Mickey's National Tourer

Mickey was looking for something unique. He wanted a bike to ride across the country and he'd done it before, so he had a pretty good idea what worked and what he wanted to change. The bike we built features a fillet brazed frame with a plate crown fork. Disc brakes are used to insure easy stopping in any kind of weather. Mickey knew that he needed a wide gear range to make spinning up the continental divide with a trailer less of a pain so we found a 10 speed SRAM cassette and paired it with a Shimano crankset with wide gears up front. With SRAM shifters, the front triple shifting posed a little problem. The solution was to install a friction downtube shifter on the custom steel stem. The result is flawless front shifting without sacrificing access to the shift lever. The bike was painted two tones of red with gold highlights, it is definitely a looker.

Some other highlights are painted to match fenders, gold Velocity rims and a Brooks saddle. The parts pick is tailored to work for Mickey's specific requests just the way the frame was custom built to the size that will work the best for him.

After the bike was built Mickey's riding partner realized that he wouldn't be able to make the trip due to worsening joint pain. The big trip had to be postponed. Instead, Mickey's trial run was a week long solo trek through Oregon'sSouth coast and inland areas. Mickey's conclusion, "The bike fits the bill."