1991 Koga Miyata TerraRunner Carbolite

Hi all!

This is my 1991 TerraRunner Carbolite bicycle:







Very Tank-like construction and of course top notch finishing. Not light!

The frame is pretty is much similar to that of my golden Century, except for a few things:
- no gold :?
- it has a Hardtlite (steel) rear
- it is one year newer, what implies (from my site):

"For '91: Slimmer dropouts and a reworked, slimmer bracketlug with intergrated chainsuckteeth. Frame now fitting 1.125" headset and 73mm bracket, instead of 1" and 68mm. Furthermore toptube cablerouting "

Brochure pic:


Specs
DX bike. The fork is made with Miyata's own tubing. Except for San Marco seat everyting Japanese!

The Carbolite TerraRunner were the 'budget' carbon bike in the '91 line up. This is his more expensive brother, the SkyRunner:


Specs


Unfortunately I messed up the detailpics

Thought I post it here as it has the identical paintscheme:



Black with gold. Actually the black on the lugs isn't just plain black, but a metallic with tiny glitter particles. Really cool.

1991 GentsRacer Carbolite - Carbon front (4 tubes), alloy rear and lugs, Shimano 600. Non original carbon forks from the FullPro model. Catalogue is telling me the first carbon forks in Europe.

- Melvin

They're both absolutely gorgeous, especially (to my eyes) the mountain bike - great proportions!

Thanks for sharing, these and all the other fine bikes you have posted.

Hi Makrie,

Thanks for the nice comments.

The roadbike I bought from a friend who used it for speedskating training purposes. Actually it is in storage now, as I also ride my MTBs on road.

Do like the MTB too. It is classy and gives a secure feeling. Some probably more weightconscious people considered those massive looking. I think they are not mistaken, but I do appreciate that look ...and in fact it is massive. With the steel rear it is really heavier than the SkyRunner with its alloy tail, but it is still way lighter than the e-stay Panasonic :mrgreen: Friend of my had a tiny TerraRunner for trial purposes. He trashed quite a lot, but not this one.

Slightly otb, What kind of seatpost size does your Century take?

Those Miyatas are pretty cool. Like the design and quality of construction on them.

Did they ever produce a smallish frame size tho ? All Ive seen are really large frames!?

erkan":zxhvbgr3 said:

Slightly otb, What kind of seatpost size does your Century take?

Click to expand...

Erkan,

26.8 it is

1st gen bonded = 26.8
2nd gen bonded = 28.6

Did you weigh you frame?

Just put my full alloy Miyata Team (the HBall sign. one) on the kitchenscale and it is somewhere in the 2250-2350 range. This includes headset cups and sharkfin. I think 2200gr will do it. Size 18.5".

jez-2-many-bikes":1eawptvh said:

Those Miyatas are pretty cool. Like the design and quality of construction on them.

Did they ever produce a smallish frame size tho ? All Ive seen are really large frames!?

Click to expand...

Is this small enough?


Elev10K (carbon) - For sale on eBay recently.


Elev8K (Ti) - Found on Koi fish forum

Remember they are Japanese, so quite a large portion small frames is build. The European Kogas are larger examples often, as Europeans are taller. H-Ball raced large ones (20,5") and the mint Team recently for sale on eBay was really huge (22.5"). Overhere smallest available was 16.5" (c-t) and those can be encountered for sale NOS quite regularly. Koga ordered to many early nineties.

If someone would like having a smaller NOS TiRunner, I know some.

>Did you weigh you frame?

No I havent, I just packed it down and will probably put it in storage or maybe trade it for something. It was actually a bit to small for me. But it felt very solid, I bet it weighs around 2 KG to, those ALU lugs are massive.

Its a bit weird that there seems to be so many large Miyata frames around. Here in Sweden bigger 19-20+ inch Miyata bikes are very common, and not only MTB's but Miyata hybrids and racers to. So when I finally found a mint, nos bonded carbon frame the only sizes available was 22 and 16. I chosed 16 since I expected it to be "almost" like a 17.5 frame (slightly smaller than one )

Thats what you get for playing around with Yeti frames all day long since a 17.5 Yeti is more like a 19.5, and i expected a 16 inch frame to be like a "true" 17.5 inch frame :?