non-fixie 

I probably could, but a rear wheel without an integrated brake (coaster or drum) would provide me with a braking problem in the rear. And 20" would give me a brake reach problem in the front. I think a 457 mm wheel set (one of the many 22" variants) would just work. They are used in children's bikes, and the better ones come with a three speed coaster hub in the rear. The challenge is to find one of those on the cheap, as they seem to be pretty popular.

In the meantime I might use the wheels from folder I, just to see how the frame feels.

Good-looking folder, BTW.

jjames1452 

I was going to make a silly comparison of the feminine "talents" of my wife to the "versatile" statement re. the Kona.
That would have got me in HOOOOOOOT water.
Or divorced.
Or beaten.

Italuminium

hehe, don't think it would sit well with ms. Ital either.

BTW, I'm damn close to being done, I only need chainring and freehub spacers, but the neighborhood hardware store and LBS are all out of good alternatives. harumph.

Italuminium

Today, first test ride. About 90$ in, so nice in budget. Now it's off to the 100 km mark!


Untitled by ctjr, on Flickr

noglider 

Clamp it with a very big vise grip. Put a very long breaker bar on the vise grip. Turn.

non-fixie 

Looks excellent, mr Ital!

oddjob2

Got a 2 mile road test in today since the weather broke 40 degrees and was sunny. Feels cramped and the toe clips were a disaster. So I slid the seat back and relocated the toe clip straps to their proper location on the rear half of the pedals. Except for size, it rides smoothly on those billowy cheap Kenda 27" High Pressures and it is dead quiet. Shifts nice and brakes work well with existing pads.

Bholio

Got another ride in on the Peugeot. Up to 42 miles (68 km). Last ride was on muddly trails and it survived. I am really enjoying this bike. Kinda living on the edge with the rotted tires, and so far I keep forgetting to bring tools when I take it out. I have it in my head that none of my tools will work on it. Of course, tire levers, patch kits and screwdriver work fine. I just keep forgetting.

I had my first mechanical problem. The rear friction shifter lost friction so the bike kept slipping into higher gears. I tightened up when I got home, a screwdriver would have been nice to have on me.

I also noticed for the first time that this bike is a 6 speed. Has a SunTour 6 speed freewheel in the back.

non-fixie 

Completed most of the work on the Atala today.

I decided not to cheat or invest in a replacement wheel but to actually try to fix the rear wheel that came with it. Five spokes we broken or missing, another five were loose and I could barely turn the axle. It was also very much un-round. I found a similarly sorry wheel in the shed that yielded the necessary spokes and also a well-used but serviceable (Indonesian!) tire for the front wheel.



The races were better than I'd expected and after repacking them with grade A marine grease the wheel spins pretty smoothly.



After cleaning the rim revealed its identity as a Van Schothorst. Don't see them in aluminum often.



Replacing and tensioning the spokes and truing the wheel took the rest of the afternoon, so the ride had to wait till after dark.

Just needs bar tape:



But the first 25k are done:

Narhay

Just wanted to chime in and say I am impressed with the lengths everyone is going to to save a few bucks and take the challenge to new levels.

ijsbrand

My bid for now, a 1980 Gazelle Sprinter Race, made from Reynolds 531 tubes.

The photo in the advertizement -- the seller did not give any details, beside the type name. It belonged to the first owner:


I had been looking for a frame like this for quite some time -- lightweight, but with a long wheelbase, and plenty of room to mount mudguards and 30 mm Marathon Racers or 36 mm Kojaks. To run it eventually as a single speed/fixie, or with a two speed Automatix/Duomatic, as an all weather long distance commuter.

The seller wanted 30 euro for it, if I collected it myself. So suddenly it was possible to take part in the C&V Clunker challenge.

Optimistically, I judged the saddle in the advertisement to be a Brooks Flyer -- one of my favourites -- so I hoped it might even have been possible to ride the bike home immediately, and get those 100 km out of the way in one go too. [The seller lived 84 km away, along the railway line. So I could have taken the train had the bike broken down completely on the way home].

The saddle turned out to be a Brooks Conquest, that was rockhard, and seemed a bit brittle. So I decided against riding it, and instead mounted a Brooks B17 I had brought along for the ride -- and still cycled the bike home; to get to know its character a bit.

Back there the old Conquest came back to life after several layers of Proofide.



And the rest of the bike turned out to be in suprising good nick as well. It clearly had not been used for several years. So, while the tyres are almost new, they are dried out a bit.

So, bringing the bike back to life, for now, was mostly a case of cleaning. Lots of cleaning.


The wheels demanded the most work. I broke a spoke in the rear, riding back home. And its hubs desperately needed new grease.

As it is now:


Which brings us to the bill:

[table="width: 500"][tr][td]the buy: [/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]new chain: [/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]new bar tape [/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]brake cables & housing[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]a deraileur cable[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]XLC brake handles: [/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]XLC mountain bike pedals: [/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]bell [/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]rear fender reflector [/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]shorter chainring fixing bolts [/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td] [/td][td] [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]total: [/td][td][/td][/tr][/table]

When the challenge was started on 12 February 2014, $ 100 equalled € 73.62 [it is a bit less now].

Italuminium

Nice bike, IJsbrand! I cheated by not converting dollars to Euro's

non-fixie 

Nice one, IJsbrand! Well done.

Rest_assured

Finally found a candidate for this challenge.
Ladies and gentlemen, behold the fantastically named Malvern Star GEODYNAMIC

If you are unfamiliar with Malvern Star's once prestigious but now laughable reputation in Australian cycling, there is heaps of info here- Malvern Star - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Some more photos:



Found this under the bar tape...

Known problems:
Handlebars rusted, but perhaps salvageable. These will be cut off at the drops, for a sleek, snub-nosed look.
Right pedal and cassette stuck, pending further exertion.
Tyres, tubes, bar tape, chain, cables and housing unsalvageable.

However, all other parts (Crankset, derailleurs, shifters, brake levers [probably swap these for some old BMX levers I have somewhere], seatpost, stem, maybe saddle, bottom bracket, wheels [however, spokes may not last long] and headset).

All this clunk was only 10 gold coins (approx USD9).
Work is now underway, updates soon.

turky lurkey

Looking forward to seeing that one restored! Should be a good riding bike after the rust problem is curtailed a bit. Fortunately even after the rust is minimized it will still have some reasonably low end components to give you some extra clunk points.

Italuminium

properly crummy bike, that Malvern Star. Love that colour scheme. Have fun restoring it!

Chitown_Mike

I just wanted to say, some of these "clunkers" are better than my commuter and I spent about $100 on that years ago!

turky lurkey

That the funny thing about this thread. Most of the bikes I get I try and keep the budget under a $100.00. Of course many of them I am hoping to sell for a small profit.

Next time we should have a contest where the budget is like $30.00 or something, now that would be interesting.

4funbikes

Didn't acquire recently, but was given to me about 3 years ago. It's been sitting outside since and the condition has not changed in the slightest.
The go to for light commutes, groceries and other errands.

Bike was free
Replaced the awful metal pan seat with a schwinn "comfort foam" from the 70s that I found for $2 at a thrift shop
Otherwise she keeps on truckin
I'll bet a blow a tube now that I say something!

dweenk

That shifter is waiting to get you.

Rest_assured

Yeah, it is ridiculous. Who thought it was good marketing to paint a bike hot pink with fluro yellow highlights and call it the GEODYNAMIC, to be marketed towards men? Some pretty nice bikes were glammed up in a similar fashion. Imagine if Specialized or Trek released a hot pink racer tomorrow? They would go out of business...
There is a certain charm to it though, and hot pink does make some kind of strangely ironic masculinity statement.

Clang

Dang. I really wanted in on this challenge by picking up this Peugeot that appeared on the Minneapolis craigslist yesterday.



I went to look online for the model, and got super excited when I found this: https://cyclespeugeot.com/images/1981_CFX10_frameset.jpg I emailed the seller, but was told I was second in line. Now I have to go through the torture of seeing this pop back up for a lot more money. Hopefully the lucky new owner decides to keep it to ride!

Lascauxcaveman 

Seriously, what a P.O.S. Almost every single thing I can see about that bike is just plain wrong. Handle bars that are somehow rusted-through? Wow. I had no idea that was even possible. You can't buy that level of decrepitude, or even plan for it.

That is some world-class clunk goin' on there, mate.

ALTHOUGH, this may be the best-composed photo on this thread yet. The way the cracked, dried out black rubber of the sidewalls perfectly echoes the cracked, dried out red rubber of the brake pads is evocative and overladen with pathos. And the rust on the rims juxtaposed against the rust on the brake calipers juxtaposed against the rust on the fenders ... I just...
I just..

Excuse me (wipes tears from eyes)...

Bholio

No idea what it was like in the 1980's in Australia, but that would have worked just fine in the US at that time. Very 'Miami Vice' in color. Men dressed like this in real life, not just on TV.

debit

We call it "80's fabulous" in my house. Men had it good with the stubble and the pretty pastels. We women had to settle for black, purple or acid lime green, and the only thing bigger than our hair was our shoulder pads.

ETA: Actually on topic, now that the snow is melting I'm almost ready to take my clunker out for a test ride. It's also possible I'm not participating in the true spirit of the challenge. At first I was ready to go full metal clunker, but the more I worked on the bike the more I felt sorry for it and just wanted to make it pretty. We'll see how she rides as currently built, I guess.