Bridgestone MB-2 Update

My husband brought home his "new" Bridgestone bike on a frigid January day. He was so tickled with the Craig's List find that he tinkered for a couple months, digging in parts boxes, inspecting the bearings and general condition of his new love. Nothing like the dead of winter to jump-start the bicycle juices!

He added bar ends, black and red grips, an old semi bent rack salvaged from when someone at his workplace who was operating a forklift, accidentally dropped a pallet on the rear rack (the company reimbursed the cost), and toe clips without straps (my goofy guy likes it that way.) He sprang for new fenders.

Oddly, he rode it sparingly the whole summer, storing it at his family's camp. He took the bike out for afternoon rides with our children, for creemees, jaunts downtown, or to collect bagels and groceries for summer living. Often when we escaped for rides as a couple, he mentioned more than once how the bike runs smoothly, compared with his old standby MB-3.

This fall he brought the MB-2 home and has ridden it several times to work. While he loves having an alternate bike, he says the extra weight (3 lbs.) is noticeable on the hills. He says it feels more upright also—not uncomfortably so—just different. And he presumes it might even benefit his creaky back. Since the MB-2 is a 1986 and the MB-3 from 1993, we presume there could be vast differences in frames and components.