I started commuting to work in May of this year, mostly cause I always wanted to. I started out by using my mountain bike with a rear seatpost rack and a backpack bungie corded to that. I then moved onto a pannier, then lights, real clothing, etc. As winter started to come, I decieded I needed a REAL commuter. One with fenders, reflective material, etc. I didn't want to to that to my mountain bike and I couldn't afford a new bike, so I went into the basement and grabbed this old bike I had sitting down there.

It's a Park Pre Catalyst...I have no idea who that is, since I haven't found any information about them. It wsa a cheap, $300 bike I bought in 1992 before going to college. It was pink because I figured there was less chance of people swiping a pink bike (that and the other color was something like a cross between cosmovomit green and yellow).

Before


So, I went into this with a couple of goals: First was to create a complete commuter bike and second, to learn as much as I could about bike maintenance, etc, while doing it. Over a two month period I took this bike apart as much as I could, carefully storing all the parts to the side. Once I had the bike apart, I decieded to repaint it. Yes....pink is good against thieves...but I didn't want pink anymore. I opted to go for a simple white with black edging, and done poorly to discourage thieves as well (the poorly part wasn't much of a stretch since I am not much of a painter anyhow).

During the rebuilding of the bike I had to replace brake pads, chain, shifters, pedals/cages, all the cables and the stem of the bike (I need more height due to a slipped disk in my bike sometime ago). I had to take the bike into the shop for the stem replacement as I had some difficulties with that and while they did that, I had them do a checkup of it and make a list of all the things I had done wrong. When I got the bike back the only thing that they stated was wrong was the rear derailuer was losing it's springyness and would probably have to be replaced next year (the very top and very bottom gears on the rear can't be used, but that's okay since I never use'em anyhow).

And lo and behold, the bike was completed tonight.

After



And yes, it does have some reflective stuff on it.


I have three more yards of white, and one yard of red, which will go on the wheels when I get some more time to put it on.

Sorry about the poor quality pictures, and the rant about a seemingly stupid project, but since this was my first foray into something this involved with bikes, I gotta share it with someone (my wife isn't much of a biker...le sigh...)



(PS The bike store gave me the old stem from the bike, still painted it's original pink. I have it on the wall in the garage...a momento)