* Pronunciation: \ˈsəb-tər-ˌfyüj\
* Function: noun
* Etymology: Late Latin subterfugium, from Latin subterfugere to escape, evade, from subter- secretly (from subter underneath; akin to Latin sub under) + fugere to flee — more at up, fugitive
* Date: 1573
1 : deception by artifice or stratagem in order to conceal, escape, or evade
2 : a deceptive device or stratagem
Here it is, Subterfuge, the bike I thought to build without letting anyone know what I was thinking, instead it turned into the bike that would be built without my knowing it.
What do I mean? Well it started out as a Murray with the ambitious plan of building it into a dual suspension monster. Then I hatched the plan to use the Murray as a foil and switch out a cool Shelby Hiawatha frame at the last minute. Problem is I sold the Hiawatha at the last minute, and the dual suspension idea had to be canned. This left me with building a very plain 1980's Murray. Not what I had in mind at all...Not At All!!!
At this point I went out back to see what I had that I could do something with. that's when I spotted the Speedster which had always been slated as a neat 10 speed to ride around. once I decided to use it I had a small problem, all the stuff I had gathered was for a balloon tire bike. again I looked around and put the 24" springer fork that I had robbed to make the rear suspension on the Murray back together, I put a 26" wheel into it and boy was it close! same with the rear wheel, you could check the space between the frame and tire on both sides with a feeler gague! so I started making a pile of the stuff off the Murray I would use. The original plan was a black bike with silver trim named "Mecha-Godzilla" then I hatched the idea of scorching the paint. do you know what happens when you scorch black paint? NOTHING!!! It looks exactly the same as the oxidized paint you started with! so then I thought I'd actually burn the paint clean off and in the process (schwinn paint doesn't burn well) it got hot enough to turn the metal a very cool bluish purple with all kinds of other colors thrown in. so I decided that was what I would head for not knowing just what the entire bike would look like done this way. well I think it turned out looking pretty cool. I reassembled the fork accidently incorrectly which lowered the front and kicked out the front wheel in a very agressive way and I started to realize the bike was kinda building itself. So, what do you do when something comes together like this? GO WITH IT!!
I bought 2 things for this bike, I bought the headlight at a swap for a different project which it turned out it wouldn't fit, and I bought the wrights seat which I thought looked cool enough to spend the money on. otherwise it all came out of my back yard. oops, I did buy a chain, Wally-World special.
so here it is, fairly plain, quite different from last years, totally unexpected, Subterfuge:
the build thread is here:
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=16202
Here is what I started with:
here are the finished bike photos, not a lot as this bike isn't about accessories, it's about attitude:
looks great!
