We built the Bad Banana for Cheap Bike Build-Off 2025. (The rules are simple: “Build a bike for under $150. One month. Go!”) We didn’t win the sudden death Build-Off, but we do have this sweet sporty ride to show for it.
Obviously, this is a derelict style build i.e. fully restored mechanically but all the patina kept. This makes for a wolf in dirty old sheep’s clothing. The bike is a sweet ride (it gets lots of compliments from knowledgeable bike enthusiasts) without any real worries about bike thieves.
The conversion technique
This is an excellent example of one of the classic restomod techniques: start with a dropbar road bike with 27" wheels, end with a flatbar urban roller with 700C wheel. On this one we were able to fit 38mm tires, which are an urban goldilocks: big enough to have pneumatic suspension to soak up crappy road surface, yet small enough to not slow the roll.
A repurposed quill stem designed for dropbars often looks awkward with a flatbar; the unified stem-and-bar that is the bullmoose does not suffer from that.
38mm gravel tires and the bullmoose bars make for a really nice urban speed machine that can handle grass and other urban bits of nature. Fenders and a rack make it a Rain City commuter.
1970s Japanese steel bikes
Azuki was a sister corp of Nishiki. Azuki was a West Coast Cycle (WCC) import label used in the 1970s–80s US bike boom, just like Nishiki, American Eagle, etc. Some of the early import kings. Note: American Eagle never made a bike in America :) This was all about Japanese factories OEMing for American businesses, a.k.a. “badge engineering.” The Americans were just relabeling and importing, but that was lucky because we get the nice tire clearance.
In the period of the 1970s and 1980s, Japanese manufactured was being looked down upon by Americans similar to how Chinese manufacturing has been in recent times. For example, when Schwinn started off-shoring framebuilding to Japan, they make damn sure that the Le Tour frames were good, and they were.
Despite Japanese Keirin bike racing being a national sport since 1948, obsessive aero-sthetics had not led to extremely tight tire clearance from a time when they thought 23mm was all a bike would ever need to clear. Those small tire rigs are not worthy of restomodding (some are collectable but not fun ride on real-world roads).
So, the type of bike that this Azuki is has enough frame-tire clearance for sizable tires on 700c wheels, specifically 38mm in this case, with enough room left for fenders.
Cheap Bike Build-Off
The Bad Banana was Bicyclious’s entry in the Cheap Bike Build-Off 2025 — the annual challenge to build the most rideable bike for a budget of $150. After the Buil-Off we rode it for a while (main ride for last winter actually) and can confirm it is a very nice asphalt roller.
The Cheap Bike Build-Offs prove that a good bike can be pulled off for $150. But to reach that number requires excluding all the labor and building with used parts.
All the entries are archived on the web (just enter a fake name and password, competition is over): https://www.wompybike.com/cheap-bike-build-off
The Build
- Frame: sport touring from 1981 +/- 3 years.
- Seattube: 22", toptube: 22"
- Cockpit
- Dropbars replaced with a bullmoose handlebar
- Installed Shimano friction thumbies for the 2x7 drivetrain
- New PNW Cork Chop handlebar grips
- New black silicon pads on brake levers
- Shimano 600 derailleurs
- Wheels
- 27" changed to 700c
- New WTB Riddlers 38mm, great city tire than can handle grass and potholes
- PDW fenders
- Used All-City saddle
- New modern black nylon flat pedals. Pins removed from one side of pedal which with BMX pedal straps makes for modern toe-clips, great for hopping curbs while cargo loaded
- Modern Axios Dreamliner panniers rack, for Ortlieb panniers (not included in sale price)