I turned 40 today and now I have neither of the bikes above but am again riding my “trusty” Raleigh Marathon that I have owned for around 10 years and recently converted to single speed. As my birthday present to myself, I allowed me to mess around with bikes this evening which I haven’t done for several months for several reasons … the net result being that (1) I put the “grandpa stem” on, for obvious reasons and (B) I made a front rack out of a rear rack because I’ve had this bike for a decade now and it’s had braze-ons on the fork for fenders and a rack for at least 10 years out of that decade and never had a front rack on it, mostly because I could never justify purchasing one of those fancy Nitto jobs because I didn’t pay anything for the bike and I also don’t think it’s worth as much as one of those fancy Nitto jobs anyway. It was surprisingly easy to do and it looks … well, it looks as good as the rest of the bike, anyway. Am I pleased with it? Hell yes.



Earlier this summer, when I did the SS conversion, before the grandpa stem and rack

Hack it to bits

Hack hack hackaroo

Hacky bendy joy joy

Um, the struts are straight up and down

I didn’t have to drill any holes or widen any existing holes, it went right on

Looks as good (or as bad) as the rest of the bike