I've been avoiding this project.
I h.a.t.e. cleaning brakes. These were covered in red clay, sand, and grease. I soaked them in WD40, and cleaned them up. Then I waxed the final product with pledge.

Before (some work already done)



After

here are my precious three...

'76 mb grand record

(before, i didn't even know enough to turn the bike around.)

after (campified)



'73 falcon

it came to me without wheels, stem, saddle, pedals, rd, and brakes/levers. I very much regret not taking a 'before' photo of the whole wreck of the bike -- would've been a great photo.

after


'81 univega gran rally

it was a total rust bucket.

after

it's a little beast.

Definitely not C&V, but done on a limited budget (like all my builds), so kind of in the ´spirit´of C&V.

The previous owner sold just the Gruppo and traded me the frame. So I stripped the battered decals, polished, put on a carbon fork and 2012 decal set.

Drivetrain is SRAM Rival with and SKS Isis BB / FSA crank.

The alu fork was swapped out for a cheap carbon one.

All up I have €350 in the bike, including the Felt TTR3 wheelset.

Before:



After:



Again, apologies for the non C&V content. But here is ´home´to me, and you guys got me into wrenching on bikes, and hey, the frame´s from 2004, so at least it ain´t NEW.



Super ride.

For $10, you can show off those levers properly.

Nice work!

before


after

The Moulden came to me in the fall of 2011 (as a gift) and everyone told me how pretty the pastel blue colour was... the paint was in bad shape but once I replaced the flat bar and stem with drop bars and new controls and installed some proper mtb wheels and a decent drivetrain I rode the hell out of what is a truly awesome bicycle.

But I was never one for pastels and that paint was really bad... so I started collecting black parts (seen here).



Black wheels...



Black crank...



Black parts...



To go on a newly powder coated black frame and fork.









This is what my day started like at 10am.



Was ready to go for a ride after lunch.

One more... with a little colour.



It is almost like new bike day here.

wow seeing the matte black finish up close it looks even MORE deadly! The cable routing around the seat tube is really cool.. I love details like that

Here's my latest "before and after".. 1988 Univega Alpina Pro.. pic from the day I got it, and after removing the bogus respray paint job the previous owner, as well as doing a few other upgrades. It's more like a work in progress than a finished piece though.. drop bars are in the near future

frantik... such a nice bit of work on the Univega.

Sixty Fiver. Don't you feel a bit cramped in that shop?

Edit: I love the flat black

thanks

Before (the paint was actually much worse than it appears in this pic):


After:






Jake

More like agoraphobic.

Before



During



After

Fork's bent.

e: WHOA santé.

Suhweet... 753 frames are pretty uncommon as it was a short lived tube set for Reynolds.

^Be careful, those bears are eying up your bike.

I am generally not a fan of red tires, but the Merckx is black enough that the red brings it to life.

My plan from the begining was to make this bike into something that I would actually enjoy riding. This was really fun, I can't wait to do another. Just a few finishing touches & I'm done..

That has got to be fun to ride.


Before: $89.99 on eBay. I think shipping was around $25. $114.99, I guess.
Rough but not ruined. Too far gone to touch up. Frame, fork, headset, seatpost binder bolt.


After: $1200, of which $750 is wheels. Go ahead, call it a bad deal, but I'm riding it until I die, and the wheels are going with me. Per my wife, the real bonus is that I didn't build 2 or 3 more while I was doing this one.

lovely build.. didn't know the wheels were 750 though you deserve it though


so what's the difference between $750 and $500 when it comes to wheels?

Before


After

Here is a before shot... some will recognize the after which has already been posted.

Doing a little rough shaping...

After... again