I spent some time on the $1 Univega yesterday. I decided to leave the paint as-is for now, but there are a lot of bare metal spots, so it will need repainted at some point if I decide to keep it. I am building it mostly with parts that either came from the BOC, or were destined for the BOC. I thought the correct seat post was 26.6 mm, but when I tried it, the post would only go in about an inch, even after honing the inside of the seat tube to remove any burrs. I didn't have an alloy 26.4 post, so I tried a 26.4 steel post from another bike. It's a loose fit, but the ears didn't pinch together when I tightened the clamp, so I guess that is what I will be using. I might chuck the other post in the drill press later and sand it down a little bit. I still need to decide on a stem and bars, mount the brake levers, and do the cables. I did a preliminary weight check (including everything but cables) and it was just over 25 lbs, so not too bad considering the number of steel parts it has.

I wound up having to shave a bit off the seat post for my Ochsner frame. Should have been 26.8 but 26.6 was too small like yours. I had a slightly damaged 26.8 and used a 3M wheel to shave about .1mm while also polishing the post to a nice round and even finish. Good Luck with shaving the post down. Smiles, MH

Cleaning, reassembly, 2nd & 3rd Rides, & weight loss formula

Lo and behold, last Saturday I saw a custom-painted Schwinn Approved something-or-other (made in Japan, might have originally been a red color) at the dump. It was parked alongside, for your viewing pleasure, another, what might be considered REAL, Huffy. So many clunkers, so little time!


I did not adopt either, but I did give the Schwinn a reprieve from the scrap metal pile, during which I harvested the headset cups, tires (27 inch and not bad), a kickstand (to hold bike upright for photos), and stops for the shift cables. It also had an allow front wheel which I will use. The cable stops I mentioned last post.



I used the headset cups to replace the rusted and peeled bottom cup from the Red-Winged Black Huffy (aka Le Huffy).



Since reassembly I have ridden twice more, 8 km and 12 km. The Huffy now stands at a total of 32 km. The 2nd ride was on hilly streets, and the wobbling of the untrue front wheel started to bug me on descents, so I trued it before the third ride. It is now steady. The bike has a really nice feel, and I wonder if the heavy steel wheels contribute to that. I’ll soon find out, when I upgrade to alloy rims.

The Red-Winged Black Huffy, after the handlebar swap, shorter cable housings, and lighter shifter, has shed 1kg (now weighs 13.8 kg). Today, my body weight is down 1.8 kg. When I drop another 1.2 kg I’ll have the green light to further lighten the Huffy.

I love how you are approaching this. Very cool.

I wasn't intending to participate in the On The Road Again Project Challenge this year, but since I got this Univega frame for almost nothing, I thought maybe I could put it together completely from my parts bin. As I began to gather the pieces, I realized a lot of them had come from from the Box O' Crap. So I decided to see how far I could get using BOC parts. I began participating in 2011, so over time I have accumulated a fair number of parts.


It all began with this Univega frame I got for $1 at the Monroe Bike swap. It looks pretty beat up, but it is straight.


BOC parts in the cockpit include the hoods, stem, and the cracked mirror. I found a Road Champion bar with a 77 date stamp to match the year of the frame. The bar tape has probably been reused a dozen times. Cables were salvaged from other bikes.


BOC drivetrain parts include the front and rear Altus derailleurs, freewheel, pedals, crank bolts, downtube cable guide, and bottom bracket cartridge.


The seat post bolt is the last piece from the BOC. The Avocet saddle came from a bike swap last year.

I bought the tires and thread-less stem adaptor on clearance from pre-bankruptcy Nashbar. These tires have been a pain to mount on every rim I've tried. I stopped riding on them because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to fix a flat on the road. Today, I tried the tires on these wheels and the beads slipped right on. The wheels were gifted to me a couple years ago. Every part of this build I had on hand prior to the beginning of the year, so my only outlay was the dollar for the frame. I did a short test down to the corner and back and it looks like a hundred kilometers will be a breeze. If I still like the bike after putting some miles on it, I would like to paint the frame, but that will most likely be after the contest.

Two things stand out to me:

You know, as long as the bike is 'relatively' aligned and doesn't pull to one side or the other, they aren't as bad as people think. Yes, change the seat and the brakes. And wheels. And cranks. And headset. And...and...and...(and I guess this is really a Raleigh)...


Which leads me to -

You have to be careful here, because I found it quite addicting to keep asking myself, 'Hmm...so I wonder how much better the bike will ride when I drop this amount of weight?'...because it does keep getting better, and the cycle seems to go on forever.

The antidote to this is to remember a quote from that other valuation that, which seems to really ring true in my case, something to the tune of...'One man's junk...is still just junk'

The first official ride on the $1 Univega is in the books. I did 20 miles with the local club. I am really happy with this bike. It tracked straight, soaked up the bumps, and didn't feel like a cheap bike. Finishing the required mileage will definitely not be a chore.

Well it finally came out!

Problem is, I haven't lost any more weight since km 32 (about two weeks ago), even though I have reached 74 km to date. So I can't yet give myself the green light to further lighten the Huffy. I would really like to install alloy wheels before I complete the challenge!

4th & 5th rides – 5/29/24 & 5/31/24

I didn’t think the Red-winged Black Huffy coasted freely enough, even though the wheel bearings were smooth and the brake calipers had lots of clearance. I wondered if the old dried out tires (possibly as old as the bike) might have high rolling resistance. For ride #4, I replaced them with a pair of more pliable Specialized “Roadsport FlakJacket” tires harvested from the custom-painted Schwinn-Approved.

Then I drove my car out to a shop for some repairs, and rode the Huffy back home. I made it 16.3 km, almost all the way.



I’m can’t say she coasted any better, but when braking, esp. on longer descents, there was again some unpleasant pulsing. The calipers seem to be normal.

Incident 1: I was rounding the last turn onto my home street, when the front tire deflated with a whoosh. I normally would have made use of my spare tube and finished the last few km, but my loving wife just happened to be driving home from Leda Lanes (Candlepin Bowling), and was about 1 km behind me in her car. She stopped for me and I rode home with her and the bike in the trunk.



Well, the bike was in the trunk, she was driving.

Afterward, I found two small holes on the rim side of the tube. They were about 180 degrees from the valve stem. Not like a typical “snake bite” puncture, the holes ran circumferentially. I thought maybe I damaged the tube when installing the Roadsport tire.

I replaced the tube and inflated the tire when noticed these two bubbles emerging from the sidewall. I always align the tire label with the valve stem hole, and the bubbles were at the same area as the first tube's holes (right after I took a picture the tube exploded with a gunshot sound). Now I wonder, did the Huffy brake pads run through the tire, or was the tire was just weak at the rim’s edge, or had the Schwinn Approved brakes rubbed the tire ?

Regardless, the go-forward plan will be to toss the other Schwinn tire, install two even newer tires, and mount newer and thinner profile brake shoes. As long as I’m paying attention to the brakes, the rear brake cable tends to stick, so I’ll replace that able and housing, the last long cable-in-housing on the bike.

Question: does anyone know what the marking in the bottom right panel of the first picture, “Fits T&RA SS6 Rim,” means?


For ride 5 (5/31/24 -- 12 km) I hadn't sorted out new tires or brakes yet , so I temporarily installed the wheels and tires from a Raleigh Gran Sport I bought in 2022, and off to the rail trail again.

The loaner wheels were 27” with QR front and rear (originally Huffy rear hub was bolt-on), with a six-speed freewheel. The lighter shifters I’d installed after ride 3 were also six-speed, and indexed. But they were Shimano, and the rear derailleur SunTour. So I got to see how the Shimano shifter and Suntour rear derailleur got along. Answer: The indexing did not match. So I shifted in “friction” mode (which I don’t at all mind).

Incident 2: after the first couple of rail trail miles, the rear wheel slid in the dropout and started rubbing the left wheel stay. I recentered the wheel and tightened the QR skewer and went on with no more problems.

Total distance to date: 60.3 km.

Parts installed to date: stem shifters, handlebar, cable stops, shift cables
Parts pending installation: tires and tubes, brake pads

Hope for the future: alloy rims & alloy seat post (when I manage to drop a couple more pounds – stuck on a plateau for the time being).

Yeah, alloy wheels would be great, also to gain access to a nice world of quality 700c clincher tires as well.

EDIT: Oh snap! I just saw your post above! Now you've got a great excuse to change out those wheels - time to get some new tires as well! Got a co-op near you?

This morning I finished the official distance for the challenge on my Dollar Univega. I did it over three rides, more as a testament to my conditioning than how the bike rode. I now have 110.7 km (68.8 miles), but I will probably ride some more before the challenge is over. If I can find the time, I would like to throw some paint at it, so it would look a little nicer for the judging. Paint doesn't count against the total, right? I would probably be using a leftover can anyway.

I think it's unlikely you'd bump the limit with a rattlecan.

Thrifty me definitely understands that a $1.00 build confers a certain aura of efficiency, which I would not dare to dispute. Just tell us that the bicycle was vandalized, and the paint will add zero.

Ride 6 --- trails

In the last century (millenium) (1900’s), I often rode my Miyata Alumicross on a conservation land trail that took me through the woods to the Nashua NH airport perimeter road, where I could cross the airport, a convenient shortcut to and from Merrimack, NH.

In that century, the trail entrance was near an abandoned and grown-over industrial building. Sometime in this century, that building, along with the trail entrance, was effaced by a cul-de-sac, 50+ senior living, neighborhood.

Recall that on ride 5 I'd tried without success to find that trail, on the way home from the auto body shop.

Ride 6 (shown as captured on Strava) was an attempt to find that trail entrance. I rode into the 50+ neighborhood, and found an entrance to some off-road path. Turned out it was not the trail I wanted. But, I rode a bit of cyclocross, made it across some water moving across the trail, and the trail ultimately led me to the edge of Pennichuck Pond.

Before the ride, I replaced the rear derailleur, for no real reason except that last year I just had to get a SunTour 3-jockey wheel derailleur (also for no real reason). Onto the Huffy that went, and it shifted nicely, and is just cool, not at all ugly.


According to Disraeli gears, the design gave huge capacity with a relatively short cage. https://www.disraeligears.co.uk/site...ey_system.html.

11.7 km; total: 74km



Ride 7: out and back to exercise place. 6.3 km.

Steep uphills on the way out. That’s when I noticed my new derailleur was not adjusted quite right, and would not make it out to the big freewheel gear. I didn’t need it on the rail trail so hadn’t noticed.

Total: 80.3 km



Ride 8: 6/8 – new “rail trail” 5.4 km; total: 85.7

On this beautiful Saturday afternoon, my wife and I went to ride the “Granite Town Rail Trail” in Milford, NH. We’d never been there


, and I doubt we will again. Not the typical rail trail, more suitable for hiking. The bike rode and shifted fine, but the trail was narrow and bumpy, and we had quite a few dismounts for steps, hills, and road crossings (including one tunnel). We made a short trip of it.

Ride 9: 6/15 NRRT 11.6 km; total: 97.3

I made no changes since last ride, and went down and back with my dear wife on the Nashua River Rail Trail. Everything is working just right.

I'm close to completing the distance for the challenge, just under 3 km to go, but I’ve yet to lose more weight, and I’ve not found the entrance to the airport trail.

Ride 10: 6/16 Getting lost in the woods Part 2; challenge complete

Got lots of scratches on my legs by walking around through the woods, trying again to find the trail to the airport, in vain. Note: not shown on map is maybe ½ km of wandering in the woods lost, after Strava crashed on me. I gave up looking, and instead, rode to Dunklee Pond, another of my old favorite cross-bike trails I frequented on my Alumicross, pre-Covid. The Huffy was capable enough, except I decided to walk, not ride, over one or two deep sandy patches. I rode about 12 km, bringing the total to just over 109 km.


a few scratches



Dunklee Pond



Trying to find my way out... helpful trail information (?) (!)


Stone walls throughout NH woods…




Question: can anyone identify the year make and model of this car that sits at the edge of, and sometimes in, Parker Pond?

Next: post challenge wrap-up

I have finished my "from the frame up" build, and am now ready to start the mileage. Here is the bike as finished, and it did start as just a F&F. Cost was about $90 due to purchase of correct brake lever parts, and $30 for a bottle of step down ferrules when I could not source one in house.

Flat pedals on and tires aired up and ready to start my ride. A day kind of like a birthday with a new toy.
Smiles, MH

Beautiful bike. I build my 70s blue Fuji Finest with a triple (48/38/28 rings, 13-28 7 speed freewheel) to make it "eroica" ready as well. My bike had been spread to 126 OLD by the PO. These are great long distance machines.

I built up a 1970s Raleigh Grand Sport last year as a sort of rough road/gravel bike. It wasn't getting enough use so I decided to use it as a commuter with new tires, a rack, and I fiddled with the gearing (new chainring and freewheel). The pic is from a trip to downtown Des Moines on the local (flooded!) bike path which took a few detours.

This year's project is a lugged, 1993 Trek 750. It came to me with a bit of a weird set up (drops, short stem, thumb shifters) and a lot of the so so original parts. The wheels (exage hubs laced to very nice Trek branded rims), thumb shifters, seat post, and headset were the only parts worth keeping. The wheels were a PITA to overhaul as the metal dust cap was clearly not intended to be removed. I got it out, bent it, and had to bend it again so that I could get a good adjustment on the hubs. I now have the bike mocked up with the parts. I wanted to keep this as a "hybrid" bike so I went with a trekking bar and 700 x 38c tires. I'm happy with the gearing (46/36/24 rings and a 12-28 7 speed freewheel). Now it's just time to build the bike up. If I have time I may enter another bike into this challenge (a 70s era Mercier 300). The second pic is the Trek as found in the "wild." The third is the build mock up. I'm using the catalog page for ideas in thinking about the Trek build (last pic).

I posted this somewhere else because I lost track of this one for a bit.

I decided to go ahead and paint it tastefully, in my opinion, compared to previous scarier rattle canners. All that needs doing is decals and a clear coat, and the head badge of course.

Then build the retromod and I will be off. Not sure how to calculate this one honestly. Maybe a ruling from the tsar himself @USAZorro might be in order. I paid $80 for it, but it included some extra parts (Cinelli stem, the drilled bars, plus other various and sundry parts. I was thinking $60 for the frame/fork/HS, but could be off.

Just checking in. It has not been a good bike year, we've been working crazy over time at work, I've had numerous vehicle and home repairs and I've had almost zero time to work on or even ride my bikes. I did finally get the Diamondback together and took it for a quick test ride. It doesn't ride like my other Diamondback at all, the handling is very twitchy and I was not at all comfortable on it so I'm withdrawing it, but I will post some pics just to prove I got it done. Not sure what its fate will be now but it can't stay here.

I swung by the local bike collective to drop off 2 frames and decided it was time to make some progress on the 1993 Trek 750 I've been working on. This is a frame up build as I didn't care much for the parts that came on the bike. I kept the original wheels (the Matrix Titan Tour rims look stout and they had little to no wear), headset, and seatpost. I've never owned a hybrid before so I decided to stick with flat bars. I like trekking as they provide multiple, usable hand positions. I do like the gearing I settled on with 36/36/24 rings and a 12-28 7 speed freewheel. That gives me all the gearing I'll need and then some. I'm running Deore DX derailleurs and shifters, a Sugino triple crank, Nashbar branded cantilevers (they must be Tektro Oryx cantilevers) and Tektro brake levers, a Selle Anatomica saddle, crank brothers Stamp pedals, and Schwalbe 700 x 38c Marathon "Racer" tires.

Nice build. Interesting bars...!

Frustratingly tried to iron out the chrome situation and mostly gave up. Some is peeling leaving what I think is the zinc to polish.

I think the paint looks pretty loyal to Raleighs of the day...and came out pretty well overall.

Not sure I will come under the $108 for the cheapie build but frame up I think is a good category for me.



The overall layout

Ughhhhh...the chrome! At least the Campy chrome is nice. And freaking heavy as headsets go.

Like the gunmetal, purple and white accents. The paint was matte but the clear coat gives it a sheen

Not too bad rattle can.

A very rare use of decals for Dave (I don’t re-decal). More on why later.

Drops opened up to 129. Should be fine. 🤞

Sorry for the lag. Got hyperfocused on the Tour. $60 sounds like a reasonable number.

Sorry to hear. Fork rake, tire size and stem length all seem to have an effect on "twitchiness". Perhaps a bit of experimentation could solve the issue.