TRADITIONAL All American Varsity

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kingfish254 said:
Whoa!!! That's brutal man!
Glad no one was hurt, but that's serious damage to both car and bikes.
Good luck!
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Me too. My wife walks there 50x a day going to feed the birds, hang laundry, take stuff to the compost bin, yard work, etc. Most tree damage is during high winds or storms. This was due to a wet spring that got the tree growing like mad, water for the huge ant colony chewing it out from the insides. Just fell mid morning with no wind. She had walked under that tree 10 times that morning. The broken off branch was cut up and there was some rot where it broke and endless big ants. That was one tree that didn't get completely destroyed by the August 2020 Derecho that took out 1M trees in town. This was behind the house that shielded it from the 140mph winds. Messaged a tree service to take the big remaining limbs off. I can do the rest.
 
Van was totaled by the insurance company and towed away. The other big limb on the tree cut off. Tree branches and leaves mostly cut up now. We were going to chain saw everything today but only 1 of the 4 chain saws would run and it was electric so only worked for 20 minutes or so before the batteries needed charging.

So it's time I picked a bike.
Blue. 1978 April frame, May 2 assembly date.
The frame is bent a bit. I think it was bent before the tree landed on the herd of Varsities. It didn't have wheels so it was sitting lower than the rest. String method showed one stay was in, measured at the seat post 4 mm diff. Its real easy to bend the other stay to match. Lay the frame sideways on the floor and gently stand on it. I had a wheel ready for some other project so I used it for a test fit. Perfect fit for the coaster brake hub without spacers. 59mm of space at the tire. The tires are labeled 26 x 2.125 (559 x 59) but there is plenty of room. Not nearly as wide as 2.125 would suggest. Looks like 4 to 5 mm room on either side so the tire is closer to 1.9". Cable guides cut down a bit. I may go over the rest with the angle grinder. The paint is poor and most of the decals are gone. The dealer sticker is badly faded out. 2950 North Brookfield Road, Brookfield Ski & Cycle Brookfield, Wisconsin. The building now houses a child educare biz. Front wheel needs to be spoked up. OEM Schwinn Approved front hub so it fits the keyhole slot. 63 mm flange, spaced at 72mm, 3x, HJC aluminum rim = 258 mm spokes. The front fork measures about 59 mm width so the tire should fit okay.

Local parade is this saturday, June 29. There will be bikes so I expect to have this ready.

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Glad to hear things are beginning to get back to normal.
Have fun getting this ready for the parade!
 
rickpaulos said:
Van was totaled by the insurance company and towed away. The other big limb on the tree cut off. Tree branches and leaves mostly cut up now. We were going to chain saw everything today but only 1 of the 4 chain saws would run and it was electric so only worked for 20 minutes or so before the batteries needed charging.

So it's time I picked a bike.
Blue. 1978 April frame, May 2 assembly date.
The frame is bent a bit. I think it was bent before the tree landed on the herd of Varsities. It didn't have wheels so it was sitting lower than the rest. String method showed one stay was in, measured at the seat post 4 mm diff. Its real easy to bend the other stay to match. Lay the frame sideways on the floor and gently stand on it. I had a wheel ready for some other project so I used it for a test fit. Perfect fit for the coaster brake hub without spacers. 59mm of space at the tire. The tires are labeled 26 x 2.125 (559 x 59) but there is plenty of room. Not nearly as wide as 2.125 would suggest. Looks like 4 to 5 mm room on either side so the tire is closer to 1.9". Cable guides cut down a bit. I may go over the rest with the angle grinder. The paint is poor and most of the decals are gone. The dealer sticker is badly faded out. 2950 North Brookfield Road, Brookfield Ski & Cycle Brookfield, Wisconsin. The building now houses a child educare biz. Front wheel needs to be spoked up. OEM Schwinn Approved front hub so it fits the keyhole slot. 63 mm flange, spaced at 72mm, 3x, HJC aluminum rim = 258 mm spokes. The front fork measures about 59 mm width so the tire should fit okay.

Local parade is this saturday, June 29. There will be bikes so I expect to have this ready.

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So in two days??
 
Wheels built, tires fit. Took it to the local parade this weekend.
Still needs some work. Shorter kickstand. grind off the remains of the cable stops.
IMO those tires don't ride well. I put a lot of air in them but I think they need more like 75psi to roll better.
The car show was right behind us in the parade line up.

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Bike looks great there! What a fun time! Especially with the car club beauties!
 
Ground off the rest of the top & down tube cable stops. Touched up the paint a bit. There were 3 shades of blue already so I added some blue metallic on the bare metal (yeah, primer first). Stars & flags added. Shorter kickstand (from a Collegiate) installed so it won't try to fall over. Ready for the 4th.

Temperature now 73f x dew point 73f = 99.9% humidity.

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For the flags.. These are the mounting rings salvaged from broken grip shift shifters. Since so many of those cheap plastic parts break, I've saved a bunch of the rings. The flag pole needs to fit. FYI, those little flags come in any diameter of wood sticks. Bigger than the hole on the ring is okay, just whittle the pole a little bit and thread it in far enough for the base of the pole to bottom out on the bars to hold it all in place.

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American Dancing GIF by INTO ACTION
 
Happy Independence Day!
Looks like you had a good time
Bike looks great
 
This lousy year continues. I stopped by my storage unit yesterday to get my tool box only to discover someone got in and stole about 15 bikes, my tool box, a good tire pump and a bunch of my really old race wheels and some boxes of parts. Taken sometime between June 19 and July 9. Their video only goes back 2 of the 3 weeks. I hope find something before it gets erased. Police report made. I estimate about $5,000 of bikes. 10 were still new in the box.
So any more plans I had for this build are done. Posting what I have in the finished group.
 
rickpaulos said:
This lousy year continues. I stopped by my storage unit yesterday to get my tool box only to discover someone got in and stole about 15 bikes, my tool box, a good tire pump and a bunch of my really old race wheels and some boxes of parts. Taken sometime between June 19 and July 9. Their video only goes back 2 of the 3 weeks. I hope find something before it gets erased. Police report made. I estimate about $5,000 of bikes. 10 were still new in the box.
So any more plans I had for this build are done. Posting what I have in the finished group.
Click to expand...
That sucks. Sorry that happened to you
 
rickpaulos said:
This lousy year continues. I stopped by my storage unit yesterday to get my tool box only to discover someone got in and stole about 15 bikes, my tool box, a good tire pump and a bunch of my really old race wheels and some boxes of parts. Taken sometime between June 19 and July 9. Their video only goes back 2 of the 3 weeks. I hope find something before it gets erased. Police report made. I estimate about $5,000 of bikes. 10 were still new in the box.
So any more plans I had for this build are done. Posting what I have in the finished group.
Click to expand...

That's enough to piss off the pope...so sorry buddy.
If you are ever in the hill country of Texas, I'll gladly donate to helping you get your collection back-up...

Good luck
 
Yeah that stinks. If you were anywhere close to me I would give you a bike from my pile. Good luck with the police report. Does homeowners insurance cover theft from a storage unit?

Anything unique in there that might pop up on Craigslist? Not even sure if you are interested in tracking down the thief, but you have a lot of friends here that spend a lot of time looking at used bikes on CL. I would gladly put an alert in for whatever they stole.
 
rickpaulos said:
This lousy year continues. I stopped by my storage unit yesterday to get my tool box only to discover someone got in and stole about 15 bikes, my tool box, a good tire pump and a bunch of my really old race wheels and some boxes of parts. Taken sometime between June 19 and July 9. Their video only goes back 2 of the 3 weeks. I hope find something before it gets erased. Police report made. I estimate about $5,000 of bikes. 10 were still new in the box.
So any more plans I had for this build are done. Posting what I have in the finished group.
Click to expand...
Dude, that sucks! Sorry to hear that.
 
UGH!!! That truly sucks. Hopefully they try and keep the bikes local and people will recognize them as yours. There really are some low life people out there. Where any other storage units hit?
 
rickpaulos said:
This lousy year continues. I stopped by my storage unit yesterday to get my tool box only to discover someone got in and stole about 15 bikes, my tool box, a good tire pump and a bunch of my really old race wheels and some boxes of parts. Taken sometime between June 19 and July 9. Their video only goes back 2 of the 3 weeks. I hope find something before it gets erased. Police report made. I estimate about $5,000 of bikes. 10 were still new in the box.
So any more plans I had for this build are done. Posting what I have in the finished group.
Click to expand...
There's a special place in heck for folks like that. Maybe they'll end up as a face up seat with a smelly fat person riding an endless "burritos only" heck marathon or something. Now there's a special place.
Man. I feel the pain of your loss. Suks. I say we go and get the MFers!
Ooh, spellchat corrected my 4377 reference. Didn't think it would. How about... hades? Yes, Hades. 😈
 

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