Miyata Street Runner 1500

[pbreezy]

Howdy y’all! Just wanted to share my current project.

I rescued this bike from being recycled but it was too much of an investment to restore it for donation. I liked it so much that I had to give away one of my own bikes so I could put this one in the stable.

It’s a Miyata Street Runner of unknown vintage. Lugged cromoly frame and fork, Sakae original cranks and original sun tour front derailleur. The headset is original except for the bearings and retainers which I salvaged from an old beach cruiser. Original Día-Compe canto brakes, so yeah probably a death trap but that’s what makes it extra spicy.

I was able to procure all the new stuff over the course of several paychecks: Box 4 8 speed group set (11-42) soma sparrow bars, Nitto quill stem, 26” solid axle front wheel (diy tubeless) Leafbike 1500W DD rear hub motor kit, Michelin ridiculously thick tires, new Shimano brake pads, a 52V whale shark battery and mount from a previous build, dura ace bar end shifter I had laying around for the front, and a Brooks cambium I also already had. Also did lizard skin bar tape instead of grips, mostly because of the bar-end shifter cable.

In my current photo, it has a stuck seatpost but I was able to cut that out of the frame and now it has some random 26.8 post from the local BMX shop and a brown/orange Brooks C17 cambium that kind of looks like a basketball, oddly enough. I’ll snap a newer photo tonight if I can!

Let me know what you think! I’m still working some kinks out configuration wise but it’s been a really fun project!

also I have no idea how the formatting for images works on this forum so if I screwed it up let me know!

[stts]

Yea that looks sweet. People in my parts are dumping bikes too. I bought an old huffy I'm converting but since found 2 more bikes in the trash. Gas prices are going to make it worth the effert I'm thinkin. Did you grind the seat post to get a fit? My Huffy has a smaller than most post diameter that doesn't fit shock mounts. I just love your wiring work. Not a big kludge like this mess here. Neat wire work pays off in trouble free fun for the coming years. So I suspect you will have a great time when you get the setups ironed out.

[AZguy]

That kludge has served exceptionally well for quite a number of years and many thousands of very hard miles - there's some real world experience for ya

Kludge on!

[pbreezy]

I cut the old post out with a hacksaw blade and the top measured out to 26.8. Which is apparently common enough that they had one in a bike shop, even if I had never heard of that being a seatpost size.

My cable management was pretty quick and dirty and there’s a ton of extra cable length tucked down in there but it’s hiding behind the big ring since I’m too lazy to cut the leads down to fit and resolder them. But thanks! 20 years in the IBEW and you learn to be obsessive about cable tie spacing. I also have to use flush cutters when I trim the ties or I can’t sleep at night. XD

[pbreezy]

So the hub motor controller is not really working out for a commuter, so I’ve tabled it for the time being. Put my BBS02 on the Miyata so I can actually ride to work without killing myself. Hope y’all like this iteration!
Here she is in her natural habitat; the boneyard…

[pbreezy]

Oh here’s what it looked like when I started:

[stts]

Wow. All that and abandoned the build. Direct drive hub motors do have the worst torque of the lot. But not even a 1500 watt one could save the day. Just goes to show the power of having gears in the motor loop. Somebody at work brought in his old Miata with rotten tires to fix up. Me doing my build has gotten others to dig up what they got.

[pbreezy]

The problem is that when the controller sends PAS it’s full load current, all the time. So half a rotation of the pedals and the bike accelerates to 26mph immediately. It’s quite thrilling but not super good in mixed traffic. I’ll probably put it on a cargo bike once I get a different controller. The throttle works fine but I really prefer to pedal.