either trading or selling the suitcase for rockbottom price, let me know if interested and I'll send more details.