Last Saturday, on a whim, I decided to stop in at a local bike shop that had been in business for a very, very long time. I've been in there before, found some interesting stuff. In this case, I saw some pretty stout BMX bars on the wall - in a dark ivy green. A shade of green that's very, very close to the green on my old Green Phantom barn find - Barney. After negotiating a pretty good price for those bars, as well as some other bits and pieces, I headed home to upgrade Barney. My goal was to build her up and take her barcycling that night.
Barney was a barn find - great rust patina on the bars, and a saddle that ended up on Bar Fly, my last BBO bike. When I tore her down, I saved all the parts in case I want to bring her back to her rusty glory.
I had some Redline BMX cranks set aside for a future project, but decided they needed to go on here. The BB is a midsize with aluminum inserts for the American BB shell.
While I had the cranks, I didn't have a BMX chainring, so this one had to suffice. A little steel wool got most of the rust off.
The Redline Monster cranks are 175mm, a little long considering the low BB on this frame - so it will probably just end up a street klunker.
These are the bars. See what I mean about the green on these bars? I pulled the stem and adapter off my kid's bike - don't worry, I'll replace it before she notices...
The wheels are just generic steel wheels I had lying around, with some Solana tires. The rear sprocket is 18T, a little big for the front sprocket. I think a cheap 44T sprocket will work better.
Later that afternoon we rolled out to our local brewery - the first stop on our barcycling adventure.
Barney was a barn find - great rust patina on the bars, and a saddle that ended up on Bar Fly, my last BBO bike. When I tore her down, I saved all the parts in case I want to bring her back to her rusty glory.
I had some Redline BMX cranks set aside for a future project, but decided they needed to go on here. The BB is a midsize with aluminum inserts for the American BB shell.
While I had the cranks, I didn't have a BMX chainring, so this one had to suffice. A little steel wool got most of the rust off.
The Redline Monster cranks are 175mm, a little long considering the low BB on this frame - so it will probably just end up a street klunker.
These are the bars. See what I mean about the green on these bars? I pulled the stem and adapter off my kid's bike - don't worry, I'll replace it before she notices...
The wheels are just generic steel wheels I had lying around, with some Solana tires. The rear sprocket is 18T, a little big for the front sprocket. I think a cheap 44T sprocket will work better.
Later that afternoon we rolled out to our local brewery - the first stop on our barcycling adventure.
