Jupiter - The Flying Finn

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Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
27
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Location
Helsinki - Finland
So here it is,
"The Flying Finn".

This bike is built around a frame made by Öglaend bike company in norway (Jonas Öglaend), branded and sold as Jupiter from around late-mid 60's to early 70's. A bike i bought in late january for about $55 and been working on until today when i took the first test pedals on it. The investements on this bike have been minimal, somewhere under $100 total. The correct style vintage moped tires were the hardest to find.

The nickname and the theme "Flying Finn" emphasizes the late great finnish athletes in all fields of sport who earned their title thru their success. First of them being Hannes Kolehmainen (runner) in Stockholm olympics 1912 and aswell as the most famous finnish motorcycle racer Jarno Saarinen who died in 1973 in Monza track. Quote; "The term has such international renown that it is often attached to notable Finnish sportsmen whose exploits are fleet of foot or have to do with fast cars."

Anyway, as a BMX builder, collector and enhusiast i was very excited with this project because it was completely different from what i am used to do with BMX bikes.

Enjoy!
And thanks for watching,

-Timo

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One word...CRAFTSMANSHIP!
 
Thank You for the nice feedback everyone, i really appreciate it.
I meant to post the "before and after" pictures side by side too, but was so excited last night with the finished bike that i forgot. So here goes encore..

"BEFORE AND AFTER"
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The top picture was the one provided by the seller in a local auction with a title that read something like "old chopper bike, fully rideable". I paid €40 for the bike (about 55USD) as is and he even delivered the bike to my door which was very kind. As this would be my first resto/rebuild of this kind i had just a general idea on what to expect and honestly, it turned out to be a lot more work than i had expected but ofcourse only in a good way and was very excited to get the project going.

A few details regarding some of the parts i used;
The 175mm Sugino one piece cranks and the 46T "snowflake" chainwheel were found off an early 80's ladies 3-speed called "Nopsa Matkatar" abandoned at a rocky ditch next to a railroad track and the bike was completely destroyed. We then dragged the bike to friends' place for disassembly. There was no front tire and the rear wheel was toast so it kept horrible noise during the few kilometer walk.
The chainguard was also found from a bike thrown in the dumpster, off a ladies 5-speed "Nopsa Finlandia".
Then then fork was found at local bicycle recycling workshop (a heaven for bike builders, they got everything) and cost €4 (about 5.50USD) and even came with the original headset! Also the stem was found from same place for €3 (4USD).
The finned steel rims are commonly found on old bikes here and are heavy duty. They are 19 inch diameter accross, same size used on old mopeds. The somewhat rare Nokia moped tires were found a the same local auction site for approx $60 and they were the most expensive investment in this bike but worth every cent. The chain and the numberplate are the only parts purchased new.
One thing i'm the most proud of are the customized bars with the homemade dual v-crossbars that were made of old luggage rack thrown in the dumpster. The bars were pretty beat up and nicked when i got them so i thought they won't get any worse either when i started drilling the holes for the crossbar mounting bolts.

Oh yeah, the old stem. Here's what i had to do in order to get the bars off (they were welded-on by previous owenr due to serious stem slippage)
Jupiterstem017copy.jpg


Anyway, humble thanks all.
-Timo
 

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