Yea, I forgot to make an intro thread when I signed up, so here we go... (hope this isn't too long)
I'm a native Kansan currently living just south of the Greater KC area. I've always loved fixing things, taking junk and making it work is something that's always been fun for me. About a year and a half ago I bought a mountain bike from my LBS and started riding for the first time since I was 16 to get some much needed exercise (Going from construction work to sitting in an office all day working on computers doesn't help you lose weight apparently.
) After a couple months I knew I was hooked and being a do-it-yourselfer I immediately started figuring out how to do what work I could on my own bike. That quickly turned into wanting to fix up bikes and there's really not much to fix up on a mountain bike that's a year old so I started looking for old ones to get me going. Thankfully that turned out to be easier than I could have possibly imagined....
My first project was an old Schwinn Stingray my Dad had rusting behind his barn. It had a big nostalgia factor for him so I decided to do enough restoration for him to be able to ride it around the yard when he wanted. I was going to repainted the frame for him but he's fond of the aged look so the paint get's to keep it's patina. I didn't think to take any pictures of the process but when I dug it out of the weeds the seat pan fell into two pieces the headset was rusted solid and half the spokes were missing on both wheels.
The second project and the one that brought me here was an old J.C. Higgins Colorflow. A lot of the inspiration for getting this going came from you guys! Looking over all the cool projects and finished bikes in the gallery section really motivated me to get to work on it. Everything is powder coated except for the wheels, I sanded and painted those myself. I managed to salvage enough of the old spokes to lace up the back wheel with but I had to buy new ones for the front. Also, the steerer tube on the old fork was pretty bent so I did some measuring and a little grinding and was able to fit a new 1 1/8" threadless fork in the front. I still need to get the head badge back on it and my eventual goal is to get a Nexus Inter-8 hub laced up in the back and a disc brake up front but for now it's stuck with old coaster brake hub.
So anyway, that's my long winded way of saying hello. This really is a cool site and a fun community of people and I look forward to being a part of it!
I'm a native Kansan currently living just south of the Greater KC area. I've always loved fixing things, taking junk and making it work is something that's always been fun for me. About a year and a half ago I bought a mountain bike from my LBS and started riding for the first time since I was 16 to get some much needed exercise (Going from construction work to sitting in an office all day working on computers doesn't help you lose weight apparently.
) After a couple months I knew I was hooked and being a do-it-yourselfer I immediately started figuring out how to do what work I could on my own bike. That quickly turned into wanting to fix up bikes and there's really not much to fix up on a mountain bike that's a year old so I started looking for old ones to get me going. Thankfully that turned out to be easier than I could have possibly imagined.... My first project was an old Schwinn Stingray my Dad had rusting behind his barn. It had a big nostalgia factor for him so I decided to do enough restoration for him to be able to ride it around the yard when he wanted. I was going to repainted the frame for him but he's fond of the aged look so the paint get's to keep it's patina. I didn't think to take any pictures of the process but when I dug it out of the weeds the seat pan fell into two pieces the headset was rusted solid and half the spokes were missing on both wheels.
The second project and the one that brought me here was an old J.C. Higgins Colorflow. A lot of the inspiration for getting this going came from you guys! Looking over all the cool projects and finished bikes in the gallery section really motivated me to get to work on it. Everything is powder coated except for the wheels, I sanded and painted those myself. I managed to salvage enough of the old spokes to lace up the back wheel with but I had to buy new ones for the front. Also, the steerer tube on the old fork was pretty bent so I did some measuring and a little grinding and was able to fit a new 1 1/8" threadless fork in the front. I still need to get the head badge back on it and my eventual goal is to get a Nexus Inter-8 hub laced up in the back and a disc brake up front but for now it's stuck with old coaster brake hub.
So anyway, that's my long winded way of saying hello. This really is a cool site and a fun community of people and I look forward to being a part of it!
