Avocado, first pics of the finished bike!

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Joined
Dec 8, 2011
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Location
Sacramento, CA
I've been wanting a vintage bike to ride in style when going on Rolling Relic Bicycle Club sponsored events. They all sport vintage bikes, and while I have a few, I don't have any that are comfortable for a man of six foot two to ride for long distances. Bikes just weren't made for guys my size back then.

With that, I decided to put together a cool ride using parts that I have on hand. The only additional cost this build will have (additional, since I did buy/trade for the parts, just some time ago) will be the $15 for some spray paint.

I'm starting with a '41 Schwinn DX frame, but I will be doing a slight stretch on it, thus it is here in the "anything goes" category. The whole point is to make this one comfortable, after all.

I'm excited to use these parts. They're all cool pieces that I've collected over the last two years. Some traded, some from eBay, some from flea markets, and a few people will recognize from right here on this site. All purchases and trades for cool parts that had no intended purpose. Western Flyer, Schwinn, Columbia, Eclipse/Morrow, and many other unknown brand name parts, such as the long spring seat, or the skip tooth crank and chain.

For the paint scheme, most of the parts will remain whatever color they are now. the only painting I will do is the frame, and possibly the wheels. I wanted a color that looks retro. A color not used anymore, but was once commonplace. Avocado. It screams of old appliances, grandmother's kitchens, and will be the perfect color to give my bike that vintage flavor. It can also have another meaning. To many, avocado, when added to other things, speaks of California. Any time you see "California blank" on a menu, you can bet your dinner that item has avocado in or on it.

So, this bike is a cool vintage ride that to me will say "vintage California style."

Let's go!


 
Re: Avocado

Cool, another set of ramshorns.
Nice mix of parts.
Good luck
 
Re: Avocado

Cool bunch of parts. Can't wait to see the finished product! 8)
 
Re: Avocado

sweet pile there. Good luck with the build. The DX is my daily rider. Love them. Tough too. and mine is fast.
 
Re: Avocado

Nice Murray pointy space drops. :)
 
Re: Avocado

LukeTheJoker said:
Interesting method on doing the stretch! I will be watching...

Luke.

Thanks. I wanted to stretch it without changing the geometry of the cool Schwinn frame. As I've said elsewhere, since I'm just adding to the frame, this stretch job would have still worked under the old rules, which is when I thought to do it this way.

OneHorsePower said:
Nice job !

kingfish254 said:
Nice Murray pointy space drops. :)

Thanks, guys. They do look like more dangerous versions of the Murray drops, don't they? :) Hadn't thought of them that way.
 
Re: Avocado

Welded in my second seat tube, which will give me the stretch I want.


Then I ran some tubing from the old seat tube to the new, for added strength.


When welding on this frame, especially the new seat tube to that tiny fender mount tube between the seat stays, it burned up some of the old brazing brass, so that I had to re-braze it back together after. It all worked out well, though. I then started to work on the drive system, including adding a few links to the skip tooth chain with the new length.
 
Re: Avocado

Who needs a laidback seatpost when you can have a laidback seattube?
SLICK!
 

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