"Rolling Heavy in the Burbs" 1973 Schwinn Suburban

[irideiam]

I'm In!

As found on craigslist for $30.

The creative juices are flowing, the basic concept is to turn a classic Chicago Schwinn Lightweight into a heavy duty classic pub crawler, out of parts I already have on hand.

 

[N.Kildare1718]

Lightweight to Heavyduty.
Sounds like the rear end of this classic will be taking a Yoga class.
Mild to moderate stretching.
If you feel any pain stop immediately.

 

[irideiam]

Lightweight to Heavyduty.
Sounds like the rear end of this classic will be taking a Yoga class.
Mild to moderate stretching.
If you feel any pain stop immediately.

The clearance is surprising on these old Chicago frames once the fenders are removed. The plan is to go down to 700C which has a 622mm bead vs 630mm bead of the old 27" road wheels, and go as fat on the tire as I can without having to bend the frame or forks.

This is the same concept used when putting 26 x 2.35 (559mm bead) cruiser tires on a Chicago middleweight frame that came stock with proprietary Schwinn S7s 26x1 3/4 (571mm bead). Here's a HD I did for a friend with stock fenders, which I did have to bent the fenders out to handle the Fat Franks, no frame bending required.
Before:

After:

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Good plan. These bikes tend to get overlook too often.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Cool! Looking forward to seeing how wide you can go on the tires...

 

[OddJob]

Fat tires on a skinny frame, sounds intriguing ! RaT oN~!

 

[irideiam]

Good plan. These bikes tend to get overlook too often.

Yep they need love too, and a new life...

 

[irideiam]

Had to get it mocked up to see if my idea was even going to work. Started out with a set of spare WTB 29er (700c) mountain bike wheels and the fattest tire I figured might fit after taking some measurements, Schwalbe brown wall 29 x 2.0 Fat Franks.

Man it's really tight but they do clear, the MTB wheel set is really stiff so I am hoping they don't flex and rub when riding, but for now they clear on the stand, with 40psi in them. Also to my surprise the original brakes appear right now to have enough adjustment/movement to line up and clear the tires. We'll see how it goes once I add pads and try and adjust the brakes.

The next step is to get it mocked up to the point it is ridable and test tire & brake clearance. I need it to not just look cool and be ridable for the build off, it is going to be one of my pub crawler/neighborhood/beach riders, that I plan to keep.

 

[GuitarlCarl]

Pub Crawler eh?
Great opportunity for a creative cup holder...

Carl.

 

[SSG]

Those tires are a nice fit.

 

[Wildcat]

Your bike is looking great!

I put 26 x 1.90 on the front and 26" S-7 (2.0 x 1.75) on this 71 Varsity. Brakes wouldn't reach so coaster was the way to go. And the pedals were closer to the ground, so banking was out of the question.

If you do get rub, just take the width down a notch and keep the 29ers. Being able to keep your brakes and height is a big plus.

 

[irideiam]

Pub Crawler eh?
Great opportunity for a creative cup holder...

Carl.

Definitely

 

[Dr. Tankenstein]

This may be the coolest bike I’ve seen in a long time.

 

[Dizzle Problems]

I dig your concept. Nice to know I can shove a 2.0 into one of these frames!

 

[irideiam]

This may be the coolest bike I’ve seen in a long time.

Thank you sir!

 

[irideiam]

I dig your concept. Nice to know I can shove a 2.0 into one of these frames!

All depends on the sidewalls, they need to be flat with no knobbies.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

It looks great with those tires!

 

[irideiam]

Ok, rather than mock up further and test ride, I decided to break the bike down to the frame to clean off all the old dirt and grime. I decided at this point it didn't need a test ride, as I have done other conversions that have had clearance this tight and they worked fine on the street. Where you typically run into trouble with rubbing is on mountain bikes with too tight of clearance to clear mud and to accommodate the torque and flex of a rim under the heavy loads of rough terrain and tight turns.

Here she is striped down and ready to be cleaned and rebuilt into the new ride. The OG paint has just enough patina to show her wisdom and give her some good character. The whole idea is to use as many OG parts as I can and make her into a single speed HD suburban city cruiser.

 

[irideiam]

I dig your concept. Nice to know I can shove a 2.0 into one of these frames!

Only had to spring her out a little to accommodate the 135mm rear and 100mm front hub of the modern MTB wheelset.

 

[OddJob]

...and those long skinny stays are pretty easy to 'spring'.

Nice tire choice. I might have missed it, where did the chainrings / crank set come from? Old mtb?