A Farewell to my Tourists

More Bikes for Friends

I thought I had toned down the amount of bike stuff I was doing when I moved to Pittsburgh, but it turns out I still turned out a fair amount of bikes for friends during my two years at school.

A New 3-speed

Alright! Three post in one day after four months of absence. I used to be a stickler about spreading out my posts but I don't have time for that.

Linda and Gary - 1966 Raleigh Sports

After months of running out of time, some foot-dragging, and dirty hands, this lovely Mr. Mrs. pair finally emerges from their spa day.

2Pake

Behold, my first custom build intended purely for sale, my first entirely "modern" bike, my first bike assembled on film, so to say, and the first bike I have assembled from the ground up in one day, which I think is worth mentioning since none of this came as a kit that was supposed to fit together out of the box. I'm just surprised that everything fit together perfectly and I didn't have to wait for different parts to arrive.

Mr. and Mrs. Raleigh Sports

It's interesting how my bike hobby has been going recently. It seems like whenever I get an idea to build something, whatever it may be, the perfect bike shows up. It may be partly that I only notice when I start looking, but it seems a lot more coincidental than that. Take my mixte project that I have yet to write about, for example. I'd been searching for a while before a good candidate showed up. I contacted the seller and we set up a meeting time. In the meantime, I start buying parts. Hours before we were set to meet, he tells me that he has found another seller. Amidst the disappointment, my search comes to a near halt, but not before being offered a different, better frame by another person. My DL-1 Tourist is another example. Or my friend's Hercules, only coming up for sale moments after he voiced his interest.

Schwinnanigans

The past month has been a surprising whirlwind of activity regarding my stable of bikes. Despite having almost no time to do anything non-school or work related during the last semester, I managed to squeeze a surprising amount of thinking into the mere hours I had.

Surprise! Yes, this is the bike from my Mr. and Mrs. Schwinn post. Shortly after I overhauled his 1964 Racer 3-speed, my friend's dad found a green '72 Speedster with a larger frame that he liked even more. Pretty much a twin of mine, or at least what mine was originally. It was much nicer with a nice original seat and shiny chrome. Anyway, Mr. Schwinn told me that if by chance I ever decided that I wanted the red one, I could get first dibs. I pushed it off for months, thinking that it would be unwise for me to buy another bike. In the meantime, Mr. Schwinn did not find a buyer. 

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.

Roll On, Rollfast.

I was at work a couple weekends ago, making my rounds when I spotted a gigantic bike sale going on in someone's yard.  I returned later to find that a guy who I only know as Victor was moving soon and trying to sell as much of his stable as he could.  As far as I could tell, he was just like me.  He had various vintage bikes, frames, and wheels lying around and crates full of old parts. Most of the bikes were ones that hardcore cyclists and enthusiasts would shrug off as being heavy, crude, and worthless.  There were many old electro-forged Schwinns, Free Spirits, Hercules AMFs, and a few brands I'd never heard of.  There really weren't many high-end frames and most of the bikes were to be sold as projects or for parts.

Found! 1968 Raleigh Superbe

Last summer, I got a beautiful, green 1968 Raleigh Superbe.  

Waiting for "Someday"

In the roughly eight months that I have been in the world of bicycles, I have already come across countless stories of bicycles languishing in garages for years, sometimes decades before hitting the road again.  Many of the blogs from which I acquired information on my bike had reader-submitted stories and running comment threads that contained posts like "My parents gave me this old 3-speed they had in the back of the garage for twenty years ..." or "I just got an old Raleigh for $20 that had been rotting away in a guy's shed." While I am aware this happens not just to bikes, but to many different kinds of vehicles, I was slightly bothered by the fact that people can essentially forget about their bikes, leaving them locked outside at college for eternity or letting them gather dust in garages.  I mean, bikes aren't that small and they aren't cheap so in my eyes, it didn't make sense that people could just let them fall by the wayside like that.  Garages aren't usually that big either, so how could someone just forget?

That was until I realized this exact thing was happening at my own house.

1968 Raleigh Superbe

I just recently acquired another vintage Raleigh free of charge during my spring semester -  a "you can have'er if you can fix'er" kind of deal.  There are a number of cool, old bikes around Ann Arbor and I'm not sure how many of the owners are aware of just how valuable they are.  This one had been left outside for years with its front fork turned completely backwards, twisting the fender a bit.  This bike came with a front fork lock but the key is long gone.  The brake cables were seized up as expected, nothing a little WD-40 couldn't fix.  It turned out all this bike needed was a new front wheel so I threw on a random 26 x 1-3/8" wheel from a decomposing '70s Iverson bike.  Thankfully, the axle was thin enough to fit into the special Raleigh fork.  It was a bit narrow so I had to press the fork blades together a little.  After oiling up the moving parts and straightening the front fender, I discovered that this bike was already in perfect running condition.  The 3-speed Sturmey-Archer AW hub worked flawlessly and the shifter was already at the correct tension.  

 My two trusty Raleighs at the University of Michigan: 1968 Superbe and 1958 Sports