Ok, so I know it's not a rat rod bike per say... But I felt like it was in the spirit of ratrodding bikes, only this bike in a frankenstein build for a different purpose. A street-going, singlespeed, daily driver kind of bike. One I can ride to work on, or to the grocery store and whatnot.
So as I am leaving my apartment around a week ago I notice a bike sitting in the trash area of the complex. Obviously I had to turn around and check that out. Turned out to be a Spalding Blade Te from the 80's or 90's. It was a complete bike, everything was there. So I tossed it in my truck!
Here's a few pics of it when I got it..
Sturdy steel rack was a nice touch, just finding that in the trash would be a score!
Components in the drivetrain are pretty jacked up. Looks like it got plenty of love as far as riding goes, but not maintenance. No worries, I have a plan for that!
Sketchy single pivot brakes.
Tires were shot and the shifters were junk. I have never been a big fan of stem shifters anyways. No worries on the shifters though, this bike is going to be single speed. So I stripped the bike down and got it ready for paint. I decided to go with flat black, well, because I friggin love flat black! PLus I had plenty of it on hand, keeping the investment so far to exactly... zero dollars. :mrgreen:
I parted the frame and fork to paint it of course, I just forgot to take any pics during the painting process. You may have noticed that those wheels aren't exactly the factory steel 27" old school chrome ones. They are aluminum 26" mtn bike wheels from a barely used department store bike.
I have had the mtn bike for almost three years, just sitting. The gf didn't like riding it, too uncomfortable. She loves her cruiser though! So that bike became the organ donor for this low buck project.
I cleaned and regreased the bottom bracket and used the crank arms and chainrings from the mtn bike. They are aluminum and weigh a bunch less than the steel ones that were there. Plus it will have a nice versatile gear ratio with the middle chainring and the right rear sprocket, much lower than the more road bike ratio ones it had.
I'm gonna keep the 7-speed freewheel for now and just drill out the rivets on the large and granny gear chainrings to remove them from the middle one. That way I can experiment a little bit with the ratios on the rear and select a singlespeed cog that works best for me.
I was amazed that the mtn bike wheels fit so well, I did have to "spring" the rear in as it's a few millimeters wider than the frame. I may bend it slightly so that it's perfect, but it sits fine as it is right now.
I also replaced the handlebars and seat post with aluminum pieces from the mtn bike. She's starting to rack up a pretty good set of lighter weight components at this point! Wheels, handlebars, cranks, seatpost, off to a good start!
The saddle from the Spalding was aftermarket and in really good shape. It wouldn't be my first choice, but it's the cheapest one, so on it went. I was also very happy to find that the nice solid aluminum brake levers and the factory length cables from the mtn bike also fit this frame almost perfectly.
That's about as far as I can take it for now, without purchasing any parts for it. She'll need some brakes with a much longer reach to make it down to those 26" wheels. I'm hoping I can garage sale up some inexpensive ones from a bmx bike or something soon. Then all she needs is tires/tubes and a chain!
The dropouts are pretty close to horizontal, I just hope they are horizontal enough to achieve proper chain tension without a tensioner. I wanna keep a nice clean look to the drivetrain.
As for the tires, I'm shopping around for some 26x1.25 high psi street tires to optimize the efficiency of the mtn bike wheels. I hope I have room for fenders between the brakes and low profile tires!
Thanks for checkin out the build!
So as I am leaving my apartment around a week ago I notice a bike sitting in the trash area of the complex. Obviously I had to turn around and check that out. Turned out to be a Spalding Blade Te from the 80's or 90's. It was a complete bike, everything was there. So I tossed it in my truck!
Here's a few pics of it when I got it..
Sturdy steel rack was a nice touch, just finding that in the trash would be a score!
Components in the drivetrain are pretty jacked up. Looks like it got plenty of love as far as riding goes, but not maintenance. No worries, I have a plan for that!
Sketchy single pivot brakes.
Tires were shot and the shifters were junk. I have never been a big fan of stem shifters anyways. No worries on the shifters though, this bike is going to be single speed. So I stripped the bike down and got it ready for paint. I decided to go with flat black, well, because I friggin love flat black! PLus I had plenty of it on hand, keeping the investment so far to exactly... zero dollars. :mrgreen:
I parted the frame and fork to paint it of course, I just forgot to take any pics during the painting process. You may have noticed that those wheels aren't exactly the factory steel 27" old school chrome ones. They are aluminum 26" mtn bike wheels from a barely used department store bike.
I have had the mtn bike for almost three years, just sitting. The gf didn't like riding it, too uncomfortable. She loves her cruiser though! So that bike became the organ donor for this low buck project.
I cleaned and regreased the bottom bracket and used the crank arms and chainrings from the mtn bike. They are aluminum and weigh a bunch less than the steel ones that were there. Plus it will have a nice versatile gear ratio with the middle chainring and the right rear sprocket, much lower than the more road bike ratio ones it had.
I'm gonna keep the 7-speed freewheel for now and just drill out the rivets on the large and granny gear chainrings to remove them from the middle one. That way I can experiment a little bit with the ratios on the rear and select a singlespeed cog that works best for me.
I was amazed that the mtn bike wheels fit so well, I did have to "spring" the rear in as it's a few millimeters wider than the frame. I may bend it slightly so that it's perfect, but it sits fine as it is right now.
I also replaced the handlebars and seat post with aluminum pieces from the mtn bike. She's starting to rack up a pretty good set of lighter weight components at this point! Wheels, handlebars, cranks, seatpost, off to a good start!
The saddle from the Spalding was aftermarket and in really good shape. It wouldn't be my first choice, but it's the cheapest one, so on it went. I was also very happy to find that the nice solid aluminum brake levers and the factory length cables from the mtn bike also fit this frame almost perfectly.
That's about as far as I can take it for now, without purchasing any parts for it. She'll need some brakes with a much longer reach to make it down to those 26" wheels. I'm hoping I can garage sale up some inexpensive ones from a bmx bike or something soon. Then all she needs is tires/tubes and a chain!
The dropouts are pretty close to horizontal, I just hope they are horizontal enough to achieve proper chain tension without a tensioner. I wanna keep a nice clean look to the drivetrain.
As for the tires, I'm shopping around for some 26x1.25 high psi street tires to optimize the efficiency of the mtn bike wheels. I hope I have room for fenders between the brakes and low profile tires!
Thanks for checkin out the build!
