Bikes I Own, Part 1: Miele Condor

2026-09-07

A couple of years ago I went to Japan and was taken aback by all the old steel-frame bikes people were riding around. I’d been into vintage motorcycles and mopeds for years and never once looked at a bicycle. Suddenly I saw them in a new light.

I fell into the YouTube channel Probably Riding, an English expat living in Seoul. His videos are just his thoughts, his bikes, good coffee and seeing the sights. Where I’m from, a bike means a mountain bike and a trail, so this was a breath of fresh air. When I got home from Japan that spring, I got a bike.

Enter the Miele Condor.

I put a quick post on our town’s Facebook buy-and-swap group looking for an older steel frame. It didn’t take long. “I have exactly what you need.” The seller lived on the same block as me, because small town. She showed me the bike, asked for $40, and I paid it. I was instantly in love. After new bar tape and a quick wash, more so.

Some quick research: Miele was a Canadian company, started in Mississauga in 1982 by Jim Miele, an Italian immigrant building Italian-style road bikes on this side of the Atlantic. Cheap imports killed it by 1996. The Condor only existed for two years, 1986 and 1987, and the ‘87 is the one that came with Shimano, which makes mine an ‘87. Fully steel, Shimano throughout, right down to the old-school shifters mounted on the frame. I clocked almost 800 km on the local paved trail that first summer.

This summer, not so much. But I have plans. The paint is a blue, or maybe purple, metal flake that’s scuffed in places, and there’s a dent in the top tube. I’m going to strip the whole thing down and give it a fresh coat, something bright, and a new drivetrain. All of it documented here.

I’m still working out how I like to ride it. Usually it’s a quick spin around the neighbourhood, though I did go hard in the summer of ‘25 chasing local KOMs on Strava. Working on the bike, riding it, thinking about it. It scratches some itch I can’t name, and apparently I’m not alone.