Back around 2005/2006 my brother happened to be walking by a dumpster in which he saw an old bike that was abandoned and unloved. I don’t know what this says about our relationship, but seeing someone’s discarded junk made him think about me, and he grabbed it to give to me as a gift. Honestly I was really excited about the gift of the bike, so I guess he knows me pretty well.
The bike was missing the seat post, had some paint chips out of it, but it was the proper frame size and in relatively good shape. The decals and frame labels said it was a Vista Carrera 7 and that it was built in Taiwan. Internet research revealed that Vista was one of the many Japanese companies that made lugged framed during the bike boom of the 1970’s and 80’s. I have no idea when the bike was built (if anyone know the key to Vista serial numbers, please let me know, “K3063417”). Most reviewers/critics seem to say that they were nice entry level bikes at best or a waste of time at the worst. Since the price was right, my big question was what to do with the bike. I moved it to the basement, and that’s where it sat for years.
It was one of those things that sit around that was too good to throw away, but not good enough to really put much time or money into. My initial idea was to restore it to a vintage 10-speed, but after I actually picked a bike in that category up off Craigslist that needed not work. So the bike sat.
Around 2009 I picked up a used Raleigh One Way, which is a fixie/single speed, which I fell in love with. After about a year I got a bright idea that what I really needed was one bike that I could have as a dedicated fixie and keep my One Way as a single speed. (Two bikes make a lot more sense than flipping that rear wheel back and forth). I also realized that I had a bunch of old bicycle parts laying around form other bicycles that I had repaired… well I am sure you can see where this story is going… ironically even after I finished this project I never flipped the hub back to a single speed, and when I got a new wheel set for that bike I didn’t even put the freewheel back on.
This last photo shows one of the little details that I love on this bike, a little heart that is brazed on the bottom of the down tube… who was the person that added this to this bike!?
