Originally Posted by
word_nerd
thanks to those of you who have responded positively after carleton's rather rude and judgmental link. the reality is that even with all the mistakes and frustrations (there were a few), i'm more into biking than ever before! I didn't go looking for some vintage find. the bike showed up on the curb in my girlfriend's old neighborhood, so we grabbed it. i had doubts about its fixability, but the point was just to dive in and see what happened. i am in no position to spend hundreds of dollars on a new bike just to learn how to build it, and philosophically, i prefer to keep another usable machine out of the landfill. i posted the results here because i respect the opinions and insights of forum members. In the year i've been a member, it has felt like a cool biking community. i know that i often look to this forum for good ideas and inspiration and if someone out there saw this, perhaps they would be psyched up about trying it out too.
I (falsely) assumed that your purpose was to make a "sweet fixie", which is what 95% of these project are. I apologize for that. That post was written years ago and my tone in it was very condescending. But, that's how SSFG was back then. Lots of snark, hate, bashing, and NJS mania. "Aluminum?!! Ewww...". "Sloping top tube?! (I just threw up in my mouth a little.)" "HA HA! You have a modern bike!! LOL.". That's just how it was. I hated it. So, I went into the post with lots of venom.
Whenever someone wanted a new bike, the first response would more often than not, be: "Do a conversion"...no matter what you use as a base bike, no matter how much it costs, no matter how long it took, no matter how much you knew (or didn't know) about bikes. It was stupid advice.
I whole heartedly believe that a person can learn more by working on one's modern bike than learning how to build and maintain a vintage bike...which only trains one on vintage bikes. Restoring a '73 Super Beetle does not help me very much in understanding a New Beetle. There are better ways to learn.
But, if your aim was to recycle, then mission accomplished. Good job (seriously). I can't fault you for that.