Oops, now what do I do make itchy trigger finger lemonaide?
Sometimes I KNOW I have a problem. Today my itchy trigger finger made a bad decision. I was cruising one of my usual thrifts at lunch and spotted a Schwinn WorldTourist(made by Giant, Schwinn Approved) for sale. I pullted it out from behind the huffy mtn bike and looked at it. The bike is a pretty burgundy color with matching fenders and beautiful chrome, tires looked to be in good shape rubber wise. The paint was in pretty good shape, I spun the tires and looked for run-out on the wheels, check, tried the brakes, rear brake check, front brake, uh-oh, missing pads (no prob), FD, check, RD, uh-oh, thumb shifter is messed up. Ah-ha, this bike is also a Shimano FFS, not desirable, but not a deal breaker if I can fix the shifter. This after all going to be a quick flip cheap campus bike after some hopefully minor repair. I spent a few minutes with the shifter and finally determined that it was partially dissassembled and I could save it, so off I went. Paid 20 bucks and as I'm wheeling it out to the car I notice a faint but familiar asterisk '*' mark/lines right behind the lug point where the head tube meets the top tube. There is a smaller similar set of lines behind the lug point on the down tube with just a slight bulge.... Then the kicker, how could I have been so blind, the fork .... THE FORK... the fork looks like the stays of a curly Hetchens, sort of beautiful, but it's not supposed to be that way. Sorry, no pics right now, but I'll try to post some when I get home.
So what do I do.
Option 1.) The wheels are chrome steel, but 27 1/4" so I could use them to put the 64cm Jetter frame I have in the barn back to running order, provided the FFS freewheel can be pulled off and a regular freewheel mounted.
Are the FFS Freewheels interchangeable with standard freewheels?
Option 2.) I can scare up a replacement fork from something I have lying around and still sell it as a cheap campus bike. I don't think the accident damage has to be the end of this frame, I don't see any buckling in the tubes.
Option 3.) Chalk it up as a learning experience and consider it spare parts. ok that part of that is a given. 20 bucks is not too much to be out, this is one of the things that I like about this hobby. There are some nice bars, some decent tires & tubes, a good front wheel (surprisingly), low-grade deraileurs, and some nice grips.
What to do?
What would you do?
Have you made a similar mistake... fess up?
Last edited by BigPolishJimmy; 08-04-10 at 02:06 PM.