Ultima Yamaguchi Mixte

 

Hi

A few weeks ago, the bike shed where I volunteer was having a cleanout, and we removed many bikes from the shed. Some were to go to scrap, others to be fixed. Behind a lot of bikes was a mixte frame - I quite like these bikes and have documented fixing  them here and here. 

The frame had most of a headset but no fork, and the centre pull brake on the frame ended up not fitting on my rebuild with 700c wheels.  I grabbed the frame during the cleanout and have been fixing it off and on ever since. I managed to find one other Yamaguchi frame Mixte on the internet, here is the link. However the brand name Ultima seems to have disappeared without a trace. There is a Figtree Cycles sticker on the bike, and I found that Figtree is a suburb of Woollongong  - a large town on the New South Wales south coast.

To get a working fork, I needed to put in extra thread onto the silver fork I had - this was a first use for an oversize tap I bought a while ago and am happy with results. Another custom job was making a rack stay.

Looking on the internet, I found that Yamaguchi bikes are also branded "Record" in Australia.  I'm happy with the results here. The bike will probably be sold for Wecycle, and there's still a bit to do. This was fixing, not restoring - it's to be used and there's been no slavish devotion to using original parts. Hopefully soon it will be back on the road and in use soon. 

Regards

 

Steve Nurse