Advice please
Someone across the alley offered me a bicycle that I accepted. It fits this catagory. My thoughts were for a beater around town bicycle rather than real touring. It will be for my son, who is not a cyclist. 2 miles to work. It's an Xmart special road bicycle, 3x7 so it has pretty low gearing. Shimano deraillers of some sort. side pull brakes are functional. So it is a functional bicycle. He wants it as a flat bar bicycle. There's a co-op in St. Louis so cheap parts should be available. Rear dropouts have eyelets, nothing near the seatpost. So p-clamps or something for a rear rack. I'll take a better look at how the rear brake mounts. I'm thinking something like what Jeffnvk got for brake and shift levers. Currently it has twist shifts which I'm thinking might interfere with the flat bar brakes if I tried to keep them. I've noticed most better bicycles have thumb shifters. My around town has twist grips so I'm okay with them. I'm thinking cheap fenders as well. Blinky lights of course. So! here's my thoughts.
rear rack some way or form.
fenders
"broomstick" hbar
Brake levers
shift levers
cables as necessary
So that's about it! I might even get in under the $100 mark.
Any suggestions?