IknowURider

+1, you gave me some insight once on some British weirdness about a year ago, thanks. I have never heard the word "Antipodal" however. Okay fine, press on...

IknowURider

OMG THANK YOU!!! I didn't even think of this. My local CL has gone Twilight Zone... I could post some stuff that would make you guys roll, or maybe not, you've seen it all...

IknowURider

I rode about...oh...I dunno... 12 miles (hills too) to get a trashed old mountain bike to hack apart and build into a LongTail (see Ultility Cycling Sticky). Great ride . The 'Sonic pulled the trailer quite well.

I then walked it up three flights of stairs as usual, no problem, I do it every day.

Anybody wanna buy a vintage electric guitar? It was owned by Hendrix. I coulda had the white strat, but the one he burned at Monterey looked cooler.

Peace out,
Prayers to those in combat,

NukeouT

Cars<Motorcycles<BeachCruisers<Fixies<VintageSteel<ModernSteel<ModernCarbon/Titanium/Aluminum

dedhed

Speaking of young dudes - I was at Road America last Sunday (SCCA Nationals) riding around the paddock area at lunch In the da*n rain on my 68 Raleigh. As I stopped at the john, and a kid about 12-13 on a late model fat tire Schwinn chopper says, "cool bike". I sat and talked to him for about 10 minutes about old bikes. He's restoring a 60's Schwinn cruiser with his dad.

Sixty Fiver

Curmudgeonly and proud of it.



The amount of knowledge contained within these walls is astounding and the people, not matter their age or origin, and pretty awesome folks.

IknowURider

sixty, check it out, I think I figured out how to suspend the rear of a longtail. (whole 'nuther thread) I'm sure someone else has beat me to it, just wondering if that would make it squirrely, I figure prolly not. Re: my recent PM. Involves a hacksaw, tho'.

jet sanchEz

I am a lot more brutal and honest in the C&V Appraisal forum because I think that is what people want/need to hear over there. I would hate to waste my time on refurbishing something that, at the end of the day, wasn't worth it so I try to save other people time too.

As others have already said, C&V is a very friendly forum that is active and covers many different interests. I wouldn't change a thing...

Flying Merkel

My theory is some guy posts a good condition bike (a Univega for example). Another guy sees the ad, posts his trash condition Univega for the same price. Next guy sees the trash condition Univega for sale, posts his good condition Univega for a hundred bucks more.

Then the guy with the Huffy Santa Fe in the garage posts his bike............

Lenton58 

Comment: You dudes and dudettes in N. America are really lucky regardless of age. There are no Nishikis or Univegas leaning against barns, here. No CL, no garage sales, no land fills with stacks of steelies poking out of the muck. Look at 'Yahoo Japan' someday and be prepared for a shock. And anybody much over 5' 9 1/2" with a normal inseam may as well not bother looking at all.

My LBS mechanic sometimes comes across something cool cuz he is in the trade and has his eyes peeled. Be it a set of decent vintage hubs or a good frame he is all alight and bristling ... as if he just found a mint Hispano Suiza Spad VII parked in a farm shed that only needed re-rigging before a test flight. I can't explain it, I only know what seems to be the case.

On the other hand, head down to central Tokyo — Shibuya, Hara-Juku blah blah — and you'll see more mind-blowing, lugged steel bikes in 10 minutes than Ford 150 pickups parked at a tractor pull.

DavidW56

^ You saying I could make a killing if I load my garage-ful of '70's Schwinns onto a freighter and ship them for sale in Japan?

IknowURider

I met a guy awhile back who found a gorgeous PX-10 frame by the curb . (He was an old dude) . He said he had made some good money selling french stuff to the japanese, He said he made 900.00 from selling curb junk. So flippers if you can weed through the international insanity of Ebay, take note. I'm sure a lot of it is the exchange rate thing too. He didn't want to sell me the frame.

IknowURider

One thought I had about being seen as more supportive (but at the same time retaining your curmudgeon licensure)
is to remember that a lot of good bikes end up not being restored because the owner gets instantly bewildered and frustrated. The drama I've seen in some guys in person doesn't help. "OMG!!! Do you know how long it takes to overhaul a BB? " (look of terror)

I once read "If you are restoring this bike to re-sell, consider that it's going to take considerable labor investment on your part, so that will affect your profit margin. However, if you are restoring this bike to ride yourself, I would say go for it, as you paid so little. You can upgrade the components later as time and budget allows.

This is more constructive, and leans more toward non-violent communication.

Other wise the kid gets frustrated, and the bike gets put back in the hole. And if you are a hard core flipper, don't you really want more lugged frames being seen on the road in your market? Then you can score it later in trade as they come to you for a frame upgrade. And the clean-up work is all done too. LOL.

Lenton58 

Well, it's your coin.

This may be a too serious an answer to a light-hearted comment ... anyway I gotta say that anyone considering such an adventure best get on a plane and visit Tokyo and Osaka before loading shipping containers. Many Japanese people with keen interests become connoiseurs. The inane penchant that many Japanese have for buying anything stamped as Louis Vuiton is misleading. Sure, there are J. wannabe hipsters just waiting to snarf up a steelie to make a fixie so they can promenade around Harajuku or Shibuya. But that could all change before your freighter full of Hi-Ten crosses the International Date Line.

So somebody made a few bucks selling velo road kill somewhere? Well, anyone who thinks that is a comprehensive marketing brief should just proceed with what he/she thinks is best. It's a free market full of chances to get expensively burned.

Road Fan

One thing about the bent fork comments is that photography can make it look bent. The only way to really make sure your fork is or is not bent is to take it off and measure it. Next best is to carefully hold a straightedge next to the head tube with the fork straight and try to sight down the fork blade. Sometimes viewing it squarely from the side can help you see it. But it's not easy. Take all those comments with a grain of salt, but then go check your fork. If you find for yourself a good way to check it, you can draw your own conclusion, and then you'll know better than anyone else does.

My apologies to all of the newbies young and old who might feel talked down to - that is not my intention. I learned a lot about bikes starting over 50 years ago, by taking my own apart and reassembling, going to the bike shop and asking questions, and looking at what other people did. By riding what you modify (just as chefs have to eat what they cook) you learn for yourself what works and what doesn't, and how well various fixes work. Having learned some physics, math, and engineering, I can often see why something works or doesn't. I try at times to offer what I know or to add my perspective to a problem, hoping that it will be considered intelligently.

But this is an open forum. Anyone pretty much can get on here, and etiquete and politeness are not universal in the human race - we are what we are. It's something that has to expected and tolerated, along with the comments of good, helpful people.

Ultimately we're all really just consumers who can do what we want with our time and money.

I don't like to see the assumptions that if it's not built to the state of the art, it's just useless crap. That does irritate me. I love high-end bikes, but 1) they often are compromised to enable high performance, 2) the cost is prohibitive, and 3) components at the leading edge often focus on certain types of operation but do not work well for broad-spectrum use like commuting. My recently-functional Peugeot UO-8 reminds me of these facts. Granted it's useless for racing or aggressive group road rides, but it's wonderful for many other uses. No bike is perfect, and all bikes require some compromise by the rider to use effectively. I grew up on steel rims and Weinmann centerpulls, and they do allow you to survive on the road. Don't feel as good as modern wheels and dual-pivot brakes, but safe riding is possible with them. I and a few other old farts are still here, after all.

But mine has a bent fork, still.

IknowURider

Lenton, good post, made me chuckle. Road fan, I agree mostly. a good pair of dual pivots will outpull, and yes rims have come a long way. I would love a pair of "bulletproof" Mavic A-319's, but there is no such thing as bulletproof, is there? (esp. these days LOL).

I would love to see a pic of a japanese hipster on a fixie. (bonus if its in front of a Starbucks).

Lenton58 

That's called abberation, and virtually every common lens has it somewhere in its field. Lenses such as Leitz, Nikkon and Zeiss have been earned reputations for minimizing it.

My favorite pic of that kind is of a stunning looking girl on a colorful fixie bike posied at the roadside somewhere in Tokyo. Can't remember if Starpukes is in the pic or not. It has been posted on BF and other places. I'll see if I can find it.

Aquakitty

There is at least one young female on this forum as well you sexist buggers.

In my area too it's hilarious to see people trying to sell their rather crappy bikes for huge amounts of money, calling them rare... thing is there is not much market here and the bikes never sell, I see the same thing for months posted over and over. People who post their stuff for reasonable prices actually sell it.

3alarmer

I resemble that remark.

And the reference to buggery is just very hurtful.

Lenton58 

As for bikes I spotted in Vancouver during our protracted stay ... er evacuation ... last spring — the very cream of the crop was a gorgeous vintage machine in campy grupo and replete with drops that belonged to a young woman. I waited for her to come out of the market to congratulate her. She seemed delighted ... perhaps because someone actually understood what she was riding. BC is my home province. It has long been part of BC culture to think that your s**t is actually plated in gold. A Vancouver east-ender friend of mine said that a year ago you could snag boom bikes for just taking them away. He said now people were asking piles for the same things.

I visted the UBC campus, and there seemed to be more boom bikes grinding around there than in the boom days themselves. I stopped one young man to talk to him. He was riding a rather nice Raleigh that needed a bit of attention, but nice nevertheless. As I might have suspected, his Dad was cleaning out the basement, and out it came with the rubble. He himself thought that a lot of these campus bikes were coming to light as aging empty nesters were reorganizing their lives.

Perhaps the inheritors of these old bikes start seeing where a few dinners or some needed textbooks might come from. The notion of servicing them may not be of any interest compared to some badly needed cash.

That was very nearly my situation back in my student days. But, I had started out with a nice Raleigh Lenton at 10 y.o. (the first and last the parents said firmly) and I understood the value of a bicycle. I knew how to service all of it except the SA hub. If I didn't do it, no one else was going to overhaul my hubs, patch my tubes etc.

LeicaLad 

I believe I am the aberration, and even with my large collection of Leitz lenses, my fork is still bent.

sigh.

IknowURider

C and V chicks are to die for. It's usually the young dudes who start all the trouble, the C and V women are actually smarter, as they have far more patience.

Lenton58 

Well I agree that it would be cool to have more women among us. Nearly over 35 years ago when I was racing motorcycles in British Columbia, guys in the Westwood Motorcycle Racing Club were welcoming women to join us racing at one of the premier race tracks in North America (Stirling Moss said "in the world"). This meant having a Canadian racing license and a machine. We did get a few, and they became an integral part of the mob immediately. And as I discovered: in all forms of racing — with the helmets and gear on — who can tell the difference? More evident on bikes perhaps, but my point I hope is well-taken.

Off topic but ... anyway.

Slammin

If anyone wants to wastes $250 on a stupid double butted 531 frame in 60" let me know. PM I'm in Long Island NYand need to clear out my garage.

IknowURider

A good story.