New comfort bike & a potential "fixie" for RR

[RatRodDad]

Well, I sold a cheap mountain bike this morning and then immediately went out and bought two more cheap bikes to replace it.

There is a guy here in Houston who's buying all kinds of bikes at the local auctions and then selling them on CL. You can go to his house and he has the garage, living room, kitchen, etc. full of bikes. Normally he's asking around $20 to $30 for fairly decent ones, and sometimes a little higher on ones he knows will sell pretty quickly. He ends up with a lot of generic mountain bikes, a few road bikes, some kids bikes, etc., but he occassionally gets some unusual ones - 3 speed stuff, etc. - like the 3 speed ladies German comfort bike I bought a few weeks ago.

Speaking of the German bike, I sold that one last week almost by accident. I was creating a CL listing to show my younger brother how to use Photobucket and load pictures into the listing so I used the German bike as an example - and put what I thought was a high price on it - $100 - so that no one would respond to the ad. Sure enough within about an hour someone sent me an e-mail and they ended up buying it from me for $70.

So today I bought this Brittany Free Spirit comfort bike that has a Shimano 3 speed - 333 ???? I don't know anything about it, of course, other than is had the 3 speed, a nice back rack, wide seat, fenders, etc. I took it for a ride and it rode pretty well - but it seems to be geared pretty high. The lowest gear was still fairly high and I could barely pedal it up a slight incline in the highest gear. So I think a smaller front sprocket will be in order to make it more rideable.

While I was there I asked the guy if he had any cheap road bikes - since Rat Rod mentioned he would like to try building a "fixie" sometime to see how those rode. So I bought this Sears road bike for him. The frame has some rust on it and it needs some work, but it should be a good starting point for a "fixie".

So that was my bike shopping experience for today. Sold one - added two more in it's place.

 

[Larry]

On the 3 speed make sure it's actually shifting through all three gears. Those cables get a little slack and first gear is the first gear to go.

 

[crt95]

Hey RatRodDad I am located in outside of Houston in the woodlands, maybe you can help me pin point a few good spots to find some bikes to rat. I would be thankful.

 

[RatRodDad]

Larry, good call. I finally got a few minutes to take the Brittany for a ride to check out the shifting a little more and I noticed that the little arm that moves and switches gears when you move the shifter wasn't moving much.

I then did some additional checking and found that the cable had dropped out of the end of the shifter - which was giving it way too much slack, so switching gears on the shifter really wasn't doing anything on the rear hub.

I fixed the cable and then did some minor adjustment on the cable tension down on the hub and now it's shifting fine - and it does have a nice low gear and middle gear afterall!!

It actually rides pretty well - maybe even better than my cruiser. Plus it has fenders - and since it's rained for 40 days and 40 nights here in Texas, those will come in handy.

 

[Markm]

hey, I have one of those too! But a ten speed.

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[RatRodDad]

CRT95, I live on the NW side of town too, so I usually just watch Craigslist for anything cheap or interesting around my area - Spring, Tomball, Cypress, the Woodlands, etc.

You might want to check out the same guy I bought these bikes from today. He's located over off Hwy. 6 and Keith-Harrow Boulevard - on Tain St. You can search on "tain" in CL to find his exact address and phone numbers - although one of those numbers is his wife's work number. The ads show some of the bikes he had at the time he created the ads. I think he works from home so the ads say you can just go by any time and check out what he has - which is what I did.

Today he had a few mountain bikes and a couple of more men's road bikes - along with the Brittany I bought. Unfortunately I didn't see many other interesting mens bikes there.

I don't know if you are looking for any ladies bikes, but if so, he had 2 single speed comfort type bikes that be bought today and he also had an old single speed girls bike - maybe 24" - that had the big fenders and fat tires and was maybe from the 60's or 70's. That one had a small Louisiana license plate on it too, which was interesting.

He is usually asking in the $25 to $45 range for most of them - depending on what type of bike they are and what shape they are in.

Going over there is a trip in itself. He has half of a 2 car garage full of bikes - all piled up together. I went into his house today too - to check out the ladies comfort bikes he just bought, and he had a few bikes and parts in the kitchen, a couple in the den, and a couple in his living room. So it was pretty interesting just seeing all of the stuff.

So if nothing else you might watch his ads and see if you see anything interesting come up in the pictures - which is what I did on the Brittany.

Lots of luck finding something and if I spot any deals I will pass them along. I think I reached my "got enough bikes now" limit today :lol: .

 

[RatRodDad]

Markm, that's interesting. Any idea who built these?

I see yours has a black seat and black hand grips. The seat on the one I bought almost looks like someone put a cover over it - although it appears to be leather or vinyl or something - and all one piece - not stiched on or anything. The seat is comfortable to ride on, though, that's for sure.

 

[Rat Rod]

I think Murray built them for Sears.