'failure to launch, pt. deux too'
I remember the first bike I put together as a kid. It was a purple/violet 20" cantilever schwinn with flipped dropbars and a mattress saddle off of a road bike. I believe it would have been the summer before 1st grade (the first (Boise, Idaho) of six schools in four states that I attended in my 1st grade year)...so, '74. There were a couple semi-complete bikes in a shed behind the house, I took it upon myself to put something together so I could ride with the kids in the neighborhood. The reason I remember the bike, because one day, probably the first day I put it together, the group of kids were taking turns jumping a well packed mound of dirt. I know I did it a few times, but what sticks in my head is the time that I jumped only to have the front wheel come off the bike in mid-air (no lawyer tabs, evidently, and not properly tightened as I was only 5/6 years old
), the landing that followed is the cement the binds this memory firmly in place.
This build has nothing to do with that bike
...but, has to do with that bikes' legacy. From that point on, all most all of my bikes were what I referred to as 'curved frame' bmx conversions. When I needed a different bike (due to breakage, theft, boredom), I would find an old curve frame (cantilever)...just frame, or sometime frame/fork...usually in a ditch or at a yard sale. I had no idea what these bikes looked like complete, and never heard of, or recollect seeing, a muscle bike (actually, my only new bike as a kid was a muscle bike, I just didn't know it...it was my 'chopper'...a '77/'78 Western Flyer RamRod II) until I started getting back into bikes in my very late 30s. I would buy/trade/scavenge (off the previous bike) all the required bmx parts to make it my bmx bike.
After discovering, as an adult, how the whole bmx thing started...and having been exposed to the variety of frame types that would have existed in those early years to be made into the first generation of bmx bikes...I have thought that the Huffy Rail would have made one of the coolest early bmx bikes. I recently ran across a Rail in RRB's very own For Sale section...and made the deal!
The Nu S'cool portion of the title refers to the parts I plan on slapping on this bad boy. Long top tube, short chainstays...this is thee proto-new school bike
...so, I'm going to play on that, and use modern parts (fat tires, 1-1/8" threadless stem/forks (hopefully), tall bars, etc), mostly because I find new school bmx to be kind of silly and this is a way to mock it 
...and secondly, because I'm too big to be comfortable on the usual 20" vintage frame...but this thing in looooonnngggg.
Edit...since I couldn't get to it quickly... just posted the for sale pics.
I remember the first bike I put together as a kid. It was a purple/violet 20" cantilever schwinn with flipped dropbars and a mattress saddle off of a road bike. I believe it would have been the summer before 1st grade (the first (Boise, Idaho) of six schools in four states that I attended in my 1st grade year)...so, '74. There were a couple semi-complete bikes in a shed behind the house, I took it upon myself to put something together so I could ride with the kids in the neighborhood. The reason I remember the bike, because one day, probably the first day I put it together, the group of kids were taking turns jumping a well packed mound of dirt. I know I did it a few times, but what sticks in my head is the time that I jumped only to have the front wheel come off the bike in mid-air (no lawyer tabs, evidently, and not properly tightened as I was only 5/6 years old
), the landing that followed is the cement the binds this memory firmly in place.This build has nothing to do with that bike
...but, has to do with that bikes' legacy. From that point on, all most all of my bikes were what I referred to as 'curved frame' bmx conversions. When I needed a different bike (due to breakage, theft, boredom), I would find an old curve frame (cantilever)...just frame, or sometime frame/fork...usually in a ditch or at a yard sale. I had no idea what these bikes looked like complete, and never heard of, or recollect seeing, a muscle bike (actually, my only new bike as a kid was a muscle bike, I just didn't know it...it was my 'chopper'...a '77/'78 Western Flyer RamRod II) until I started getting back into bikes in my very late 30s. I would buy/trade/scavenge (off the previous bike) all the required bmx parts to make it my bmx bike.After discovering, as an adult, how the whole bmx thing started...and having been exposed to the variety of frame types that would have existed in those early years to be made into the first generation of bmx bikes...I have thought that the Huffy Rail would have made one of the coolest early bmx bikes. I recently ran across a Rail in RRB's very own For Sale section...and made the deal!
The Nu S'cool portion of the title refers to the parts I plan on slapping on this bad boy. Long top tube, short chainstays...this is thee proto-new school bike
...so, I'm going to play on that, and use modern parts (fat tires, 1-1/8" threadless stem/forks (hopefully), tall bars, etc), mostly because I find new school bmx to be kind of silly and this is a way to mock it ...and secondly, because I'm too big to be comfortable on the usual 20" vintage frame...but this thing in looooonnngggg.Edit...since I couldn't get to it quickly... just posted the for sale pics.
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. At least for mock up... maybe for the final build...I'll be using parts off this Fit, and perhaps the DB (the Fit has 14mm axles)...
....I wouldn't take that over any "sweet jumps"...
