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Jan 14, 2013
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Longmont, Colorado
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I've been doing resto/customs for quite a few years. My latest completed was this 1960 Hercules for my daughter to use as a town bike. She digs it.

http://www..............com/forum/uploads/gallery/album_51/gallery_35_51_50301.jpg

A good friend did a little fab work at my request and I spent last winter hand-painting this with acrylic paint and then clearcoated it before putting it together. A few changes have passed since this pic was taken, like adding 5" riser bars, a leather sprung touring saddle and a brass Incredibell.

http://www..............com/forum/uploads/gallery/album_51/gallery_35_51_19121.jpg

Current project being finished in the next few days is a resto/custom 1972 Schwinn Camelback Speedster.
 
sweet herculies the paint detail is great! like the other also.

Troy
 
Thanks y'all. As soon as I get moved into a house in the next couple of months, my project list will get dented more easily. Other pending projects include:

Fiore Mixte being converted to a fixed gear townie for a friend's wife
Motobecane Gran Compe being converted to a singlespeed townie that will be hand-painted custom for the recipient
Centurion Accordo resto/custom to be built up tour/city style for a coworker
Libertas frame to be hand-painted and built up into a fixed gear commuter
Schwinn Wold Tour being built up into a singlespeed MTB with 27" wheels
a few more fixed gear conversions to flip on CL (gotta fund the keeper projects, right?)

Ultimately, I'll be desiging and building a speedbike from the ground-up to race at Battle Mountain, NV and hopefully by the 2015 event.
 
The Speedster resto/custom, all I need to add are the SA shifter cable and restored stock kickstand.

625699_10151438273964373_1869860096_n.jpg


Wheels are 630 ISO with Alex X404 rims, laced with DT Champions to the original hubs, including the rebuilt SA AW rear hub. The lighter and bigger wheels are going to make this much more of a roller and manageable than the stock steel rims. The brakes are restored DiaCompe because the original calipers were long-reach. The saddle is from a Panasonic Tourist 3, restored chrome throughout. I cheated on the fenders and bought Velo Orange new, which have a nice classic look. The cable guides were given to me by a LBS who must have had them laying around for decades, made in Italy and branded Specialized, NOS in the bag. Powdercoat by Premier Powdercoating in Frederick, CO. Tires are CS 27 x 1 1/4. Pedals are new aftermarket bow style to keep the 70's look alive. Chain, KMC Z. The rest is all restored OEM, including the red glitter grips.
 
yoothgeye said:
Good to see another person here that's not afraid of a little tall bike. I'm working on my 4th now.

I have a line on two same-size 1970's electro-forged framed Schwinns for cheap. One is a Varsity and the other a Continental. They will be my second and I'm going to do all of the fab work myself this time.

Are yours posted up here?
 
Jeronimo said:
Are yours posted up here?

Somewhere... haha

Here's my "first" one (the actual first one almost killed me, so I cut it up and made this, only it was shorter at first, and it is still like this only with street tires now:
IMG_4591.jpg


This was the second one I made and I ride this one the most, very fun, very stable, I'm sure everyone is tired of seeing this photo and I really need a picture of me riding it wearing regular clothes as some people on here just assume I'm an elf:
elf1.jpg



This was the third I built, made it to teach kids, but adults can ride it:
small_tall.jpg


The 4th is made from 2 50s women's frames, I will try to make it look antique, it will have fenders and a coaster brake and maybe even a chainguard.

There is a whole thread about them here:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=20759&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
 
Outstanding! Regular non-bike people are entranced by the tallbikes. The people behind you in the elf pic are trippin' hard. Every time I take mine out for a spin, I catch at least a half-dozen people snapping cellphone pics or video. Some even pull over just to snap a few pics. Everyone waves back, even the local constabulary. I've only heard one truly negative comment about it, which was issued by a morbidly obese womanthing who was getting on the back of a noisy davidson. I considered the source. The most fun so far was riding it to a ballgame at Coors Field last season. LoDo Denver was very receptive. Oh yeah, an Art Professor at CU Boulder is using a pic of my bike and me taken on a cruiser ride there as an example of functional art in her classes. Whenever asked why I built and ride it, "to make people happy for just a moment in their day." Tallbikes do that.

That said, it's getting busted out today to run errands on this afternoon...it never needs to be locked up around here.
 
While out running errands on the tallbike, we saw a lot of love. We also saw one hater though, but he did a fantastic job of cooking his own goose...

307374_10151442769414373_651437510_n.jpg
 
Yeah, that was the closest I have come to being assaulted by a motorist in a few years. The Trooper said he probably wouldn't have witnessed the whole thing if I had not been riding a regular bike. Tallbike love success.

Your tallbikes in Roanoke Rapids must be huge celeb status. I'd wager there aren't that many in the NC Coastal Plain or Sandhills. I lived in Cumberland County NC collectively for about ten years. Do you ever taken them to the Hampton Roads area to ride, like VA Beach?
 
Jeronimo said:
Your tallbikes in Roanoke Rapids must be huge celeb status. I'd wager there aren't that many in the NC Coastal Plain or Sandhills. I lived in Cumberland County NC collectively for about ten years. Do you ever taken them to the Hampton Roads area to ride, like VA Beach?

I want to take them to Virginia Beach to the boardwalk. I have traveled with the red/yellow one, it has been to Myrtle Beach where it got TONS of attention and I rode it all around Lancaster County PA (Amish Country) where it was a lot of fun. 16 miles one morning.
 
VA beach, that bike would look good outside Jewish Mother's while enjoying a Reuben and a beer.

Myrtle Beach is nuts. I never rode a bike there, but can imagine how a tallbike would be a a real crowd pleaser. All of those hayseeds at the beach must have been blown away.

My record mileage so far on the tallbike is 35 miles. After getting some BBQ one afternoon, I decided to ride to City Star Brewing in Berthoud for a beer. The 15 miles home against the wind was easier after a couple of good beers.
 
In the city limits where I live you can get across town and cover less than 5 miles, leaving the city on the country roads is a death wish. In Amish country it wasn't so bad, just hilly, one hill was so steep I had to walk it up, I had the power (I'm mega low geared) but it was trying to tip backwards on me even leaning over the bars!
 
I'm not too familiar with NE NC rural roads, but SE NC wasn't too bad. The rural roads on the Northern CO Front Range are pretty tame. That encounter I had last week in the city limits was the first of its kind on the tallbike. People are usually too busy processing what the heck it is to act aggressive and *everyone* sees it. heck, all of the farmers/ranchers wave back when I get out on the two laners.
 
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