The other day I stumbled upon a shop that does custom frame welding, repairs, and alterations. I'm pretty excited as it's less than a block from my house and I never knew it even existed. So I've decided that rather than waiting to see if I ever find a suitable (older) bike with horizontal dropouts (that fits my 6'2" body) to fix, I will instead spend the $60 and take in my '79 Kuwahara and have them remove all the cable guides, shifter bosses and rear dropouts to replace them with track style dropouts.
While I was removing everything from her I noticed how nice it actually is (even for just a cheap made in taiwan road bike) not a scratch on the paint, all original decals still in perfect condition. By tomorrow she'll be torched and re-bent to accept a 120mm rear axle, and will likely need a new paint job.
Before bicycles took over most of my spare time I was (and still am) a motorcycle enthusiast. And there are many older classic motorcycles that you simply don't modify. For instance an old Honda 750 Four from the mid '70s is worth $5000 or more if everthing is original and it's in showroom condition, and most people know that it's a crime to modify a bike like that these days.... crap I don't even know where I'm going with this...

I guess I'd like to know what the really valuable road/track bikes are out there?
There are a lot of people in this congested area of the city who ride older Peugoet's, Bianchi's and other vintage road machinery. Usually the people riding them are pretty vintage too, they tilt the drop bars way up and lower the seat as far as possible, baskets hanging off them, rusted chains squeaking along and bent rims with half inflated tires....meandering slowly along the sidewalk coming back from the grocery store... I think we've all seen them. I just wonder if there is a collectible in amongst them somewhere.....

I know some people consider what I'm about to say apostasy, but I say modify, tinker, and retrofit to your heart's content. Sure, there are some true classics out there and if you took the time to restore them in a "period correct" fashion, well, you'd end up with a pimped-out, super cherry mobile. But what could you do with it? Only sell it or keep it as a display piece to be ridden only on special occasions (like civil war reenactments or something). What's the good in all that? Bikes are best when ridden, and if you do take a bike and make it look fully bombtastic, you should promptly commence riding it.

(Full disclosure: last night a stripped the useful parts off a too-small but really nice, good condition, 1965 Robin Hood 3-speed roadster and put them on a much larger, generic Nishiki road frame, creating a weird, 3-speed road bike with 26" tires. I clearly have no respect.)

Having owned a mid-70s Honda 750, I can assure you that ORIGINAL showroom condition bikes are extremely rare- and frankly, for even $5000 for a motorcycle, I can think of an infinite number of other bikes I'd rather own.


If I had a fancy lugged steel bike with Nervex lugs or something a bit extreme in the paint department, I might consider keeping it original- but even then, I really don't want to mess with obsolete complonents.

My attitude is this: better to modify and actually USE a bike than own a piece of vintage wall art.

The real question is how you found a shop that will do all that for that kind of price.

true, there's many other motorcycles out there that I'd rather spend my $5000 on too.... perhaps I was thinking about it from too much of a collectors point of view...

as for taking a perfectly good older road bike then heating and hacking it into something else (ie. fixed frame)... I agree with making use out of it rather than trying preserve it. It doesn't have any centimental value with me, I only just obtained it earlier this year..
Tonight metal will burn...

as for the shop that I found, I still can't beleive it's been right under my nose the whole time...

check it out www.biseagal.ca (actually it's $80 if I want to remove everything off the frame plus install new dropouts)

yah I do consider it, I keep finding frames I'm interested in but I get caught up
in the whole retrogrouch thing.

I don't think that most folks who restore old bikes just hang em on walls and only
drag them out for bicentennial events or civil war reenactments. Most of the folks
who frequent CR ride the bikes they collect.
BTW Raiyn has been looking for a robin hood for a long time, he might be interested in
your too small frame.

Marty

Another way to approach it is to ask yourself what about the bike makes it so special as a vintage piece? Is it because of the extremely ornate lugs? A super-light steel frame that's rare even today? A set of high-performance components? Sheer quirkiness or some sort of oddity? Will your repurposing of it take advantage of that special something? Even if it doesn't, it's not necessarily a show stopper, but it helps make the decision easier if it does.

Case in point, some Eddie Merckx road bike in rough shape or just the frame alone. Should it be restored as a period road racer or would it be cool to make a fix or singlespeed out of it? Well we all know that what makes Merckx bikes cool is the name and the quality of the frame construction. Rebuilding it as a singlespeed or fixed gear doesn't compromise that, so it's a-ok in my book.

yah I got a Trek 770 frame that I'm having this debate on.
The frame is in crap condition, previous owner tried to strip paint off it and its half paint
half bare steel (and no it doesn't look as good as a 1/2 polish Serotta Legend )
I've got a complete super record gruppo to put it back in original condition (its an 83/4 model)
the only thing that really nags at me is that the frame is reported to have been a 7-11 team
training bike (and TREK list it as special team issue). I'd like to fix it but. . . .
I think provenance plays a big part in what to do with an older frame.

Marty

My take, if it's mass-produced and within the last 10 years, it's game. But anything vintage, in my hands, shall remain virgin. I can't do that to an old bike, even, say, my old Motobecane. Only from '81, but it's complete and intact. Who am I to mess with it?

Now yesterday I rebuilt an old Schwinn Le Tour. That I'd hack in a minute.

"yah I got a Trek 770 frame that I'm having this debate on. The frame is in crap condition, previous owner tried to strip paint off it and its half paint half bare steel "



fix it- there is no way you'll affordably restore the paint, so there is nothing sacreligous about further corrupting it.

I have a sticker on my bike that says:

"Recycle: Ride your bike again."

So, if you alter it to ride it more.. then I say no.

Sweet. I'm totally gonna put DuraAce on my highwheeler.

No matter what I do (fix or restore) it gets a repaint.
It will be a rider either way, I'm seriously not into having bikes for wall art

In most cases, a repaint "ruins" its collector's status... so I say repaint and modify away.

I'm sure it's different depending on what city your living in, around here Peugoet's and Bianchi's are everywhere. But to me it's rare to see and old Trek from the early '80's. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough?
where does one find these jems?

It really depends. I have a very close to showroom condition 1967 Peugeot PX10, all original, and I wouldn't modify it into a fixie. It gets ridden rarely (weather has to be perfect), I admit, but it's pretty cool; the paint and decals are near perfect (the bike is unrestored).

On the other hand, I have a pair of later PX's which I've taken some liberties with. I've a 1973 PX10E (I've only ever seen one other of these, even on ebay) that was in rough condition when I found it. I had no trouble doing a sloppy touch up job on it, sticking together a melange of parts, and making it into a fixed gear, which it is very,very good at. Love the bike, great ride, and frankly, restoring it to original parts and condition would be such a hassle I don't think it's worth the bother (or cash). Most of my bikes are Frankenbiked to one degree or another.

In my experience, most of the "classics" you see about town are the lower end of their respective lines; remember all Peugeots and Bianchis aren't the top of the line. But these older works bikes are still generally very nice rides and many of them are excellent fixed gear canidates. I did once see a PX10 chained to a pole, though.

I think what you see and find does depend somewhat on where you live. For instance, in the approximately the last year, I've had the following 1980-84 Trek models in my hands: 410, 560, 620, 710, and 850, all found secondhand, the most expensive 35$. Unfortunately, only the 560 and 850 were my size. Both have been reworked and are riders. But I never see old Bianchis cruising about, or in the local thrifts.

I found my frame on e-bay. Was discussing serial number etc. with seller he
noticed some rust on the bottom of the BB and pulled the auction, sold me the
frame for $25.00
since part of frame is down to bare metal repaint is required.

funny thing, I just found this (through CR list where it was posted).
To me, its the ultimate "why would anyone do that to this bike"

https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=7112753627

Marty

Once again, RS is a frame builder. They haven't mucked up the frame any and there's no reason it couldn't go back to a geared ride should you want it that way, so why not? maybe dude got it, swapped all the Campy parts onto a different ride and decided he'd like to have this be his day-to-day commuter.

I can totally see it. (See Eddie Merckx above)

I started ruining one last night. It's going to be awsome.

About that Sachs on eBay, I'd really like to see if that is actually a Sachs. One quick way would be to ask Richard himself if an all-chrome bike ever left his shop. He tends to have a couple staple colors over his entire collection.

if torching and bending and brazing and repainting are going to get you riding that bike, do it. once you modify something to how you want, you'll probably cherish it more than something in pristine showroom stock condition. i love modifying all of my modes of transport. be it bikes (too many, but i still need at least one more), car (00 honda civic) or motorcycle (72 honda cb350 f0).

having been through all of this before with guitars and saxophones, i strongly concur with trevor that you ought to at least contemplate what it is that makes an item "collectible" or "classic" in the first place. sometimes collector-types just get wacky over an item that really isn't very special at all; other times they latch onto the good stuff (and price folk like us right out of the market - tried to buy a danelectro doubleneck lately?). the only way you can really ruin a bike is by making it unrideable - if you "repurpose" it to your advantage and happen, along the way, to remove some of its collector cachet, well, in my opinion that's kind of a bonus (see toy story 2). you made the surviving items more valuable!

According to Richard, yes its original. He did a few chrome framesets.
(he was asked on CR list).

Marty

just thought I'd update that I got my frame back today.... with new dropouts and various other bits removed.
it might be a while before I paint it as I'm in the midst of moving to a new apartment.... but any thoughts to how how much powder coating costs? if that turns out to be too much I'll be spraying it blaze orange with a black fork

Ncie work. Powdercoating should be between $75 and $100. Otherwise the orange with black fork should be good . I have an all orange rig and keep thinking I should respray the fork black but dammit, it's just such a pain. Besides, I have blue toe strap and a blue Turbo saddle on the way and when I retape the bars that'll be blue too. So I'd hate to repaint the fork black when what I really want is blue!