I havn't posted here in a while, but I'm still fooling around with bikes on my free time.
I really wanted a lightweight roadbike to thrash around the streets on, so I snagged this 90's Raleigh Capri from craigslist. I payed a little too much for it, but its a decent bike and half the weight of my other steel cruisers.
This is as I found it, pretty stock.
Here it is with all those silly decals, unused brakes, and grips removed. I also swapped the seat, and ran with just the rear derailer.
This is where I'm at right now. I have been really wanting to ride a fixed gear, so it is currently fixed. I pulled a track cog off an older Schwinn exerciser a while ago and it fits just fine. I havn't re-dished the rear rim or shortened my brake cables yet because im not sure if I want to stay fixed. Its tons of fun, fast, and light, BUT I live in a very hilly area and its just a pain in the arse to ride sometimes. I will probably go back to 5-speed soon.
I recovered the old seat, chopped and flipped some old schwinn dropbars, and modified an old crankset. I needed a smaller chainring up front, but didn't want to pay millions of dollars for those nice messenger cranks. So I just grabbed another, very very used, raleigh crankset and just cut and grinded off the large chainring!
You can also see the new pedals, and diy footstraps made from an old leather belt.
I wanted the bike to look vintage, so I used this old chrome brake lever pulled from a Hercules bike at the dump. Then got some brass bits from the hardware store.
I played around with some different bars. Here is some diy risers I had for a while.
I really wanted a lightweight roadbike to thrash around the streets on, so I snagged this 90's Raleigh Capri from craigslist. I payed a little too much for it, but its a decent bike and half the weight of my other steel cruisers.
This is as I found it, pretty stock.
Here it is with all those silly decals, unused brakes, and grips removed. I also swapped the seat, and ran with just the rear derailer.
This is where I'm at right now. I have been really wanting to ride a fixed gear, so it is currently fixed. I pulled a track cog off an older Schwinn exerciser a while ago and it fits just fine. I havn't re-dished the rear rim or shortened my brake cables yet because im not sure if I want to stay fixed. Its tons of fun, fast, and light, BUT I live in a very hilly area and its just a pain in the arse to ride sometimes. I will probably go back to 5-speed soon.
I recovered the old seat, chopped and flipped some old schwinn dropbars, and modified an old crankset. I needed a smaller chainring up front, but didn't want to pay millions of dollars for those nice messenger cranks. So I just grabbed another, very very used, raleigh crankset and just cut and grinded off the large chainring!
You can also see the new pedals, and diy footstraps made from an old leather belt.
I wanted the bike to look vintage, so I used this old chrome brake lever pulled from a Hercules bike at the dump. Then got some brass bits from the hardware store.
I played around with some different bars. Here is some diy risers I had for a while.
