Nazca #32 from 1999

It was on last Sunday evening that I was doing one of my regular quick surfs over the big web. Those rounds also include a check of if there are any interesting recumbents for sale on Markplaats. Think of that as a Dutch craigslist. This time, my scanning eyes stopped on a 1999 Nazca Cruiser. Price was alright, low, and it needed some tlc. Picking it up wouldn't be to much of a hassle. Why not on a late afternoon, this week? I'd do a full re-build on it and sell it to a friend. So I send out an e-mail to the seller and waited.

An answer was send that same evening, and read by me the next morning. Monday after 5pm would be fine. I left Assen on the 2:02pm train and arrived in Purmerend at 4:46pm. It was a short walk, 2.3km, to the sellers address. The exact place was easy to find. My GPS had found a nice route and the bike was parked in front of the house. It looked pretty good at first sight. Much better than my big ol' Pioneer did was I first saw him. The owner came outside and turned out to be a typical 'bentrider'. Good company and working at a school. He was the first owner and had used the bike for more than ten years, five to six thousand kilometres each year. Now he felt like buying something different. He'll won't stop riding recumbents, he still had an Optima Baron.

We sat down at the table and talked a bit about this and that. He offered me some soup. And you guessed it right, I can't refuse good food. It was a delicious leek soup. After that I did a little test ride, although I'd already decided to buy it. The Cruiser handled fine, and everything sort of worked. The chain was more than worn out and the rear suspension didn't do anything, but those are just small things to solve. Before seeing this bike my idea already was to get rid of the rust and give it a fresh layer of yellow.  I could sense that the owner did had a bond with this bike, which wasn't strange. This was his first 'bent and together they'd done between 50 and 60k kilometre. Just before riding back to the train station I gave him the money. We road there with the four of use. A Cruiser, a Baron and two riders. That was when I came up with the idea to keep this bike stock and to keep it, this bike with frame number 990032. No fancy parts, just replacing what is necessary. That does mean that I have to find a pair of 1999 or so spd pedals...

I watched some TV on my new gadget while waiting for the train. I recently bought a portable mp6 player with build in dvb-t receiver . Dvd meaning Digital Video Broadcasting. As cheap as possible, acap, straight from China. Saves me 45% or so on the local retail price!

Back home at 10pm. The question came to me. What to do with this bike? I felt like keeping it, but my total number of bikes shouldn't go up anymore, six is enough. So, I'll sell the nowadays hardly used Dahon. This will be my classic back to basic nimble tourer. Smooth fast tyres and efficient dérailleur drive train. She still has no name, but I have an idea to base a name upon.

The bike was completely dis-assembled yesterday. All the components are clean and in working condition again. Drive train, rear fender, rear shock and pedals are in the bin. The frame will be taken care of next week. Removing the rust and preparing it for a new coat will take a day or two, followed by two days of painting, and a day of rebuilding after that.

More photo's, here.