The Bike that Mike built

Koga-Miyata Randonneur
Originally uploaded by iMaculate.

Got a new bike. It's a shiny new Koga-Miyata Randonneur, Model 2005, which I bought at eBay (at a considerable discount) in July. Yes, July: due to the turbulences which beset the life of me and my family I was just incapicitated to pick it up (conincidentally the store, Fahrrad Becker is in Lemgo, where I was born) then, so I decided to have it shipped to Berlin. So whilst all the Apple-nerdy attention was being paid to Apple's Special Event 2005 (more on that later) and all these really wonderful products were being rolled out, me, the Mac-enthusiast was solemnly anticipating the arrival of my bike.


Once I had set the gears in motion the bike was delivered in a jiffy. Picked it up with my son on a sunny morning in Grossbeeren at a the depot of a transport company (my son really enjoyed watching the fork lifts zig-zag through the gigantic hall).


Today I took it out for a spin. Since I had an errand to run in Charlottenburg I took a North-easterly route through the enthrails of West-Berlin (funny how I still have this division in my head) on this absolutely gorgeous day. The Koga felt a bit funny at first, but after a while it was a pleasure to ride. Felt like I was on rails. The handlebar-stem is a bit unwieldy at first, as I have thus far been used to simpler handlebars. But after a while it was nice to have so much room to change your grip.


Ah, yes the title, "The Bike that Mike built". Well Koga-Miyata and Rolls-Royce have two things in common: they both have their products made by hand. So out there somewhere in Holland a guy named Mike put my bike together. Because I got a Mike stamp in the documentation that came with the Koga. Would sure like to meet My Mike bike guy one day. If you are reading this blog tell me how it was like to make my bike...