Miyata Trailrunner 1991

[Adamhellstrom]

Bought this Miyata Trailrunner at a charity shop in Vejbystrand in the south of Sweden. It was in a poor state of repair and had obviously been stored unused and outdoors for quite some time. I offered to by it for 200 sek ≈ 20 Euro, but they would not accept my offer and insisted that I buy it for 75 sek ­­≈ 7,5 Euro. Well, that was an offer I couldn't refuse.

I took it home and decided that I would do a zero budget restore, that is I would re-use as much as possible and get the bike in working order, if not in perfect order. I ended up replacing the tyres (falling to pieces), Deore LX pedals (failed attempt to assemble pedals after overhauling bearings), front brake cable and housing and the last section of the gear cable housing for the rear derailleur. I am using the original chain, even though some of the links are very stiff, even after quite a lot of lube and forced movement of those links.

Bottom bracket is probably beyond repair. If I adjust it to run smoothly, it has some play, and if I adjust it without play it doesn't run smoothly.

The frame is 40 cm C-C which is way too small for me, so I will probably sell it when I get tired of looking at it. [EDIT] Well, actually it's already for sale on a swedish forum, but I think the small size will make it a difficult sale. See Dare's post below. My asking price on that forum is 700 sek, but I will consider all offers. Hopefully a short swedish retro bike enthusiast will make an offer.

 

[Adamhellstrom]

Some comments regarding the bike.

It is HEAVY! I didn't weigh the frame, but i lifted it when the bike was totally disassembled and it was shockingly heavy.

The biggest challenge of the restoration was the rear derailleur pivot bolt. It was almost seized, and I had never encountered that before. It turned out to be rather easy to fix, but I felt a bit lost before I realized that I could remove the bolt from the derailleur and clean and lube it to fix the problem.

The biggest failure was when I realized that I wouldn't be able to re-assemble the Deore LX pedal cages and axle without a special tool. These pedals don't have a lockwasher to help adjust bearing tension. You need the TL-PD-63 tool to adjust the bearing tension. Well, actually that isn't enough. The pedal cage has no opening for the tool. The outside of the cage prevents access to the axle and bearings with this tool. I guess the LX pedals were supposed to be replaced then the bearings needed re-greasing. You can see what I mean if you look at wookiee's image in this post: viewtopic.php?t=211546

 

[Dare]

I saw this on swedish forum for sale, I thought to buy it but I noticed it was way to small...

 

[Adamhellstrom]

Yup, that's the one. I guess I'll put an advertisement on Blocket some time soon. As I spent so little on the bike (money that is, not time. I spent quite some time working on it) my asking price is very negotiable, as stated in the for sale post at happymtb

Restoring a bike while keeping as many original parts as possible really is a great way to learn how to work on a bike. You also get a good lesson on which parts that can be restored and which you should just replace.