Sam sent in his 1990s Novara Corsa road bike for this week’s Readers’ Rides, built with a 1×8 drivetrain and plenty of beausage. Let’s check it out below!

Thanks so much for giving us readers a chance to share our rides. My photography skills don’t match my love for this bike but I figured I’d send it in anyway.

The Corsa started life as a frame that my dad found for me at the Boise Bicycle Project. Throughout college it evolved through many forms, spending most of its time as a rack-n’-pannier touring bike that I used for island-hopping in the San Juans. In recent years it’s settled into (I think) its final form as a country road rambler/lite gravel/coffee ride bike.

I’ve never been able to find much info on the frame, but it’s lugged Tange construction with white paint that I can never keep clean and graphics that remind me of a pizza box.

The drivetrain is a 1×8 setup- the cranks are old 105 that came off of a bike that was ditched in our college garage, spinning on a Phil Wood bottom bracket that came on a Craigslist frame. A Shimano bar-end friction shifts a Claris derailleur, with a Wolf Tooth Roadlink letting it clear the Sunrace 11-40 8 speed cassette. The Problem Solvers chain guide was a recent addition after a particularly bad dropped chain and crash.

The cockpit (minus the Soma bars) was scrounged from dad’s parts bin. I especially dig the fluted seatpost. The wheels are my buddy’s old trainer wheels. Cheap Tektro cantis work great year after year. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge but it fits like a glove.

Hope you like it!

We’d like to thank all of you who have submitted Readers Rides builds to be shared over here. The response has been incredible and we have so many to share over the next few months. Feel free to submit your bike, listing details, components, and other information. You can also include a portrait of yourself with your bike and your Instagram account! Please, shoot landscape-orientation photos, not portrait. Thanks!