This bike actually came to me when my uncle-in-law passed away and as such holds a kind of sentimental spot in the stable. His name was Ubald and I’ve since dubbed it “The Ubaldmobile”.

When the bike came to me it was fully kitted out for an older guy. Big cushiony seat, upright bars, etc. I believe at one time it was a demo bike for a shop in Campbellton, NB, near where he lived. One of the cool things about it was that the geometry was almost exactly the same as my much-loved Ziggurat. I broke it down and rebuilt it up as a commuter, and I rode it to work in Virginia for almost 3 years straight through pretty much every kind of weather.

Retired proper-like, with a beverage.

At some point, I started having issues with the bottom bracket, only to discover the threads had stripped. I tore it down to the frame and pretty much retired it – stripped BB threads usually being a death sentence.  I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of the frame though.

I started searching around the interwebs for possible ‘thread-fixes’ or workarounds. I discovered that Italian bottom brackets are actually threaded the opposite of North-American ones and various individuals had some success rethreading stripped threads in the opposite direction and then running and Italian BB.

I found a great shop in Maryland, College Park Bikes, who said they’d give it a shot for me and it’s been up and running ever since.

From the time of the rethread, I’ve only run it as a single-speed, which is what it’s built up as now.

I actually got another bike out of the deal too, as a buddy of mine in Colorado, feeling bad about my loss sent me an old Schwinn High Plains frame and miscellaneous components to build up another commuter.