Ok, so the name might be temporary, but its growing on me. Anyway, I introduced myself around here last week after I picked this Chinese made Schwinn cruiser with a springer front end. It seems to have some age to it, but its obviously not a Chicago Schwinn so I have no idea what year it was made. It was mostly original with some tweeker added accessories; ie: basket, tire pump, reflectors, weird grips. The bars were bent, and it had an antennae on the rear fender. I have no issues with replacing everything on this bike with parts to my liking. I'll show you what I've done so far, starting with a picture of the day I picked it up.
I've done some thinking and decided to go with a true hot-rod theme. I nosed around my garage and came up with some inspiring pieces. The first thing I knew I had to have, was some original sparkle Schwinn grips so I ordered those straight away. The rest of the goodies in this picture I already had. I also found an old oven hood under my house that will give a good supply of stainless steel sheet metal (which gave me another idea).
Here is a piece of this nice SS sheet metal. You see where I'm going with this don't you??
The template came out nice. I even threw some swirl marks in there to change it up some.
Here is how my first venture into a rat-rod bike (or rot-rad in this case) came out. Not bad?? Oh, and I had also stoped by my local bike shop (The Golden Spoke in Placerville) and picked up a set of $8.00 mountain bike handle bars which were promptly narrowed by five inches 8) . The velocity stacks were for a set of Weber IDFs. You can't tell in this picture, but I did cut holes, so you can see straight through them.
Well there you have it. This is how the Coupe sits now, awaiting its next bunch of parts. So far, I'm happy!!
I've done some thinking and decided to go with a true hot-rod theme. I nosed around my garage and came up with some inspiring pieces. The first thing I knew I had to have, was some original sparkle Schwinn grips so I ordered those straight away. The rest of the goodies in this picture I already had. I also found an old oven hood under my house that will give a good supply of stainless steel sheet metal (which gave me another idea).
Here is a piece of this nice SS sheet metal. You see where I'm going with this don't you??
The template came out nice. I even threw some swirl marks in there to change it up some.
Here is how my first venture into a rat-rod bike (or rot-rad in this case) came out. Not bad?? Oh, and I had also stoped by my local bike shop (The Golden Spoke in Placerville) and picked up a set of $8.00 mountain bike handle bars which were promptly narrowed by five inches 8) . The velocity stacks were for a set of Weber IDFs. You can't tell in this picture, but I did cut holes, so you can see straight through them.
Well there you have it. This is how the Coupe sits now, awaiting its next bunch of parts. So far, I'm happy!!
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