(artwork by Erosie, friend, fellow artist, and bikefreak.)
This has been my daily driver for the last two years.. Two months ago I decided that if I'm riding this bike so often, I'd better make it look okay-ish. On a tight budget ofcourse. All new parts were the cheapest I could find. I took a lot of pics during 'the make-over', so sit back and enjoy.
;-)
^ Halford's Limit 2600 ATB. (Halford = Wallmart for cars and bicycles)
This is what I started with. Well... not quite. It was dirty and rusty, but I wouldn't want to call it a rat. Some parts were broken, others were useless to me. I got rid of most of the rust, tore off the useless parts, and removed the Cliff-Huxtable-sweater-inspired stickers.
But first: On came the new tires:
^ I couldn't believe the dramatic change in appearance a pair of whitewalls would make on a bike. This convinced me that you could make almost every bike look good! (26 inch 'Schwalbe Returner' creme whitewalls.) I had a homemade front fender that I hadn't used from my cruiser laying around:
^ So I had to make a backfender to match. I know the width of the fenders is smaller than the tires' but somehow it works! I guess because of centrifuginal force the water is forced to the middle of the tirethread before launching towards my back and face. I know I wanted to lower my handlebars but that means a high seating position to maintain a 'comfortable' ride. (I like the look of racers, so that would be no problem.) But a high seatingposition means the seat had to be thin. I bought the cheapest fast-looking seat available. That and some new, but VERY small grips, trailerlenses, and some big upholsterynails for my seat to try to resemble the old riveted leather seats:
^ Well, not quite but I think it looks very retro-ish. I had this backlight from my cruiser laying around which I had made from an old chrome headlicht. I just put a red bulp in it. The lens was cracked and scuffed and I thought I could smooth things out holding the lens in a blue flame. (I've learned that from working with plexiglass.) But it didn't happen for my old lens...
^ Instead of a smooth surface, it warped and fogged up... I was hoping the trailerlightlense was a simple swap job:
^ Well, it wasn't, but by removing a few milimeters it fitted just right:
The ATB came with a straight bar, a look that I liked very much but don't find comfortable to ride, so I replaced it with a kidsbike handlebar:
^ I turned it upside down, but as you can see it was way too wide. Especially with the very small kid-grips. I like the grips with their understated cardsymbol-theme. But they are REALLY small. I cut off a small part of the innerrim of the grips, so I could steer with my whole hand, but it just didn't look right. Especially on such a wide handlebar. So I shortened the handlebars:
^ ...and bought another pair of them grips to lenghten the others I already had. And it worked mighty fine. If I don't point out the seam, no-one will notice. I never use 5 out of the 10 gears so I tore of one of the shifters and replaced the other to the neck, just to clean up the handlebars.
All that rests for now is replacing the pedals (different measurements than the standard...), the cranks, and sprocket and it's good to go! But I have to be able to use it every day so that can wait for now. I thought about painting it a different color but as I was tearing of the stickers this 80's metalic aquagreen kinda grew on me. Now, I like it very much. It even looks like a candycolor you see on hotrods to me. It even was the inspiration for an idea that very well may be realized in the near future:
^ When I saw this picture I was thinking of making my bike into a custom 'woodie'. It'll probably look something like this:
^ With a name to match my 'woodie' ofcourse ;-)
So, a few weeks ago I started fabricating a rack:
^ But ...I just don't see it going to look good, yet. With the build of my Mixte for the Build-off I can't find the time to work on the ATB for the moment but rest assured it will be done, someday. For now I will be riding it in this state:
Edit:
I consider this bike 'finished' and created a thread in the finished section of this forum. Here are the beauty-pics:
^ Dutch leather Lepper seat
^ Homemade ribbed aluminum fenders and braces. Just quick instalments...
^ out of two small pair of cheap and neat kiddy-grips I made one adultsized pair.
^ Homemade rearlight. Using an old chrome headlightbucket and a trailerlightlense made to fit.
Just before I swapped seats with my Cartboardtracker I had some fun with two of my funniest girlfriends:
Spring 2009. Me and some of my friends taking turn on the sportseat, at the end of a succesful annual Harley Davidson meeting.
