1972 Schwinn Speedster: I Think It's Here To Stay

Surprise! Another Schwinn seems to have rolled my way.  This time, it is a 1972 Schwinn Speedster.  My friend's girlfriend's dad was cleaning out the garage when my friend noticed it and thought I'd like it.  He sent me a photo and seeing that it was a 3-speed, I went crazy.

My friend tossed it in his F-150 and brought it to me from Dearborn.  While assessing the damage (or lack thereof), the bike began to grow on me.  It had a 1988 Sturmey-Archer AWC (3-speed coaster brake) hub with standard size 26 x 1-3/8" rims.  Perfect! I cleaned it up, aired up the tires, adjusted the cables, and threw on a new chain.  It ran beautifully.  It was super smooth, yet felt a lot more solid than any of my other bikes.  That might be in part because I don't have any noisy attachments on it yet.  The old speedometer, which is the same as the cheap. draggy one I had bought earlier and hated, actually ran smoothly because it had been worn in nicely.

Gilbert Lives Again!

As a recap, my 1979 Raleigh Superbe restomod had been immobile for about a month due to a broken axle.

Well, the folks at Sturmey-Archer were nice enough to give me replacement internals free of charge.  It turns out the people who sold it to me on Amazon were supposed to sell them as replacement parts for the Torker Graduate (which has since switched to derailleur gearing) but did not specify it.  They told me that my hub shouldn't have been warrantied, but they did it anyway.

Rejoice! Gwendolyn's Sturmey-Archer SW Hub Gets Rebuilt (Plus Some Other Stuff)

Before I go into detail on the good news, there are a few updates I have done to make my trusty 1958 Raleigh Sports even more practical.

First, I bought a Greenfield rear kickstand.  The original kickstand, however strong, did not extend far enough from the bike and was located too far forward to provide support with weight on the rack. Actually, it was barely adequate to hold the bike up empty.  I never intended to use a kickstand while the crate was full of groceries, but it is doable with this one.  5/5, would recommend.  Also, I fit a piece of cardboard into the bottom of my new (used) crate but not for reasons you may think.  I am not foolish enough to loosely carry things in there that are small enough to fall through the holes, but when the crate is in my room, I always throw the rest of my bungee cords into it for storage and the cardboard makes them easy to take back out, rather than allowing them to hook onto the bottom of the crate and demand disentanglement.

1972 Schwinn Super Sport: Updates

I didn't think I'd be changing the Super Sport after I "finished" it last time, but I should have known better.  As I have probably said numerous times on this blog, no project vehicle is ever finished!

After riding it some more, I still think this bike is unbelievably fast even when fitted with upright handlebars.  Something I'm noticing in the photo just now is how funky it looks with its road bike geometry - the saddle doesn't sit as far back over the rear wheel as I'm used to seeing on upright bikes.

Poor Man's Fixed Gear

Well, it ended up as more of a "fixed wheel" in the end, but I'll get to that.

I picked up this Huffy Open Road a few months ago for free, knowing full well that it would not be worth making truly roadworthy again.  It would have to be thrown out eventually, but I didn't feel right doing it immediately.  I planned to salvage the half-decent parts from it such as the alloy wheels and the reflectors.  Before doing that, though, I wanted to give it a chance to roll on its own again. 

A Fillet-Brazed ... Cruiser?

Just like how I wasn't actively looking for a mixte or another 3-speed, I knew of how nice the old fillet-brazed Schwinns were but I wasn't looking for one at the moment.  Interestingly, all three of these things found their way into my hands within a month.

A Mixte!

Almost immediately after discovering my love for beautiful mixte frames, one found its way into my hands.  Someone on the school's for sale website had seen me advertising my own bikes for sale and offered her own Raleigh Sprite as it was in need of repair and she was moving in a few days. In trying to make a quick sale, she let it go for nearly nothing.

Behold, the 1981(?) Raleigh Sprite 10-speed mixte as it was.  The rack seems to have been mounted crooked from the factory, all of the chrome surfaces had rust, and it needed new consumables. The previous owner said she had let it sit outside for a year.