Miyata Bicycles

I admit I am not an adept bicycle mechanic but with the help of friends, a book I got from five for the winter holidays last year, and Pittsburgh's FreeRide I've been able to learn a few things that have saved me some money on repairs. Also, my friend Jess and I assembled her miyata bicycle together as well, giving me a pretty decent sense of the process.

So a few years ago I purchased a purple Miyata bicycle frame for which I have only just begun to buy parts for. The confusion of the whole thing, because I want to assemble the bike myself, is what parts actually will fit on a frame that is almost 10 years old (my current ride has a 1960s steel Puegeot frame, which is rather heavy despite all the light parts I've added).

I discovered this blog to help me search for parts. It is a series of scanned catalogues from Miyata bicycles that allow you to see the original parts with which the bicycles were outfitted. Also it supplies the following information, that during WWII Miyata was a gun and ammunition manufacturer in Japan, and afterward converted to a bicycle producer, with some of the tubes on the frame matching the shape and size of former gun designs.