RIDING THE MIYATA 1000 GRAND TOURING

I rode the Miyata 1000, for the better part of a summer, and loved every ride, but one.  About ten miles out one day, and with no cell phone at my hip, I broke a chain.  The long and short, of this incident, is that I should have listened to the bicycle.  Hardly a mile from home, I happened to hear a click or two that should not be.  I didn't bother to investigate and paid the price later on.  Had I taken a look, I would have seen a link starting to come apart.  The first hill, I came to, was too much for the failing component and away went the chain.  Fortunately, I had my handy dandy chain cutter.  Or did I?  Nope!  Time to walk home the bike home, coast riding it, whenever I could.

It is kind of sad that the Miyata came along when it did.  At the time, I had little appreciation for bicycles from the far east.  Today is a vastly different story.  In my opinion, some of the best road bicycles made and particularly those from the eighties, came from Japan.  If I come across another Miyata 1000, be it the touring model or the racer, I will definitely make the purchase and add another new/old bicycle to my humble collection.

I eventually did sell the Miyata and I cannot, for the life of me remember why.  I really did like the bicycle but for some reason I let it go.

In all fairness, the going of the Miyata was more interesting than the coming.  Offered and sold on Ebay, the young man who purchased the bicycle braved a 400 mile drive in the middle of the winter to pick up his prize.  He and his lovely wife drove all day from Minneapolis to reach Thunder Bay in the early evening, picked up the Miyata, and then headed back to Minni without stopping.  I got a kick out of him as he flicked the bicycle tubes with his fingernail, testing material quality and commenting on how much he liked the bike. 

And, I cannot help but be sure that he and his Miyata have developed a pretty good relationship by now.  I should add, in all fairness, I kept the Brooks B17 - Special for myself but I had already indicated in the Ebay listing that the saddle was not part of the deal.  Though the young fellow looked longingly at the Brooks he did understand and having the original saddle did little to bother him at the time.

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