Building a City Bike

I told you before I was building my old Suteki up to sell; I have a frame with a good bottom bracket, a set of wheels, and a lot of parts, so I decided to make a city six speed.

Here are some photos of the completed bike. It does have new cables and housing all the way around, but otherwise it is all stuff sourced from my parts box. I plan to put a rear rack on it as well, but didn't have any clamps small enough in stock, so I'll pick some up today. I am trying to decide wether to put fenders on it, but I may leave that up to the new owner - I've got some nice SKS fenders that were on this bike before, but I think I want to keep them for my GT commuter.

The Suteki is now running a Shimano Exage rear derailleur, a Shimano 105 crankset, Specialized hubs laced to Matrix rims, a Shimano thumbshifter (originally a rear shifter) and Dia Compe SLX levers. The brakes are Shimano Tourney centerpulls, and the seatpost is an SR Laprade. Obviously, even though this bike is a Frankenbike, it is built of pretty nice stuff. This Suteki was my only roadbike for a long time, and it has been everything from a drop bar road bike, to a moustache barred fop machine, to a fixed gear, and now a 6 speed city bike. I bought this one for $100 3 years ago, and got plenty of use out of it, but it has been sitting in my attic for a while so it's time for it to find some new adventures with a new owner.

Suteki 6 speed

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Drivetrain Closeup 

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Cockpit.

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Rear Brake and nice quick release. 

My bikes now are all much nicer than this one, but when I finished building it and took it for a spin around the block, I found myself trying to justify ways to keep it. I talked myself out of it because I certainly don't need another bike, and the funds it raises will are going to fund my Ross Mt. Whitney rebuild. Even though I do have some great memories with this bike, I'll be happy to free up some space. I want to build the Mt. Whitney next, but will probably end up waiting on it a a while as I hunt down the parts I want for it. I have been considering putting my Schwinn Twinn tandem together for a while, and I may take the time to do that while I'm between projects. I had the frame powdercoated a few years ago, but it's been sitting in a closet ever since, waiting for me to clean the rust off of the parts. I guess I need to get a big ol' tub of elbow grease out and get on it.

For those interested, click here to learn more about Suteki bicycles than you ever needed to know.