CharlesC

This is an old but definitely not classic bike I built up from the remains of 3 old Wal Mart quality bikes I got from a neighbor. I'm going to loan it to mountain bike riders so they can see the difference between road bikes and their bikes.
Has steel rimmed 27" wheels that I trued and shod with new Wal Mart tires. Seat was cleaned with Amourall cleaner. Saddle looks new and feels surprisingly good. I mounted handle bars off of a little 24" wheeled dirt bike with reworked brake levers from drop bars. I also used one of my nice spare 5 speed Suntour Perfect freewheels on it.
Now the bad part. This junker rides as well as my custom touring bike that I fabricated and built up in 1975's with Campy hube, Super Champion 27" rims, Suntour Cyclone derailers and Shimano Biopace crankset! I'm shocked. It's very stable, easy to pedal, Falcon shifters and derailers shift without fault and feels very good when riden. I know it doesn't have the lasting power for many trouble free years of biking like my quailty bikes has but who would have thought it would ride that well? I cleaned, repacked and adjusted all the cheapy bike's bearings just shy of play so everything runs free.

jet sanchEz

Nicely done, I am of a similar mind to you and believe any old crappy bike is better than taking the bus...better exercise, faster, environmentally sound and you see more on a bike than you do out of a bus window. I have, to date, given 11 of my friends and co-workers bikes over the years, just to get them cycling. Now, they all love taking the bike over the bus and I am working on the 12th bike just now.

Mariner Fan

Looking good! I probably would have given it a rattle can paint job just to protect it from rust.

jgedwa

Transforming junk into usefulness is endlessly gratifying. You should be proud to be able to do this.

jim

FlatTop

Actually, that's the sort of thing I find interesting...sure, I covet the eyecandy and exotica on display in many of the posts in C&V , but splicing bikes together out of odd bits is fun, creative, and sometimes the results are surprising. Nice job!

So, that's the result of picking parts from three bikes? You must have a couple bikes worth of parts left in the pile. Why not bash 'em together for the hell of it?

CharlesC

I do have a lot of parts left over. I'm muling over the possibility of cluging together a LWB recumbent or maybe just make up another loaner bike. One thing I've found out with these cheap bikes is the ones made in Taiwan have terrible quality freewheels that take an odd size small diameter tool to remove them - or a piece of flat steel bar stock jammed in the splines. Old Huffy and Murray bikes seem to have better ones.