Platy
10-03-06, 07:34 PM
The other thread about carfree people needing different bikes for various purposes got me to thinking.
Lately I've been having some fun getting an old ten speed into rideable condition. I have a folding bike for zipping around in the neighborhood and an Electra Townie for carrying stuff. What I didn't have was a commuter type bike optimized for 10-20 mile transportational rides around town.
Son, who is a roadie, gave me an old Coppi ten speed road bike after he decided he'd never get around to fixing it up. I've spent the last two weeks scaring up parts and advice from five nearby bike shops and the local bike collective (Austin Yellow Bike Project).
I'm not much of a bike mechanic. After a lot of head scratching and trial & error, I have a bike that's starting to suit me nicely. It's sort of a hybrid between a 1970s road bike and a cruiser.
There were repair issues to start with. I bought new 27 inch wheels with clincher rims because I didn't want to deal with tubular tires. As soon as I got them from the bike shop and aired them up, one immediately had a flat apparently due to a spoke nipple issue. I put Velox rim tape on both wheels and upgraded to heavy duty tubes.
The front brake caliper was broken. I replaced it with a similar used part. The derailleur didn't shift into all its gears. I had to straighten out a bent derailleur hanger and adjust the limit screws.
I replaced the drop bars with 1950s era moustache handlebars (I think that's what they are called). That was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. I needed to put in a new stem. The new handlebars required mountain bike brake levers, which have major incompatibility issues with center pull caliper brakes. Resolving the incompatibility also required replacing both brake cables.
I have a new seat post on order. This will let me put a more comfortable modern saddle on it. You'd think seat posts would be dirt simple, but they're not. Seat post sizes have changed over the years. The reasons are understandable I guess, mostly having to do with keeping frame tube outer diameters the same so that components continue to fit, but lighter frame construction means the inner diameters had to change.
I suppose I can put a light and a reflector on my frankenbike and call it good for now. I think I'm getting the tinkering bug, though. I wonder what it would take to convert the downtube shifters to grip shifters...hmm.
I made a similar frankenbike 25 years ago when I was bike commuting. I crossed a Sears three-speed with a cheap "Bicycle Corp. of America" road bike. What a great frankenbike that was, in the sense that it suited me perfectly. Darn, a few years later I started feeling guilty about turning into a retrogrouch. I read a few bicycle magazines and traded in my frankenbike for a new fangled mountain bike, which I did not ever come to love. Sometimes the quality of a bike has more to do with the relation between bike and rider, and less to do with the specifications of the bike considered in isolation.
Lately I've been having some fun getting an old ten speed into rideable condition. I have a folding bike for zipping around in the neighborhood and an Electra Townie for carrying stuff. What I didn't have was a commuter type bike optimized for 10-20 mile transportational rides around town.
Son, who is a roadie, gave me an old Coppi ten speed road bike after he decided he'd never get around to fixing it up. I've spent the last two weeks scaring up parts and advice from five nearby bike shops and the local bike collective (Austin Yellow Bike Project).
I'm not much of a bike mechanic. After a lot of head scratching and trial & error, I have a bike that's starting to suit me nicely. It's sort of a hybrid between a 1970s road bike and a cruiser.
There were repair issues to start with. I bought new 27 inch wheels with clincher rims because I didn't want to deal with tubular tires. As soon as I got them from the bike shop and aired them up, one immediately had a flat apparently due to a spoke nipple issue. I put Velox rim tape on both wheels and upgraded to heavy duty tubes.
The front brake caliper was broken. I replaced it with a similar used part. The derailleur didn't shift into all its gears. I had to straighten out a bent derailleur hanger and adjust the limit screws.
I replaced the drop bars with 1950s era moustache handlebars (I think that's what they are called). That was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. I needed to put in a new stem. The new handlebars required mountain bike brake levers, which have major incompatibility issues with center pull caliper brakes. Resolving the incompatibility also required replacing both brake cables.
I have a new seat post on order. This will let me put a more comfortable modern saddle on it. You'd think seat posts would be dirt simple, but they're not. Seat post sizes have changed over the years. The reasons are understandable I guess, mostly having to do with keeping frame tube outer diameters the same so that components continue to fit, but lighter frame construction means the inner diameters had to change.
I suppose I can put a light and a reflector on my frankenbike and call it good for now. I think I'm getting the tinkering bug, though. I wonder what it would take to convert the downtube shifters to grip shifters...hmm.
I made a similar frankenbike 25 years ago when I was bike commuting. I crossed a Sears three-speed with a cheap "Bicycle Corp. of America" road bike. What a great frankenbike that was, in the sense that it suited me perfectly. Darn, a few years later I started feeling guilty about turning into a retrogrouch. I read a few bicycle magazines and traded in my frankenbike for a new fangled mountain bike, which I did not ever come to love. Sometimes the quality of a bike has more to do with the relation between bike and rider, and less to do with the specifications of the bike considered in isolation.