Bike from the Dead's Mockup Mash

[Bike from the Dead]

As nice as those first mockups turned out, I still had a few more ideas I wanted to explore on my X-53 yesterday. I wanted to see how the bike would look with white accents, so I threw on a white seat and some Wal-Mart whitewalls. I figured I could make a hot rod-styled klunker, but those Wal-Mart tires just looked too small for this bike.

Even though I wanted to build a klunker, I decided to see how the bike would look in street trim. I threw on a different set of handlebars, replaced the black bottom bracket parts with chrome, added some old white pedals, and put a 26" x 1.75" whitewall up front and a 26" x 2.125" Jerald slick whitewall out back. Suddenly, my previous mockups didn't look as good as they did before.

Just to take it a step further, I threw on some ape hangers just to see how they'd look. It turns out, they look perfect on this bike! I was all geared up to make this X-53 into an off-road bike, but this has "old school hot rod" written all over it!

I was all geared up to mock up a few more parts white these wheels and tires, but I feel like that won't be necessary now.

I did mock up one more idea this evening though. I wanted to give the line from the twin bars a place to go, and I figured I could modify a sissy bar to make a nice rear rack. I think it totally works!

I also though that I might use a white banana seat along with the horizontal sissy bar, but I think the regular white cruiser seat will work just fine.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

As nice as my last mockup on the X-53 looked, I really wanted another klunker to ride out on the gravel trails. I also wanted to make use of as many black-painted parts I had on hand as possible, and I had a few more ideas to achieve both of those goals. I took advantage of the cooler weather this morning and mocked up a few more parts.

And I got to say, I'm glad I did. First, I switched to blackwall tires (1.75" up front, 2.125" out back,) on black wheels, and installed a black chainring and crank off a Huffy Cranbrook I had laying around.

I also toyed around with some red handlebar grips to go with the red scallop on the frame.

If I can remove them without damaging them, I'd really like to use these red Western Flyer grips, since this X-53 would've been sold through Western Auto.

My last mockup involved swapping out the big and little blackwall tires for a matching pair of 26" x 2.125" "redline" tires. I think this is the look right here. The lines add just that much more color on an otherwise black bike.

I'm really happy with how this turned out. It's got a sort of "dual-sport" vibe going on, where I could ride this both on the sidewalk as well as on gravel.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Got more mockups to share!

I decided to play around with this Murray 3-speed road bike and see if I could build it into something I like. Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of these skinny-wheel road bikes as they just feel kind of generic to me, but I've a few customs built out of these bikes that I like, so I figured it was worth experimenting with.

Most of last Thursday was spent just taking the bike apart. Had a funny moment where the chain broke my chain breaker.

And I don't know what happened to this front brake bolt, but it's definitely seen better days.

I couldn't get the fork off, but I decided to play around with a few ideas. I wanted to fit some balloon tires on this bike, but the biggest tires that could fit were some middleweight tires I had. There might be enough room for some 1.95"-wide Thick Slicks, but I don't have those.

Still, I had a few ideas to make it into either a BMX-style bomber, a "lightweight" stripped-down cruiser, or maybe even a klunker, but nothing's really stuck so far. Most of my mockup process just involved swapping handlebars.

While I like beefier tires on my bikes, I did acquire a matching pair of perfectly good 26" x 1 1/2" Kendas that I'd like to use on something. I tried throwing one on a skinny wheel, but I could not for the life of me get it to mount to the wheel. This wheel had a 26" x 1 3/8" tire on it that came off just fine, but this one wouldn't go on even without a tube inside! Anyone know what the problem may be?

That's as far as my mockups got with this bike. I haven't figured out what I want to do with it yet, but I'll play around with it some more later.