My wife and I moved and I left her previous mixtie city bike in storage, so she needed something for our temporary hometown. I started with a cheap Raleigh Tora that was gently used:



Everything was in nice shape, the frame was a good colour and it wasn't sh*t-kicked. But, everything was steel, she prefers indexed shifting, drops are ugly on mixties and impractical for her use so I did a bunch of parts swaps and came out with this:



The wheels (27" alloy rims) are take-offs from a $30 Kijiji find, repacked and cleaned up. The handlebar is a $20 jobbie from a local shop that looks identical to the Soma Noah's Arc bar that I have on my commuter, the grips are the Masi cork wrap ones (I pulled the lock-on assembly and just wrapped the tape to the bar after they failed on the first ride), the basket is a Wald 139 I picked up from Curbside in Toronto (I'll be drilling the supports soon to get it down to the right level) and the seat is a Donza that I got off of someone on eBay - it's quite lovely, and cheaper and more interesting than a Brooks. I pulled the 600 rear d., long-reach Shimano front brake and the 400cx shifter/brake levers from my parts bin. She quite likes it, and I consider the build a success as people started asking her how they could get one like it the first time she rode it! I hope to get some shiny metal fenders for it one day, and possibly a chain guard of some type as well.

Here it is looking all euro on the street of Europe in Canada (Quebec City). The only problem with this bike is that is makes mine look all trashy: