1980 Sakae Ringyo Alpine Sport
Part Diary, Part Technical Manual, Part Tips & Tricks

I kept thinking about a winter fixie bike, when it occured to me that a mixte frame might be a good choice, since they may be old enough to have a narrow frame spacing, have horizontal dropouts and have eyelets for fenders. Problem is that mixte frames were sold as women's bikes, so the frame sizes tend to be on the small to very small range. So I look on craigslist and see an ad for a 56cm SR in San Bruno. Turns out the seller is my old buddy, who I bought the Bridgestone XO-4 from years ago. So on April 13, 2011, I started a new project.

4/14/2011 - The bike looked kinda rough with lots of small rust patches. So I stripped down the bike completely and it looked in better condition than I originally thought. The good thing is that it appears the bike was never apart, so nothing was damaged or stripped. The bottom bracket threads were clean and rust free, the headset cups were well pressed into the head tube, the fork crown race fit perfect, the fork steering tube threads were pristine, all the bolts appeared to be properly torqued. Everything looked nice and straight, so the next step is the strip the paint and treat some of the rust. So far so good, but it sure is heavy...

4/16/2011 - I stepped on the rear dropout until the rear width went from 127mm to 120mm. Amazingly, the dropouts were perfectly centered. Then I stripped the paint from the fork to see how bad the rust was, turns out the rust was pretty superficial. What I did find was beautiful steel that was brass brazed to the fork crown. By seeing the raw fork, I appreaciated how well made it was and that it should be super durable. So I sanded all the rust smooth, then put some Naval Jelly over the rusty areas, until the rust turned black.

4/20/2011 - I dropped off the bike to get it sandblasted. Since it had a lot of paint chips and was sitting outside in San Bruno for a long time, I was preparing for the worst. After sandblasting, I was going to bring it back home, treat everything with Naval Jelly and then bring it back for powdercoating. So when I stopped by the shop, the sandblasting had taken off all of the rust, the frame and fork looked brand new with a raw matt finish. So I just I just picked a color and had them powdercoat it. I chose a color called "Brown Grey" and it was ready to pick up that very afternoon! It just goes to show how durable steel frames are, even after all these years of neglect, a low quality steel frame cleaned up very nicely.

4/27/2011 - The 26.0 seatpost arrived today, the final piece. So I took it out for a spin in the neighborhood. The fit seemed to be pretty spot on, the drivetrain was perfectly smooth and silent. The geometry was long enough so there was no toe overlap. This is probably one of the quickest, cheapest, and most pleasantly surprising bike projects I've done!

7/23/2011 - I removed the clincher wheels and put on a pair of Cane Creek tubular wheels. Even with pretty low end tires, it dropped 14 oz from the bike. The stickers on the wheels looking a little too much, so I'll probably remove those soon, so its just simply black. With the lighter wheels, I also decided to go with a cog with one less tooth.

1/2/2014 - I put on a Selle Anatomica saddle today, gained a hefty 11 oz. from just the saddle alone, lets see how I like it.

8/17/2014 - Wasn't too crazy about the Selle Anatomica, so I put the SLR back on. Instead of the silver seatpost that I had (345g), I put on a black one (295g) to better match the rest of the components. So I dropped 13 oz. down to a overall weight of 21 lbs even.

6/4/2016 - The rear tire had developed a slow leak and I had a pretty cheap tire up front, so I installed a fresh new pair of Continental Sprinter tubulars.

9/3/2016 - Its been over seven years since I've been to a velodrome. So lately I've been itching to go back to the Hellyer Velodrome, but I didn't have a suitable bike to take, so I decided to make a few mods to the Alpine Sport. I installed a new stem and handlebar with no brakes, then I raised the gearing to 85.4 gear inches. To use the larger chainring, I had to install a shorter bottom bracket to keep the chainline aligned. Overall I dropped 8 oz. from the bike. I'll go ride it around locally to make any final tweaks before I trek down to San Jose.

Here are the specs:

Frame: Sakae Ringyo (SR) Alpine Sport, 55cm virtual height, High Tensile Steel tubing, horizontal dropouts. Serial Number: SOL 0104. Powder coated RAL 7013 "Brown Grey".
Fork: Sakae Ringyo (SR), flat crown, Tange tubing and dropouts. Japanese Industrial Standard (J.I.S.) crown race diameter, 27.0mm. Powder coated RAL 7013 "Brown Grey".
Wheelset: Mavic Ellipse, 30mm deep, clincher, black.
Tires: Continental Grand Prix 4000 S II, 700x23c.
Cog: Shimano Dura Ace 16t, 3/32" with Mavic lockring.
Cranks: SR Silstar, 52-40, 165mm, JIS Stamp. Date code 80-A = January 1980. These cranks are really interesting, it has a very elegant built-in chainguard ring. The small chainring is a 118mm BCD, which is an obsolete size used by Ofmega and SR. The large chainring appears to be a 186mm BCD, a size I've never seen before.
Bottom Bracket: Tange cartridge bearing, 115mm spindle.
Headset: Tange Levin CDS, J.I.S. size, 33.4mm stack height.
Chain: SRAM PC-850, 3/32".
Stem: Generic 1" quill, 100mm reach, black.
Handlebar: Specialized BB-1 Dirt Drop, aluminum from the Swiss Cross. Although originally intended for off-road riding, it has a similar bend and flare as Major Taylor bars but with a more conventional reach.
Pedals: LOOK KéO Classic, black.
Seatpost: Kalloy Uno, 6061 aluminum, 26.0 x 350mm, black.
Saddle: Generic carbon fiber, gloss finish.

The bike currently weighs 20 lbs 3 oz. The frame weighs 6 lbs 9 oz, the fork weighs 1 lb 12 oz..

The following are OE parts that I am currently not using:

Cog: SOMA Fabrications 17t, 3/32" with Cane Creek lockring.
Stem: Modolo 1" quill, 100mm reach, grey.
Handlebar: Modolo Master SSC, Anatomic Design, grey. 40cm width, 10cm reach, 15mm drop.
Brake Levers: SOMA Urban Pursuit, silver.
Brake: Tektro R556 Dual-Pivot, 55-73mm reach, nutted mount version. This was a tricky one, since the fork only accepts the older style mount. Plus going from a 27" tire to a 700c tire resulted in a brake reach of 65mm. So this is basically the perfect brake for this bike.
Front Derailer: Shimano Altus LT, clamp-on. Date code EG = July 1980.
Rear Derailer: Shimano Altus LT 7spd. Date code EG = July 1980.
Shifter: Shimano Altus, stem clamp-on.
Bottom Bracket: Tange, 126mm spindle. The stock BB resulted in an almost perfect chainline.
Stem: SR, 60mm, JIS Stamp. Date code 80G = July 1980.
Handlebar: Alps Industrial Company Ltd, Road Champion. 25.4 diameter, 39cm wide.
Brake Levers: Weinmann.
Brakes: Shimano Tourney.
Pedal: Steel rattrap style.
Seatpost: SR, aluminum, 26.0mm, 180mm long. Date code D-80 = April 1980.