How's everyone Feel About Klunkers?

Perhaps it's my age or certainly New Orleans ragged ass roads. But I've started more and more, setting up klunker type builds. Another reason might be the availability of well built frames. Take for example the 80's Schwinn Mesa Runner. It's never been considered anything speacial, but I'll be damned if those frames don't make for a first rate klunker build. For instance;

What's kinda annoying to me is, people will order a $300-$400 bicycle online. Many are bikes that aren't worth $60. The cheap cranks, brake hardware, saddles, grips, fake chrome, etc are things that all the bikes pictured above are not guilty of. I'd rather a 36 year old Klunker than any of the mass produced private equity owned bicycle brands. I can't tell you how many bottom brackets I've opened that had barely any grease inside. I'ts as if these companies purposely want the bike to wear out prematurely. Wheel bearings suffer from the same dodgey design. Also take note, how poor the paint is on these fast fashion bikes. You often find fairly new bikes, with oxidized or faded beyond saving paint. I'd like to start a formal protest of fast fashion bicycles. They're a waste of resources. Bad for the planet. Bad for the industry. Get a fucking bike built to last. Rant over.

What you can do with a hundred bucks.

I regularly get bike dealers traders and scrappers, offering me older English bicycles. It seems other bicycle mechanics/rebuilders don't want them. You can easily distinguish these bikes by a few things. The color, frame design, headbadges, 3-speed hubs (often, but not always.)Many of these bikes were made in the same factory in England. You can find such names as, Dunelt, Phillips, Hercules, Royal Scot and Humber.The most popular of all at least in the US, is Raleigh.
I picked one up at our recent swap meet, for $50 bucks. The frame was pretty clean as were the fenders. The hub needed rebuilding but other than that, it was a pretty cheap deal.
A couple of friends invited me to breakfast the other day. They were both riding cruisers and dressed well. Not wanting to be the odd one, I pumped up the tires on the Raleigh, did a quick brake adjustment, raised the saddle and took off with them. We took a scenic neighborhood route, as opposed to the through streets.It was a nice morning and taking it easy on a cruiser felt so natural. We took a scenic route on the return trip as well. Upon returning to the shop, I decided to make the cruiser mine. Besides completely rebuilding it. (Which I've still yet to do). It needed a few personal touches. I hate a street bike with no bell, so that was a no-brainer. Lights, that's a given. In fact I believe only a moron would ride without lights.
What this bike needed however, was something personal.

I recently picked up a few wine crates from a local wine shop. Most shops have to dispose of these somehow so, they can be purchased for free.99 Which is a fabulous price. I've seen folks do really creative things with these crates in the past, but I'd only used them as storage bins. How silly of me. So finally, my brain powered up and I came up with this:


A few lag bolts, some shellac, a couple of rubber mounts, some wood quarter round to reinforce the corners and there it is.

I needed to strength test the box so I hopped on and road the bike over to Lincoln Park. I had a friend that owed me a few bucks so, I could make it a dual purpose trip. I took Cortland ave. east to Armitage ave. Cortland, like many Chicago streets, has it's share of rough patches. A good test for the design. The box never rattled and when I reached Clark street, I shook it to see if maybe it was loosening. Nothing, as solid as when I first mounted it. That felt great.

The friend I was to meet was working over at the zoo, so I figured what the hell. I never go there, not really a fan, but hey I'll check it out.

They have this zoo lights festival, that's opening after Thanksgiving. There must be over a trillion lights all strung up around the place. Every goddamn tree, is covered in wire and lights.

As much as I think it's silly, It's kinda cool. Something to do on a fall weekday. There was almost no one around. Just a few nannies and couple school groups.
I'd say check it out for sure. Try to avoid the animal exhibits. Most of the animals, thankfully were indoors. That would figure, since many of them are from Sub Saharan Africa, whose climate is vastly different from lakefront Chicago. Sad really. I took this shot of the Zebras that happened to be out. They looked bored to tears, poor beasts...They just stood there, looking sad, shit...


I thought this sign was ironic:

"Help us protect our wildlife". Tough to do since they are no longer in the wild.
What's that? Captivity you say?

After tooling around for about 45 minutes, I finally found my friend. This is him below. He's one of the guys hired to string all those purdy lights.

After meeting up with him, I figured time to get out this pretty, but sad place.
I jumped back on the Raleigh and headed west. What a cool bike, hipsters take note. That thing on the bottom is called a kickstand.

All this bike plus a little dress up, for about a hundred bucks.
What's really sweet about the rear wine crate? What you can bring home in it.


Nice, a toast to Raleigh cruisers!

A Weekend you don't want to miss

I'll be there and have confirmed 5 other bike dealers/mechanics/collectors who will be unloading tons of cool stuff. Build up that winter bike. Get that new saddle. Find a treasure. Ignore dates on flyer. Actual dates 11/7-11/8 11am-4pm

What You missed/ Chicago Tweed

Well it's come and gone. Our first annual tweed ride. Oh what fun you missed! Oct. 10th in Chicago has an average temperature of 62 degrees. Should be the perfect time for tweed right? It would if mother nature didn't hate Chicagoans. What a little @$%%&!
The over night low temp for the Tweed Ride? 29 degrees! I want to thank everyone who came out and gave old mother nature the middle finger.

I love it that so many came out even though it was a blustery Saturday night and I'm sure there were many other options for the evening. Including staying at home and doing nothing.

It was beautiful to meet so many cool people for the first time. I loved how the gathering wasn't a scene or a particular cycling clique. It was a community of people who genuinely love the bicycle Yes that lovely human powered vehicle! Not just fixie, not just spandex, not massholes, just folks in love with the bike. Here are a few shots from the evening.


Does Kate not look like she should be distributing the New York Times? circa 1936?
Extra, Extra! Tax on Booze just passed in the New York legislature... read all about it.



Garth, the definition of cool..


Clare should dress like this every Saturday night.


Even Ryan looked stylish that night. Compare this look:



To his hip spring Uni-Bomber look:


Ryan was also the first Flat tire of the night. Shitty Continental's. Yeah I know. I don't care what the masses think. I think they're shit. Fortunately Bean Came to his rescue.

Way to go Ryan, just stand there and smoke a cigarette. Beans got it.


Laura dresses like this everyday:


Then of course the chilly but cozy after boozing.



What is it about bicycles and PBR? I just don't get it. Great photo however.

Little Taco really wanted to come but Amy Left her BMX bike in Humbolt Park and her style at The Rainbow Shop. Poor little guy, sorry you couldn't make it.

All in all the ride was a success, and we will for sure do it next year.
Damn , I love bikes!

Vittoria's Randonneur

I usually don't feel compelled to write about a product. I figure most things get due praise without my two cents. There's a ton of killer bicycle parts and accessories in the marketplace today, and from all indications plenty of cool stuff coming in the near future.

I built up an old Raleigh Grand Prix, I recently acquired. It started life as a ten speed with pretty shitty Simplex gearing. Most of these seem to have come stock with drop bars, but this one had a factory set of steel cruiser bars. I decided it was best not to change too much of the original stuff and came up with this:


It's still a vintage cruiser, but now it's fixed with a nice Shimano 600 crank and sealed cartridge bottom bracket.
What's I like most about this bike, almost enough to make me want to keep it for myself, is how it rides.
I installed Vittoria Randonneur's after initially installing white CST 700x23 tires. The Vittoria's cost about twice the money. They have a double casing and heavy wire bead which makes most tires pretty fucking hefty. I'm a stickler for tires having low rolling resistance. I'm not the fastest guy out there and don't need a sluggish tire slowing me down even more. Even though the tire is fat at 28c it's still pretty fast. The weight doesn't hold these tires back one bit. The best part about them...they ride like butter. They max out at 85psi which keeps them fairly soft. You could ride on these for many hours in real comfort. I got caught in the rain with them and one thing I noticed was how well they dispense water when rolling. Lot's of road and almost all race tread tires just kind of get wet and ride on top of water. With automobile tires they call it Hydroplaning. The double casing will also save you a few bucks on tubes as they have superior flat protection for this type tire.
If you're planning on commuting this winter, (i sincerely hope you are) this would be a good all season tire to install. I know they come in black, but not sure about any other colors. Trust me your ass will thank you.

They're kinda cool lookin too.