A really newbie question

[farmall]

I picked up a used bike at a garage sale this week to save a little gas money. Anyway my question is what did I buy?

They guy I bought it from said it was a "nashiki" or something like that. I'm sure I spelled it wrong buy maybe I got close enough that you guys can tell me what I bought.

All of the original decals have been removed. It has a couple of dirt rag stickers on it.

Thanks for any help.

[Rock Star]

Pictures would help with the identification process. What components are on the bike? More info is needed.

(ripped from http://www.sheldonbrown.com/japan.html
As far as the brand, Nishiki was a Japanese bicycle brand, that is know for is use of the Richard Cunningham Alien frame deslgn. Nishiki got off to a good start in the U.S. market, but made the error of selling some models to department stores, which created bad feeling against the line among independent bicycle dealers, and they lost a great many dealers as a result of this. Later, the Nishiki brand became a division of Derby, along with Raleigh and Univega. The Nishiki and Univega names were retired in 2001 so that Derby could concentrate on its Raleigh brand.

Do a google search for more info, but start here first;

http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-115856.html

Pictured below is the 1990 Nishiki Ariel. You may have a different year and/or model.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/albums/nishiki/nishiki_fan_Ariel.jpg&imgrefurl=http://journals.neebu.net/khuon/archives/2005/Jul/nishiki_fandom-000530.html&h=960&w=1280&sz=576&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=8pHLtuspOVbqWM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnishiki%2Bmountain%2Bbike%2 6um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

[farmall]

It has Manitou forks on the front and shimano brakes. I was told he started with just a frame and built it from that.

I'll try to post photos tomorrow.

[Rock Star]

Cool. Does it look like the one in the photo above? Check out the links I posted above to learn more about your bike.