Building a commuter bike for Erik

Well I thought I should give a before picture of what I started with on this bike for Erik's commute to work in Portland. I found this on craig's list in Atlanta. Dane was so kind to drive right over and pick it up for me. He was somewhat surprised at the poor condition, but said ok. He followed my instructions. then the bike sat in his trunk for about 2 or 3 weeks until we were able to connect. When I'm done I will follow up on the build with more pics. The picture is right off of craig's list so it is pretty poor quality. The fellow I got it from said he thought it was a 58 or 60 cm, but turns out to be 62 cm. That's a pretty big bike, just a little smaller than mine. I don't think it will be too big. I started by removing everything, including the paint. It was all chipped up and rusting in spots. The front derailleur was so rusty you couldn't find any chrome on it at all. I will need to replace most of the parts. I kept the brake calipers and levers, but put on new pads and cables. I got rid of the down tube shifters as I don't like them and am putting on stem shifters. Lost the bull horn handle bars and the saddle and seat post. The local bike shop (LBS) let me go through their used stuff to fine most of what I needed there. I had ordered tires off the net about 2 months ago. They have been on back order, but I finally cancelled them. The LBS had the exact same tires I had ordered, so that was nice. I had studied out what I thought would be just the right compromise between fast, safe, comfortable and reliable. Panaracer Pasela 700c x 28. I don't like the look of the gum side walls, but everthing else is good. I have a nice set of Mavic A119 wheels. These are just a little wider than racing wheels. The tires are the smallest that can fit on these wheels.

I forgot to mention the frame is a Nishiki. It is a well known maker of good bikes. The crank will be a bontrager (Trek) 175 mm squar taper, with 53 x 39 shimano chain rings. The front derailler is shimano 600 the rear is Raliegh. It has a 11 x 32 nine speed cassett. The original bike came with a 5 speed. I had to modify things a bit to make this work. The cassett is off my bike as I have noticed I need closer ratio gears when riding with a group. This cassett will make commuting easy as it has a very wide range of gears and no need to match speed with a bunch of speed jockey's. It still has a high gear that will let you pull hard up to about 40 mph if you can or if you find a big hill to go down real fast. The up hill is good too. You can cruise up a hill at 4 or 5 mph if it is in low gear.

I'm almost done with the build. I had to order a couple of cable guides off the net and am now waiting for them to come it. I can't wait to take it for a spin. More later.