Here's the 3 winter bike projects completed. (Except for decals/graphics)
28 January 2010
10 January 2010
Bike 4 – Good Karma
1980something Huffy Champion 10 speed, blue
One thing I didn’t mention is where I got the Le Tour, A friend of mine here in Grand Island is the founder of, Bikes for the Needy, a program that accepts donated bikes and fixes them up for people that need transportation, or for kids who just need bikes!
Sometimes though not all the donated bikes are fixed up and given away, in a few rare cases the donated bikes have more value to sell than give away. How can this be? Well it takes money to make even minor repairs (even when the labor is done by volunteer work) and by selling the bikes with some value this income provides funds to fix up many other bikes! This was the case with the Le Tour I picked out, and an appropriate cash donation was made. There is also the flip side of this situation, perhaps you are thinking, “I have an old bike, but it’s in terrible shape, probably not worth the trouble to even donate it.” It’s possible that your right and the bike is not worth fixing up, but it’s also very likely the bike has many good parts on it that could be used for fixing up other bikes - I would suggest still bringing the bike in as a donation.
That night while working on the Le Tour I went out to an old shed on the farm where I knew my parents had an old Huffy sitting around, this was the bike I planned to cut a piece of tubing out of to make the frame modifications I previously mentioned I was going to do on the Le Tour. When I went out to get the Huffy, I had originally thought the bike was in junk condition, but even though the bike was coated in 1/8” of dirt (ok maybe not that much, but it was thick) the bike had always been stored indoors and some further investigation revealed that it just needed some TLC to be ride able again. Besides not wanting to generate bad karma, fixing this bike up to donate was just the right thing to do, cutting it up for 3 inches of tubing was not! After a couple hours of cleaning and a lot of WD-40, my Dad and I had the bike fixed up and in amazing condition, add some new tires, tubes, and grips and it is probably a better built Huffy than anything in Walmart today! I of course donated the cost of the new parts, my time (and my Dad’s) and this great bike is on its way to help someone out that is in need of transportation!
The Bikes for the Needy program has provided over 500 bikes in the past 5 years to those in need. If you would like more information on the Bikes for the Needy program, if you would like to donate your old bike, or make a monetary donation please call or stop by:
Wayne Cyclery
308.382.4223
309 North Pine Street
Grand Island, NE 68801
One thing I didn’t mention is where I got the Le Tour, A friend of mine here in Grand Island is the founder of, Bikes for the Needy, a program that accepts donated bikes and fixes them up for people that need transportation, or for kids who just need bikes!
Sometimes though not all the donated bikes are fixed up and given away, in a few rare cases the donated bikes have more value to sell than give away. How can this be? Well it takes money to make even minor repairs (even when the labor is done by volunteer work) and by selling the bikes with some value this income provides funds to fix up many other bikes! This was the case with the Le Tour I picked out, and an appropriate cash donation was made. There is also the flip side of this situation, perhaps you are thinking, “I have an old bike, but it’s in terrible shape, probably not worth the trouble to even donate it.” It’s possible that your right and the bike is not worth fixing up, but it’s also very likely the bike has many good parts on it that could be used for fixing up other bikes - I would suggest still bringing the bike in as a donation.
That night while working on the Le Tour I went out to an old shed on the farm where I knew my parents had an old Huffy sitting around, this was the bike I planned to cut a piece of tubing out of to make the frame modifications I previously mentioned I was going to do on the Le Tour. When I went out to get the Huffy, I had originally thought the bike was in junk condition, but even though the bike was coated in 1/8” of dirt (ok maybe not that much, but it was thick) the bike had always been stored indoors and some further investigation revealed that it just needed some TLC to be ride able again. Besides not wanting to generate bad karma, fixing this bike up to donate was just the right thing to do, cutting it up for 3 inches of tubing was not! After a couple hours of cleaning and a lot of WD-40, my Dad and I had the bike fixed up and in amazing condition, add some new tires, tubes, and grips and it is probably a better built Huffy than anything in Walmart today! I of course donated the cost of the new parts, my time (and my Dad’s) and this great bike is on its way to help someone out that is in need of transportation!
The Bikes for the Needy program has provided over 500 bikes in the past 5 years to those in need. If you would like more information on the Bikes for the Needy program, if you would like to donate your old bike, or make a monetary donation please call or stop by:
Wayne Cyclery
308.382.4223
309 North Pine Street
Grand Island, NE 68801
Bike 3 – The Winter Trainer
1980 Schwinn Le Tour, Xtra-Light, 1020 tubing, lugged frame.
OK, so this is going to be the training bike I started out to build and now 2 bikes later I’ve actually got a bike with no other cause than to be turned into a winter training machine.
I chose this bike for several reasons:
• I already have 2 Varsities
• 3 piece cranks, so no pedal conversion issue.
• It’s a lot lighter
• Center pull brakes that are a lot heavier duty
• Still not a valuable frame that I’m afraid to “ruin” by making modifications to it.
While I want to keep some vintage appeal to this bike, that plan is only for keeping the cost down and ensuring I’m never afraid to take it out into the mud, snow, salt, rain, etc…
Frame modifications:
• Brazed on 2 sets of water bottle bosses, one on the down tube and the other on the seat tube.
• Widen rear drop outs from 120mm to 130mm to accept 8/9 speed hubs.
• Modify rear brake hanger to fit wider spacing for 700c rims
• Remove kickstand bracket and replace with tubing
• Powdercoat -Sparkle Blue Sky, I just liked this color, no way I was going to paint the bike silver again.
The best part of this frameset is that it was made in the USA, I really got lucky and got one of the two years that Schwinn made the Le Tours in Chicago (1979 and 1980)! I didn’t actually know this when I picked out the bike. Great fit for keeping my bike collection all Made in the USA.
Now another issue, many Varsity owners have found out about this problem also, I haven’t ran into this yet because I left the stock stems on the two previous bikes. The stem on this bike is 0.833” or 21.1mm (same as the Varsities), no one makes this size anymore, and finding a different stem length or angle would be darn near impossible. Since this is a training bike I need the geometry to be as close as possible to ideal for me! So handler position has to be modified. Here’s the solution: The next closest size stem is 22.2mm, still not easy to find parts for, but there is an adapter available to use threadless 1 1/8” stems, which is today’s standard. So all I need to do is machine this adapter down from 22.2 to 21.1mm, and since I have access to a lathe, so this is a really an easy modification, and with this adapter created any stem length/angle is now available!
One thing that wasn’t a problem is the seatpost, the seatpost is a 25.4mm (or 1”) on this bike with a thin adapter to fit the 26.2mm seat tube. 26.2mm while not standard is still available today.
I had an old Xero wheelset sitting around and to still use the old chain and shifting system, I installed a 7 speed cassette (with spacers) and voila two more gears on the non-indexing stem shifters! (Well, actually it would be 4 more gears since Schwinn counted all the possible gear combinations when calling this a 10 speed, so now its a 14 speed).
Bike 2 - Schwinn Varsity Single Speed
1974 Schwinn Varsity – Lightweight, 10 Speeds, Campus Green – Conversion to single speed while keeping the original vintage look and feel of the bike.
This project was added when I bought a second Varsity for the hubs. My original plan was to relace 700c rims onto the vintage hubs. I wanted to do this so I could have all options available for tires, primarily the cyclocross tire option! In a strange twist of events after we finished relacing the wheels from the standard Schwinn 4 cross to new DT SS spokes in a 3 cross (36 hole) pattern, using what we thought were 700c rims, it turns out the rims were mis-labeled and were actually 27 inch. We could have torn this wheel set down and got new rims, but instead it only seemed right to just go ahead and use these wheels on this bike instead of the training bike I was originally slating these for. Michelin makes a nice smooth street tire in 27” and these along with some new tubes were installed.
The frameset had a few minor modifications:
• Brazed on 2 sets of water bottle bosses, one on the down tube and the other on the seat tube.
• Removed all the shifter cable brackets.
• Powdercoat -Sparkle Granny Smith, similar color to original green
Several challenges come about when wanting to keep/reuse as many original parts as possible. The most significant was my desire to keep the 1-piece Astabula crankset, however I did not want to keep the stock pedals, I wanted a clipless options. This presented the problem that 1 piece cranks only have ½”-20 threads, whereas all of today’s clipless pedals are made to fit 3 piece cranks with 9/16” -20 threads. Here’s the solution: I bought a standard combo spd clipless/platform pedal, these combo pedals are made by intro level (cheap) parts suppliers like Wellgo or Suntour, these were of course 9/16 thread, then I bought some ½ platform only pedals of a similar style and manufacturer. If you know anything about manufacturing (especially when you want the parts to be cheap) you design things to use common parts! So it was no surprise when I pulled the axes out of each pedal and they were the same except for the threading! Swapped the axles problem solved!
I’m sure I’ll get booed by the fixed gear crowd here; next I removed the 5 speed external cassette and replaced it with a single 16 free wheel gear. The gear ratio ends up being 39-16, this is because I am keeping the stock front (small) chain ring and 16 is as small as I could get on the back, overall not a bad combo, considering the tires are 27 inch.
Another interesting vintage appeal to the bike is that I kept the rear wheel “pie plate” (spoke chain guard) if you thought that chrome plate was huge before, it’s really big now that there is only a lonely (and small) single gear back there!
This project was added when I bought a second Varsity for the hubs. My original plan was to relace 700c rims onto the vintage hubs. I wanted to do this so I could have all options available for tires, primarily the cyclocross tire option! In a strange twist of events after we finished relacing the wheels from the standard Schwinn 4 cross to new DT SS spokes in a 3 cross (36 hole) pattern, using what we thought were 700c rims, it turns out the rims were mis-labeled and were actually 27 inch. We could have torn this wheel set down and got new rims, but instead it only seemed right to just go ahead and use these wheels on this bike instead of the training bike I was originally slating these for. Michelin makes a nice smooth street tire in 27” and these along with some new tubes were installed.
The frameset had a few minor modifications:
• Brazed on 2 sets of water bottle bosses, one on the down tube and the other on the seat tube.
• Removed all the shifter cable brackets.
• Powdercoat -Sparkle Granny Smith, similar color to original green
Several challenges come about when wanting to keep/reuse as many original parts as possible. The most significant was my desire to keep the 1-piece Astabula crankset, however I did not want to keep the stock pedals, I wanted a clipless options. This presented the problem that 1 piece cranks only have ½”-20 threads, whereas all of today’s clipless pedals are made to fit 3 piece cranks with 9/16” -20 threads. Here’s the solution: I bought a standard combo spd clipless/platform pedal, these combo pedals are made by intro level (cheap) parts suppliers like Wellgo or Suntour, these were of course 9/16 thread, then I bought some ½ platform only pedals of a similar style and manufacturer. If you know anything about manufacturing (especially when you want the parts to be cheap) you design things to use common parts! So it was no surprise when I pulled the axes out of each pedal and they were the same except for the threading! Swapped the axles problem solved!
I’m sure I’ll get booed by the fixed gear crowd here; next I removed the 5 speed external cassette and replaced it with a single 16 free wheel gear. The gear ratio ends up being 39-16, this is because I am keeping the stock front (small) chain ring and 16 is as small as I could get on the back, overall not a bad combo, considering the tires are 27 inch.
Another interesting vintage appeal to the bike is that I kept the rear wheel “pie plate” (spoke chain guard) if you thought that chrome plate was huge before, it’s really big now that there is only a lonely (and small) single gear back there!
Update: Bike 1 – The Vintage Rebuild
Bike 1 – The Vintage Rebuild
1973 Schwinn Varsity – Lightweight, 10 Speeds, Lemon Yellow
This bike is being restored to an original vintage condition. It is really the simplest project of all of them. The bike was in excellent condition when I bought it and while my original plan was to build a training bike, it would have been a tragedy to not restore this one to original. Tragedy is a bit of an overstatement as there are tons of these bikes still around and they really have no collector value, but still restoring it to vintage condition has been a fun project and makes for a unique bike today.
Due to the availability of parts I have accessorized this bike to the max! All are “Schwinn Approved” accessories:
• Seat bag
• Union 6v, 3watt head and tail light dynamo system
• Rear rack
• Chrome fenders
• Quick release front wheel
Other original parts I scavenged up for this bike include:
• Front (white) and rear (red) Cateye reflectors
• Front (orange) and rear (red) Cateye spoke reflectors
• NOS yellow handlebar tape with chrome end plugs
• Still pliable (mostly) Panasonic 27” tires
Headset and BB bearings were removed, cleaned, and regreased, new bearings and axles were installed in the hubs (made in France), frame was cleaned, even the pedals were taken apart and regreased. All chrome was sparkled up with 0000 steel wool, new brakepads, new cables (kept the original housing though), and readjusted everything!
Although the paint shows some age, the decals are in good condition and overall the bike looks great!
1973 Schwinn Varsity – Lightweight, 10 Speeds, Lemon Yellow
This bike is being restored to an original vintage condition. It is really the simplest project of all of them. The bike was in excellent condition when I bought it and while my original plan was to build a training bike, it would have been a tragedy to not restore this one to original. Tragedy is a bit of an overstatement as there are tons of these bikes still around and they really have no collector value, but still restoring it to vintage condition has been a fun project and makes for a unique bike today.
Due to the availability of parts I have accessorized this bike to the max! All are “Schwinn Approved” accessories:
• Seat bag
• Union 6v, 3watt head and tail light dynamo system
• Rear rack
• Chrome fenders
• Quick release front wheel
Other original parts I scavenged up for this bike include:
• Front (white) and rear (red) Cateye reflectors
• Front (orange) and rear (red) Cateye spoke reflectors
• NOS yellow handlebar tape with chrome end plugs
• Still pliable (mostly) Panasonic 27” tires
Headset and BB bearings were removed, cleaned, and regreased, new bearings and axles were installed in the hubs (made in France), frame was cleaned, even the pedals were taken apart and regreased. All chrome was sparkled up with 0000 steel wool, new brakepads, new cables (kept the original housing though), and readjusted everything!
Although the paint shows some age, the decals are in good condition and overall the bike looks great!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
