For a little while now I've been thinking about this thing of beauty...
I
know what your thinking, you're probably wondering why we are looking
at this thing for! Well, to put it quite
simply, I've had it a long time, about 32 years I think! It was the
first bike I ever bought brand new. I worked all through the summer
holidays when I was at school, and saved as much as possible in order to
buy this bike for myself! This bike has never spent a night under the
stars! When I'm not out riding it, it lives inside the house, and always has
done!
So
what is it? Well it started off as a Puch Mountain Cougar, and its had the odd
modification or two! Firstly, the paint is the effort of a 17 year old
with aerosols! Probably not the first effort I made, but it was one of
my early paint jobs. It was originally silver, and after about a year of ownership I decided that I might like it if it was yellow and green instead!
The
front suspension, it was originally ridged like most bikes were at the
time. This is the result of the following years summer holidays efforts,
and as I remember the front forks were a bit more than the whole bike
cost me in the first place!
Brakes
were upgraded as a birthday present from my Brother who was working
part time at Halfords at the time. They were a massive upgrade from the
cheapo pressed steel ones the bike originally came with!
Ame
grips that have lasted forever and are still comfy to this day, and
upgraded shifter levers, aluminium, not cheapo plastic!
Shimano
Biopace crank with Victor pedals, super strong aluminium wheels to
replace the steel ones that I used to replace on an almost monthly
basis! Panararcer tyres, that were only fitted last year!
Sun
Race rear derailieur mech, yep over the years this got many upgrades,
and as much as I like it, I'm now wondering about putting it back to a
more standard looking machine. Not completely stock, but a good strip
down, keeping most of the upgraded parts, but maybe ugrading a few of of
them, like having a few more gears for instance. Also, going back to a ridged front
fork, and then a repaint in Silver again, and hopefully track down some original style decals for it!
But
all of this is in the future! For today I think that I'll just take it
out for a bit of a spin at some point as its dry, and to remind myself of how it
rides, as it was always very pleasant to ride. It is ofcourse a steel framed bike, and with that
does come a certain amount of inherent weight, but it's not stupidly
heavy, it never felt like it was made from gas pipe. Even though it only has fifteen
gears you can blezz along at a fair old rate, and it's comfortable. The
seat, although ripped is quite supportive. The frame although not quite
as big as I like these days still fits me perfectly, and I love the old
style mountain bike bars, welded solidly to the stem with a big V from
the stem to the bars! Its comfy, it's good, and it's mine! However, I'm
still not really sure that the skinny Panaracer tyres suit it particularly well. I
like that they're road tyres, and they're quite grippy, but they will be
one of the things that gets swapped out for something a little
fatter... Infact, at this point in time i am thinking about swapping
them with another bike I am fiddling with at the moment. I know they're skinny, and they're
road tyres, but pretty much all of my riding is done on the road, so I
figured I'd pop them on this Carrera I currently have, see how it looks, and see how it
rides! Then see where we go from there!
Anyhoo,
as ever, updates as they occur. The way I see it, it will either be
good or it wont, and if it isn't I'll just swap some other tyres onto it. As ever, only time will tell.
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