Digital Gee

On another thread I asked what makes for a good beater bike. This thread is a place to show us your beater. Here's mine:

cranky old dude

...and mine, an '88 Trek 820 Antelope

stapfam

Hot Toffee Fudge pudding. Beats anything I have had on any ride so far.

bobbycorno

The fenders are a nice touch!

SP

n4zou

Schwinn World Sport converted to a single speed.

No cables or brake levers cause I built my rear wheel with a Shimano Coaster brake hub.

OH the simplicity of it!

Dogbait

1980 Schwinn World Sport. rebuilt with Suntour ARX drive train, alloy rims and bars in 1984. Added shock absorbing seat post, Blackburn rack and lightweight ESGE fenders a couple of years later.





A genuine 34 pound gas pipe speedster.

CACycling

My '77 Schwinn Le Tour II (looks a lot better in the pic than in person) that was dug out of a dumpster, got me back on a road bike after a 30 year absence and is now my commuter.

TruF 

Love the milk crate!

BCRider

Here's the beaters in my own fleet.

First is the trusty Norco Rampage set up currently as a commuter and errand bike. Doesn't look like much but it's a Tange Prestige frame and it shows in how the bike rides and responds.

Second is another Norco but in this case a pretty basic road frame but made from Tange 5 single guage CoMo tubing. It's set up as a single speed conversion and as you can see currently is sporting some new mustache bars and acting as a place to put my new Brooks to break in. It had drop bars for most of its life with me.

And last is the only pic I can find so far of my trusty Canondale touring bike. As seen here it's being tested for fit in the bag I made to pack the bike over to Europe last spring. And once I figure out where the rest of my pictures went I'll show it over there and all together.

maddmaxx 

Rowan

Bad boy, max, bad boy.

I hadn't realised what singlets meant until Machka told me.

dck

This is what I use as my commuter/beater bike.

BCRider

I dunno.... some of these beaters look pretty shiney and well loved. I'd challenge the use of the term "beater" being applied to any of these. Instead they are older and well loved bikes that happen to have a patina of use.

In the world of motorcycles there's a category for "Ratbike". Sadly it's gone from the kludgey assemblies of folks that just don't care about their bike to carefully orchestrated show peices. But the original rat bikes of ye olden tymes were assemblies to make you shake your head and maybe even throw up a litte over.

Anyone have bikes like that they ride still?

Actually I have seen them. The creaky, squeaky beaters with the loose fenders being ridden to work by guys that lost their licenses to a DUI charge and lifted the bikes out of the pile in the garage after many years of neglect. But there isn't a hope in hell we'll see them posting stuff like that here. Instead we are all burdened with too much affinity to our rides and are doomed to never achieve a true rat bike status.

.... oo... ooo.... I just remembered while typing this. I've got an old mixte framed bike at the side of the house ahead of the garden and construction stuff. I wonder if the wheels even turn still.... Pictures to follow. If nothing else I need to get it out and take it away to the scrap yard.

Yen

That's a beater**********??? Some of these don't look like beaters. I might consider my Giant Cypress to be in that category but I'd miss it if someone took it from me.

Red Rider

I don't have a beater bike.

Billy Bones

Re-attaching my dear old ragazza from the other 'beater thread'. She was a year's-end sale from '92 and to this day and notwithstanding the road bike, 'cross bike, and full-suspension rig is still the most used ride I have. (If you wonder about the magazine cover, this photo is part of my collection of images of my cycling stuff for insurance purposes. The cover identifies the shot as "no sooner than" the cover date.)

https://i450.photobucket.com/albums/q...leTrack91I.jpg

BCRider

I got the old Peugeot mixte out from the leanto on the side of the house. I'd originally picked it out of someone's trash from up the lane with the idea of converting it to a recumbent.

I'm out taking these pictures and the neighbour peeks over the fence and asks me if I'm taking pictures to sell it. Turns out she's looking for a new bike to ride around on. I tell her it's pretty much toast and I'm taking pics for this beater bike thread. As I look it over I get a gleam in my eye and check the steering head and the BB. They seem relatively smooth and still tight. Into the shop and look over my parts stock to find some old 6 speed 700c wheels. Seems like I may have the stuff I need to make this thing road worthy. I lift the seat post up and it's not even rusted in place ! ! ! !

So I take it over to her in all it's dusty rusty glory complete with petrified flat tires and get her to sit on it for a size. She gets on announces that it feels pretty good and promptly rides around the back yard flat tires and all! Great! So now it's officially a beater bike since someone has ridden it

We talk a little more and it looks like I'll be fixing this thing up for her. Who'da thunk it?

BengeBoy 

This is the '88 Specialized Stumpjumper I bought 6 weeks ago or so; the one that you guys gave me advice on.

It's morphing into my winter commuter; I'd also like to use it on some fire roads around here. I think it would make a great touring bike, too.

Bike: 1988 Specialized Stumpjumper; Shimano 7-speed shifters; Shimano LX and Deore drivetrain. Mavic rims.

Changes since I bought it: added Nashbar trekking bars; new Marathon tires; Planet Bike Cascadia fenders; old Brooks B17 and Blackburn rack I had lying around; new handlebar tape; new Kool Stop brake pads. The handlebars are *slightly* too low for me and are too far forward, so I have a $15 Kalloy stem on order that should be arriving any day.

I've got about 100 commuting miles on this so far, and really like it.

If I get it power coated, will it no longer be a beater? I found a place to power coat it for $125, so it may soon no longer be sporting this 80's paint job...

Doohickie

I think all three of my bikes are beaters in one sense or another. The first is a Nishiki Olympic 12 I bought 24 years ago and wrecked in February of this year, bending the fork and frame. I bent the fork back but the frame still look dicey:







The second is a Nishiki XRS Sport hybrid that I consider a beater because it's my primary bike now and I put a lot of miles on it, mostly commuting. And while it still looks new, I do tend to beat on it a bit:



The last bike is a 1966 Raleigh DL-1 Tourist that I use for local shopping. I paid $30 for it, then paid another $70+ for baskets, a NOS saddle bag and a shift cable. It's a beater because it's old, but I like it a lot. It rides good. It's a classic:

robtown

I flip my beater bikes - and most of them aren't true beaters after I work on them.
Sample worst case.

Mojo Slim

I guess this is my beater bike, albeit my 05 Bianchi Eros could qualify, too.


It's a 96 Giant ATX. My first "real" bike. I put many miles on it, both on and off road, before I got my Bianchi in 02. It is still a solid bike, I just haven't maintained it very well. It needs lubrication and probably a new chain and cassette. They have never been replaced. I have been using it for very short trips to the health club and a couple of rides around the neighborhood with Ms. Slim. But I am working on my Bianchi to make it a better alternative. Of course, the Giant OCR is my main squeeze.

Rowan

Those aren't real beater bikes... way too classy.

Now mine is a real beater. Grubby, rusty, a heavy but hard worker and cheap as guts. It's done almost 5,000km in two years taking me to and from work, including 4km into and out on a rough gravel road.

The second picture is what it looked like when I first arrived home with it, complete with rusty steel rear rim. Those tyres did about nine months of service before they wore out.

The Topeak Modula X drink cage was put on last night because we are entering summer and really hot weather, and I need plenty of fluids at work each day. The thermos flask in on top of my lunchbox on the rack.

mastronaut

I just put my beater together this past few days....

Rick@OCRR

Here is my beater bike, a '57 Hercules. At least "1957" was stamped into the S/A hub, so I'm pretty sure it's a '57. It's my go to the store/bank/PO bike, or whatever errands need to be run that are bike-able. Not pretty, but hopefully no one will want to steal it!

Rick / OCRR