Bike Boom refurbished bikes: Early-mid 80's Takara Outback

Early-mid 80's Takara Outback we refurbished here at Bike Boom. If your'e not familiar, Bike Boom is a used bike shop in Davis square, on the border of Cambridge and Somerville , near Boston MA. where we specialize in restoring and refurbishing used and vintage bikes and offer professional bicycle repair services.
A nice simple bike, this Takara Outback has a mountain bike frame, wheels and Brakes but 10 speed gearing similar to an 80's 10 speed. My guess, as there is almost no reliable information on the Takar brand, is that this was an entry level mountain bike or comfort bike, way before the term was coined. The Takara outback has road bike gearing which tells me it was not really meant to go on the trails but rather serve as a bike path bicycle.
It also has friction shifters which tell me it was made prior to 1986 as Shimano released indexed shifting in 1985 but only for the Dura ace group.This was one of the most affordable bikes in the shop at $160, we had it for almost 2 months and for some reason it wasn't picked up until today when a nice girl came in, took it for a spin and basically didn't want to check out other bikes. In my honest opinion, a bike like the Takara outback even though it's 20 years old, lightly used and refurbished with a few new parts such as the saddle, grips, cables, housing and 2 new sets of brakes, it is still a better choice than a Walmart type bike, priced similarly or even more expensive. We see this almost every day, customers bringing either their department store bikes (in our area it's Schwinn, mongoose, pacific, and some others which I cant seem to remember) or an entry level bike shop brand such as trek Fuji or Giant (which cost them a hefty $350-$450) and all the cheap low end plastic parts just fail miserably and the worse thing is modern parts are expensive to replace, even the low end ones. When I have to tell the customer his parts need to be replaced it always leaves him unhappy as he already spent some money fixing up his bike but it's still not perfect. I'm always impressed by the quality of the old parts especially the mid and low end verity of the 70's all the way to the late 90's. The low end and mid end bike represent the the majority of the bikes sold in the US. I can say this because we get to buy and sell them all the time. I'm glad it went to a customer who can appreciate a nice and simple bike that has been revamped, is ready for a new life and will most likely be more reliable than a brand new bike twice its price.
Another takara we refurbished in bike boom here with some info about the brand

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Links below for parts you can buy now on amazon.

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Buying parts for older bikes is confusing, as most of the original parts have been discontinued.

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Parts list for Early-mid 80's Takara Outback

Rear Wheel: https://amzn.to/3526DqZ

Front Wheel: https://amzn.to/2RmyIGj

Tires (pavement, light off road): https://amzn.to/2YsSodj (choose 26x2.1)

Tires:(high performance off road): https://amzn.to/2LzPazq ((choose 26x2.1)

Shifter cables and housing: https://amzn.to/38g40ol

Brake cables and housing: https://amzn.to/2DZqPPk