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1981 Takara Outlaw

LBS original bike from my hometown

1981 Takara Outlaw.

Growing up on the north side of town, our LBS carried Diamondback and Schwinn. The south side LBS carried Takara and then some high end bikes.

Even though this is not a high end bike, it was important to me to find one and restore it. This was one of the 100+ bikes in the barn listed in the Denver Craigs list and posted here on the Museum Forum.

Original frame, forks, stem, bars, Sugino chain wheel and cranks, NOS black rat trap pedals. I decided to use a lighter blue powder called Egean Blue Dupont instead of the original darker Royal blue I have on 2 other bikes right now.

Also had the bars chromed to dress up the old school look and went with AME tri grips. I had a local artist cut me very close to original factory Takara decals.

Bike really looks great with some heavy duty spoke wheels from 1981-1982, Reproduction Tech III tires, and an original TAKARA label seat (might be Takara 10 speed instead of the BMX seat), but looks good on the bike.

I would really like to find some original TAKARA pads someday.

Great budget build on a bike that I saw many new here in my home town BITD!

Love the true OLD SCHOOL with all the different frame gussets and details!

Let me know what you think!
thanks, Scott (Nebraska)

trktwo · 2009-10-02 6:33am

nice restore bro! you did a great job

mustang6473 · 2009-10-02 7:58am

Last edited by mustang6473 (2009-10-02 7:59am)

mustang6473 · 2009-10-02 8:01am

BEFORE PICS...

Last edited by mustang6473 (2009-10-02 8:09am)

MADDAWG · 2009-10-02 8:41am

Very nice build those forks look so much like LRVs tho and also resemble the Tange 500b just wondering if they werent upgraded at some point . Never the less great job

mustang6473 · 2009-10-02 12:02pm

I took the bike down to the LBS that is still in business and is run by the original owners son. He loved seeing the bike! He said that his dad was coming in to the store and would like to see it as well.

When he got there he was so happy to see that this bike has survived and is now restored close to original.

He was the only Takara dealer in our area. He said the Takara dealerships were out of Oklahoma City and even remembered the sales managers name!

Cool to have a connection to the original bike shop owner and even back to the sales manager for the central US states.

Later, Scott