This was one of the projects that starts with a part.

Last fall I bought a bin of misc old school bike parts. In the bin was a Bendix coaster brake hub. I thought it was a one speed, but research proved it was a manual 2 speed hub. It felt pretty gummed up, so I found some diagrams on line & took it apart & cleaned it up. The parts inside were caked with old grease, but had no wear. I had no shifter, but reading bikamper's posts on here, I just needed an old Shimano 333 shifter, bell crank & a cut down pin. After I picked up one of these from Iowegian in for the trade section, I was set.

But what to build it up in? Weight wise, the hub is a pig. I initially was thinking clunker style bike. I have a mid-80's MB2 that would be a good candidate. But I wanted to keep it simple and only have a coaster brake, so I thought the exposed canti posts on the frame would look bad. How about a road bike? Which one wouldn't be killed by the weight? Enter the Schwinn "lightweights". I found a neglected Schwinn Continental frame at the bike coop that I picked up for a trade. So I laced the hub to a 27 inch rim I had laying around.

I was going to switch out the Ashtabula crank to a 3 piece with the converter kit so I could up my front chainring tooth count, but I wanted to make sure the hub shifted ok first. Come to find out the direct drive gear is low & the shifted gear is high. So the 40 tooth Ashtabula ring works great with the hub gearing. Something about a coaster brake bike looks right with the Ashtabula crank.

Since weight & steel was no issue. I had some old Bullmoose bars in the 21.1 diameter required by the Schwinn headset that I threw on.

This bike rides like a tank and is an absolute joy to ride on. The Bendix hub is smoother & less sloppy to shift than any Sturmey Archer hub I've used. It doesn't have the annoying clicking that the SA hubs have either. I haven't ridden a coaster brake bike in over 30 years. Riding this bike makes me feel like a kid again.

Thanks for reading.