Hello's all around. I'm new 'round here, and thought I'd share the couple of projects I have sitting around. I'm hoping that the 1970's count as "classic and vintage" bikes.

First, in the summer of 2006 I picked up this bike at an estate sale for $3:

It was rusty and brush-painted, but the tires held air, it actually rode down the road nicely, and I dug the style of the chainguard and crank. I decided to make it into a beach cruiser. While I was stripping the paint, I unearthed enough of the badge to see that it's a Vista, and a bit of internet research told me that it was a mid-level bike at best, so I'm comfortable that I'm not ruining a major investment.

I stripped and sanded that whole fall, but in November 2006 my wife gave birth to our twins. Since the twins are kids #3 and #4 in our family, the Vista Cruiser project has kind of just sat there:


When it's all done, I'm picturing it with a springer fork, ducktail fenders, and some sort of 70's-ish metal-flake paint.

So given that I have this bike sitting in a (ironically enough) diaper box, I guess I was a fool to pick up another project, this one slated to be my oldest daughter's next bike:


Yup, it's a: L'il Chik, and it was my dad's wife's kid's bike. It's uber-rusty, but I'm planning to dip all the parts in an oxalic acid solution that I read about on another forum. It's been kid-painted with some sort of baby-blue paint that I'm hoping will come off with WD-40 or some kind of solvent, without removing the Schwinn paint as well.

I'm thinking that with just some extreme clean-up and rust removal, and new tires and chain, this'll be a nice bike again.

Okay, whatcha all think? I'm crazy, right?

That's a good pair of first projects. Not everyone gravitates towards Italian racing bikes, and that's a-ok here.

The StingRay looks like it is pretty much all there. Could be a real gem when done. Let's see pics when it's finished.

CV-6, when her daughter outgrew the StingRay, they just put it in their (huge) basement and let it sit there. It's all there, plus a pound or so of rust. They're also storing another 3 or 4 StingRay-type kids' bikes that are a bit smaller, a couple of new-ish adult multi-speed bikes and a unicycle. The best part from my standpoint is that my daughter's excited about the bike, and I won't put the work into it to have her squint and say "ew, it's OLD."

Nope. 't would be cool to have those in my garage, we'd get them stripped and to the local powder coater, then either paint the OEM graphics (Schwinn is wonderfully simple) or get some decals, clean that banana saddle, find the chrome under that rust, and you'd have two great bikes for your kiddos.

Good luck, and it's sure to be a fun project. Don't forget bells!

Welcome to C&V! Those are pretty cool, especially the Vista, but the hardest part is still ahead of you: Not in restoring them, but in refusing to grab other projects until those are done.

I've got more than my fair share of projects, and just had a Northwoods tandem and a '90s Schwinn cruiser thrown at me. Both of them need juuust enough work to qualify as projects.

Robbie, it doesn't look like it in the picture, but that Vista is a 26" bike. It's gonna be MINE whenever I get done!

I had my first tangle with that baby-blue paint on the StingRay. It won't come off with WD-40, and sort-of wears off with rubbing compound. I'm going to guess it's Testor's model paint, and I'll need some kind of solvent for it. I need to get it all off, because from what I read, oxalic acid won't remove paint, and won't remove any rust that's under paint.

Unicycle? sigh. I've been looking for a reasonably priced one with a 20" wheel for a few years now.

This one has been on the semi-local CL for several weeks now, don't know if he still has it:
20" tire, 6' giraffe unicycle, $75
https://sheboygan.craigslist.org/bik/796347064.html

I picked up a 24" tire Schwinn Unicycle with the cottered cranks at a thrift shop a few years ago.

Sorry for the thread drift, looks like some interesting projects.

Sounds like a perfect father-daughter project!

i love and live for project bikes and it looks like you got two very good ones. i myself have 15 bikes and four of them are "project bikes". the ducktails sound perfect and i concider 70's to be classic. heck, my black 89 huffy with chrome fenders, fatty white walls and longhorn cruiser bars turn alot of heads, but technically isn't classic. build it up like new or customize it with your own ideas, and don't be afraid to be original.