tremolo1965

Equipment opinions aside - well done on the ride! Respectable!

dddd

It's not every day that I see a Huffy in the 24" frame size, much less with a corn cob freewheel.

Good job.

Be aware that this vintage of Huffy is very likely brazed, not welded. So the tubing may not be amenable to tube-to-tube welding as strength may suffer.

My Huffy in the same 24" size (and same Varsity-clone 70-degree frame angles) has yet to be built up. But this effort has inspired me.

philbob57

Agreed. 19-20 mph is more than respectable. Congratulations.

I can't help wondering what your speed would be on the Super Sport.

beng1

Nice, another 24" Huffy, you just don't see them. I did not know what mine was when I bought it as it is branded "Belknap Bluegrass" to be sold through that hardware chain, but the serial number is Huffy from 1973, Huffy would have called it a "Scout" I am pretty sure. It looks like you have your frame plated? I hope you can find a Huffy decal or headbadge for it.

I have oxy/acetylene torches and lots of brazing and welding rod, also a shielded Mig machine, so I am all set for playing with the other Huffy frames I have. Besides making the "funny bike" style frame, I also plan on cutting up a Schwinn crank and welding it back together to make it 172.5-175mm, a length I am more used to. The reason for using the Schwinn crank is that it is more narrow than the Huffy crank, which I thought would bring the rider's legs in for better aerodynamics.

The rear freewheel is a Shimano, I also have a Suntour that is not quite as tight I have used much more, but the Shimano has an 18T cog I wanted that the Suntour did not have.

beng1

I am going to look for some narrow bars and a drop stem for that SuperSport then maybe I will ride it outdoors more, I think a 25" frame is just a bit too tall for me though to be comfortable when laying low at high speeds. Maybe I could get used to it though. My Motobecane I raced 25 years ago was 25" frame, and I used to be able to average 23+mph on it at one time, but I don't think I have that strength anymore at 60 years-old. If my health holds and I can find the time to train well, I am sure I could come up with another mph or two on a standard round-tube road bike. I am simply not interested in riding anything else, and never will be.

bamboobike4

If I did that, I'd have to hear at least 10 carbon cowboys say "just think how fast you'd be......"
Good job.

beng1

Yea, a lot of people miss the point that I like my bikes, and that my interest is in how fast the Huffy can go, not their bike or some other bike. It is easy find examples of how fast multi-thousand dollar TT bikes that weigh the same as a frisbee can go, but if you want to know how fast a real Huffy product can go in a TT, I guess this is it for now.

smd4

You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

bamboobike4

You have found the power position for you.
Once you get up to speed, you stay there.

I can't relate, 100%, but I did "sorta" the same thing in a triathlon, on a Trek Y-Foil.
Fastest bike leg, and I was not, by a long shot, the best cyclist there.
It was a good day, I kept my head down, didn't miss a shift, kept momentum.

It was at least a decade ago, around a lake, in very humid conditions, and the air was just dead.

The speed was about my norm, about 19.7 or so, but well below most tri-guys and some tri-gals.
I've been amongst the same folks, PR'd at 24.5, (again, a decade ago) and maybe I was 7th fastest in my age group.
I actually think they had a lot of trouble with the humidity and dead air that day. I simply didn't.
iab put some "performance issues" in the best perspective; but I won't quote him here...

A guy came up to me afterwards and said, "some days, you just hit everything right."
That includes the Porta-John, in my experience.

Another guy came up to me and said "that is not a UCI-legal bike."
I said "did you see that Marinoni over there?" He walked away.
Priorities.

beng1

I talked with someone who rode a Trek Y-Foil in the TT Saturday, they bought it new and really liked it, and they mentioned it was not UCI legal, they did triathalons. Lots of triathletes are slow on a bike, some of them are good at one or two of their skills, but few are good at all of them. I met four riders this summer so far training for a local triathalon, three of them told me they were not fast on a bike, one I rode with and they were almost as fast as I was but said they preferred to run.

In the TT a younger muscular guy on a late-model specialized who did triathalons blew by me with some authority, then I noticed he slowed enough I was keeping pace with him, then when we hit a grade I caught and passed him back and stayed ahead of him more than half the TT, but on a downhill section he passed me again and I could not catch back up, just kept him in site. After the finish line I caught up with him riding back to the start area and had a BS session. If I had not passed him back initially and just kept my cool and followed, I may have been able to pass him later in the TT and had it stick and may have had a bit higher average speed, but just like he probably overreached to initially pass me, I probably did the same getting back past him. It is so easy to forget the long game.......

beng1

Coincidentally, I recently picked up an emerald-green Varsity that was put out for trash behind a local restaurant, it is a 21" frame though so way too short for me. I love the color though. Am going to try and get it rideable enough to give it to my wife's cousin who can not afford to buy a road bike.

bamboobike4

Most triathletes will pass me on anything flat or slightly downhill, but I'll get them on the climbs. I did a long ride with a BF member, and we constantly passed tri-folks on the climbs, then were overtaken on the flats. As the ride went on, the rollers eventually had us passing them for good. I've been around many triathletes, most of them former runners, and they simply train that way, getting in a good mash on the flats, but changing up the breathing for climbing is not as easy, I guess. Tri-bikes are notoriously poor climbers, as well, or seem to be. I've had a couple and hated every inch of them, despite liking the looks.

Road Fan

That one is just nomenclature: 27" is an estimate of the diameter, and 27" x 3.14159 = 84.8", so 84" is an estimate of the circumference.

beng1

I think I measured from the center of the axle to the floor with weight on the bike to make it more accurate. And I did put up a correction later, but thank-you for noticing. I guess the best way would be to have a helper and have them mark the tire and floor and watch while you were sitting on the bike and rolled it forward one revolution. I think I got it close enough.

Road Fan

No worries!!!!

Mr. 66

I bet you would have gone 20 if you had the 🐯

Free the Tiger

3alarmer

.
...I was curious how this thread could still be active, so I looked at it. Now my neck hurts.

repechage

The thread that keeps on giving or taking
i have not decided

beng1

Is that a green Varsity? A lot of bikes may have helped me go a little faster, but I was just interested in seeing that my 73' Huffy was capable of what I thought it was. There are always a lot of "what ifs" for this type of riding event. Mine were if I had pre-run the course more and known it's several turns at intersections better and it's 5mph hairpin turn-around at it's halfway point, if I had not botched the shifting on one of it's faster sections and shifted down instead of up and lost momentum, and if my wife's snoring had not had me spend the previous night on the couch giving me next to no sleep. But I don't think any time-trial or race participant can not rattle off a number of things that could have gone better, even those who finish on the podium. If I had a 24" Schwinn Varsity from the 70s I am sure it would go just as fast as the Huffy did. I was thinking of taking my green Varsity for a long ride but it is two or three inches too small for me to be able to pedal it efficiently or even be comfortable or safe on it maybe.

beng1

I built up this old Schwinn several weeks ago and have been really enjoying riding it with it's seat as far forward as it will go;




Also, the Supersport in it's last configuration before I put it away for the winter; a darn fast bike;

smd4

If you want to be that far vertical over the pedals, you might want to consider a unicycle.

tkamd73 

Entertaining thread, only comment I’ve got, that hasn’t been made already, is that beng1’s Supersport is not an 87, as he stated in post #162, it’s an 84 or possibly an 85. An 87 would be magenta and white, with Tenax tubing
Tim

beng1

Yea, I think you are right. My SS had Columbus tubing, and I think it is Tenax. I can't get to it right now as it is jammed behind a car in my small garage. If I post about the bike again in the future maybe I will remember what year it is. I wish the frame were an inch shorter, but for ten bucks I will put up with it.

chip.hedler

Wait a minute, wasn't one of the hotly- and long-debated points whether or not the equipment makes a difference--whether (weight notwithstanding) there is such a thing as a "darn fast bike?"

tkamd73 

Hell of a deal for 10 bucks, have fun with it! Here is mine, I think yours is also a 25” frame
Tim