JacobLee 

I meant in addition to having the correct outer chainring. Probably not necessary, though, if everything is set up right. I think the original gearing for this was 51/47/28, or something like that, so I probably won’t bother to find that outer ring. I hit my heal on the dust cap all the time, anyway!



Here it is assembled correctly, missing outer chainring. Could make a funky double with some washers under those bolt heads.

Dylansbob 

Testing the cheap Selle Italia Net saddle. Hadn't had the BL out yet this spring and I'd already stolen it's saddle so it was perfect opportunity. Has a brooks feel, which makes sense since they own them. We'll see how it feels after a few miles.

Prowler 

I've been intending to service the Suntour DT shifters on my Fuji but kept putting it off. "But the derailleurs are tuned so nicely and work so great. I just don't want to pull the cables so I can take the shifters apart. Eck". Well, my brain fart finally cleared today.

"You don't have to pull the cables, knuckle head! Just unscrew the tension screw and ease each shifter off it's mounting. Clean and lube everything and put it back together. There's enough slack in the cables that they just stay attached as they please." Duh!. What took me so long to figure that out? Now they're all tidy and work great. I obtained some white covers lately so I swapped out the black lever covers while I was at it. I'm still thinking on which I like best.

J-Shooter

I bought a well-used Soviet HVZ Meteor track bike made in 1964. After a long trip from Russia, it finally arrived. To my surprise, it came apart beautifully, I have been able to find parts easily and cheaply, and it has cleaned up remarkably well.

My question to you guys- is there any source for new French threaded pedals? I know I should probably re-tap the cranks, but they are cottered steel track cranks which would be tough to tap, and I would really like to keep them original.


​​​

b dub 

You’re going to show us pictures right? 😎

merziac

Good luck, especially finding something appropriate, you should be able to find some old Atoms or Lyotards but probably not track.

I got some Campy spindles awhile back and swapped them into some pedals for a PX-10 to keep the original crank that needed rethreading along with the bottom bracket.

If you could find some spindles, you could cut some Campys down, I actually have a set that someone hacked down.

pcb 

Nothing super exciting here....

I recently built up an NOS '11 or so Giant Bowery frame I bought a while back, mainly for local grocery getting. The Bowery is a tig'd OS alloy-tubed road/track frame. Not as roadish and with wider clearances and lotsa bz-ons like a Surly Stemroller, but it did fit maybe 30mm 700c tires, no fenders. Other than being 10yrs old already, though, not much C&Vish about it, but...

Wanted mostly generic, non-valuable stuff on it, but weakened and installed a Paul Flatbed front rack. The Flatbed is lightweight, pretty neat, but flexy as all hell. It's basically an erector set rack, all the pieces bolted/riveted together, not a weld to be seen. Two of the wooden slats are partially cracked. So maybe not really designed for heavier loads?

Between the frame being a little too tall and way too long for me, and handling crappily with the high front load on the Flatbed, I decided to de-spec it a little further and sell it on CL. Pulled the Flatbed, switched out a few more parts, built it with a single-speed freewheel in place, and fixed cog on the other side of the hub.

For data reference, NYC metro area, northern NJ CL listing, sold for $450 in two days, with two solid leads.

pcb 

Nothing exciting, Part Deux...

That left me without a grocery-getter, but I had an '82 Trek 614 frameset, with decent rattle-can touch-up and intact Death Fork, which has been sitting fallow for years. Since these have a lower-ish trail design, I figured it'd maybe do better with grocery weight handling, and I used a VO Porteur rack i/o the Paul Flatbed. The VO is heavier, but considerably less flexy. I had cut the VO struts short to fit on a previous build, and with only rear-side bz-ons on the fork, the tangs weren't long enough. I used a couple of rack mount tangs bolted on as extensions. So far, so good...

Rear rack is an old Trek that's been kicking around for at least 25yrs.

Still wanted to keep overall component value on the low side, but gotta have a decent saddle for my rear and comfy bars, so an Ergon SMC3-L saddle and Titec Malone bars got those nods. And Conti GP5K 32mm tires, 'cause good tires = cool runnings.

Rear wheel appears to have a genuine vintage Dura-Ace track hub, but IIRC the inner cone is pretty badly pitted, so if the bike gets lifted or I crash up badly, no real loss there. Front is a Campy Victory/Triomphe; rims are Mavic MA40/G40, both prettty worn.

The plastic fenders were sitting in a pile forever, have been on a couple/few other builds, and are kinda short. Just right. I wanted a little more foot coverage up front, and I was too lazy to move the front mounting bracket, so there's not a lot of fender poking out in front of the fork. Decided to attach the stubby front to the rack, 'cause it would rattle, and I hate rattles, so I finally found a good use for a bunch of valve stem nuts that usually clutter my bench.

The mudflaps were standard non-slip stair tread, but the material also had been sitting around forever, and had all kinds of curves/folds. The front one kept rubbing on the tire, and I tried rubber-banding, c-clamping and other pressure torture devices to unsuccessfully reverse the curl. I then remembered I had an oven, and stainless steel water bottles, so I draped the flaps over the long water bottles, set the oven to 200-deg or so, and after a few minutes the flaps hugged the curve of the bottles without stinking up the house. That latter part being the most important, since if I started rubber smoking/burning in the oven, well....'nuff said. I scrunched some aluminum foil over the flaps/bottles while they cooled to maintain the shape, and now they work pretty well.

I wanted something akin to the Flatbed wood slats to keep loose bag straps from the spokes, and also to keep any spray from the shortie front fender chunk off the bottom of the bag, so I used a hunk o' cloroplast salvaged from a weird smokeless vaping product sign my son's buddies planted on our lawn 10yrs ago while we were on vacation. And since I hate rattles, I bolted it down pretty good, because when I first had only a couple of bolts, every bump that chloroplast would reverb off the rack.

The calipers are 1st-gen Tektro 530 maybe? 47-57mm reach, without the little lever lock for the qr mech that the 2nd-gen calipers have. Without that little locking lever, the qr mech does seem to pop open whenever it wants to, or if I breath on it too hard.

The Ishiwata Fork of Death does concern me somewhat, but it hasn't failed all these years, and I'm hoping the rack struts would hold it together somewhat if a crack started. Though admittedly regularly loading it up with 20lbs of groceries is not the brightest thing I've ever done. I'm thinking that if I like the way this works out, maybe I'll replace the fork with a Soma rando fork, which would give me even lower trail. I think these '82s are in the high-40s, so on the higher end of lower trail. But one thing holding me back is the thought that the fork would cost more than what I paid for the whole frame, which I don't think was more than $125 or so. But probably 15yrs ago?

I've done a couple/few trips with it, handles much better than the Bowery did.

Being a utilitarian machine, I gave it the garage door background treatment.

thumpism 

Broke down my old Trek 510 city build in order to sell the frameset to another member. The ad has been running for a couple of years and finally got a bite. This frees up a wall hook so one of the floor bikes now gets hung up. I just need to stop dragging home irresistible finds that I have no use for when I'm not even using the bikes I already have.

eom 

Don't make me report you!

jdawginsc 

...to an otherwise odd Schwinn Link for the student giveaway...have to adjust the saddle up but a bit of red to the silver white blue and black:.. I am a social studies teacher after all.




and the PO had used duct tape around the chainstay to protect it but it was chipped to heck, so a little creative use of electrical tape...

J-Shooter

I should probably put a qualifier on "cleaned up remarkably well", I mainly bought this thing because it looked so spectacularly patina-ed and beat up. The remaining paint looks pretty nice after some wax though, lol! I got it as a pile of parts, and I put the headset together just to confirm the bearings are still in plane after all the crashes she surely sustained.

Thanks for the input on pedals! I have the original HVZ pedals which are unsurprisingly pretty beat up. I will try salvaging them, and then try the axle swap.

merziac

Make no mistake, the spindles are not easy to come by either, if you have the originals, run with that, proceed with caution and find somebody that can restore their worst problem some. Might be expensive and need to be done by a restorer that renews raw material.

mechanicmatt

Been wrenching on my Bruce Gordon Chinook. This is a frame I had Powder Coated by Groody Brothers 10 years ago and it couldn't figure out what it wanted to be. Last year I realized that it wanted to be an Eroica/Cino bike, but obviously things were cancelled and so did my desire to finish building it up.

Last night I got a decent amount of the rolling chassis going and wanted to share. Anyone have a good source for chrome/metal chain stay protectors?



Very funky drivetrain. Sugino touring cranks with 3 different types of chainrings, XT mid cage rear derailleur with a big wheel I found, Sunrace freehub.


is this a Motobecane logo on the rando bars?

Topless68

My current bike project is an '85 Norco Avanti SL that picked up locally. Doing a conversion to single speed, and have been tearing it down, and cleaning up the metal parts. Quite happy with how its going so far. Just waiting on a few more pieces to wrap it up.

what i started with


pay no attention to all my crap in the basement

Needs some tires, bar tape and new brake levers

removed small chainring, polished crankarms

polished the original DiaCompe brake calipers

dedhed

​​​​​​https://defietsenmaker.nl/product/ch...v=796834e7a283

obrentharris 

Very nice bike! Will we get to see it this year at Eroica or Cino?

Yes, that's a Motobecane logo. Someone mentioned recently on C&V that the chrome stay protectors were available on ebay.

Brent

Topless68

Those lugs are gorgeous, someone took the time to add some flair to them, thats for sure. Best of luck in your resto.

mechanicmatt

I'm hoping to make Cino work if it goes. Cino is at a part of the country that I love a lot. Eroica is out this year. I'm as far away as I could be in Tennessee.

JaccoW

Got the Koga-Miyata Traveller in rideable condition and took it for a spin. This was supposed to be a parts bin build but I ended up buying lots of new parts, one of which being an Ultegra 2 x Deore 11 drivetrain with a classic Spécialités T.A. crankset.
The fit needs some finetuning (a shorter stem is needed) and the bar-end shifters are on backorder.

browngw 

Started the long process from "garden bike" to rider. A 1946 Cleveland Welding Company RoadMaster. Scraping off the garden red and iron oxide red.




As found.

Prowler 

No wrenching on my bikes but we made our first interstate trip since you-know-what started. Got to see the grandkids. Spent time with 3 year old Benjamin and his glider bike. My son, his Dad, does not groove on bikes so I took over. Put the foot rest back on so B did not have to duck paddle the thing all the time. Got the R brake working (NO brake before), raised the seat and fit the stem/bars/fork properly for renewed stability. Pumped up the tires. All of a sudden he was zooming along the road. He loves it.

Then taught my grand daughter and her mom how to operate the shifters on their bikes. They'd been riding single speed, my grand daughter on small small all the time. "I'm not going to tell you how they work. Just do something and see what happens. Twist, twist, click click. Experiment, analysis, conclusion."

"Oh, I see. This is great!" Never give them a fish, teach them how to fish.

noglider 

@Prowler, that's a wonderful teaching technique when applied appropriately. That's how I taught my kids to use the computer mouse. They learned in no time.

Dean51 

Removed some SPD-SL pedals and reinstalled the Super Leggerie pedals on my Ron Cooper. Back to old school for this ride.

Dean

0980D757-8EFD-49A1-BAE8-19346D1A8AF9

Tsarge

Pulled her out of an old garage. Huret components and the leather seat rotted through.