Monday, September 1, 2008

Junk bikes?

No. For years and years and years I've dreamed of putting together my own bike. Bikes? You mean plural? Oh good heavens! Get out!

Well guess what? I'm livin' the dream. More or less. Mostly less.

No custom frames here. Not even midrange Shimano componentry. Wellll... not quite true. I did snag a set of old XT hubs from the Community Cycling Center. I wish they were in my community. Anyway-- the 18-or-so year-old hubs run much smoother and are a definite upgrade from the Deore hubs of the same vintage. Ooh-la-la. Deore XT.

Anyway-- So now I'm building up a pair of singlespeed clunkers. #1 is my old 1989 Rockhopper Comp (In 1989, the only difference between a Rockhhopper Comp and the Stumpjumper was paint, stickers, and Deore vs. Deore XT.) #2 is a poor, neglected "MTN TEK". It came to me as a 7-speed so it's probably late-80's early 90's vintage. It's a Taiwanese frame, so doubtless it rubbed shoulders with other frames destined for decidedly fancier headbadges and downtube stickers. I remember seeing these things crowding the bike section of sporting goods stores like "Pedersons" and ski shops in southern Idaho.

Whatever. #1 has already been reincarnated -- reinbikenated -- as a single-speed with a Mary handlebar. I hooked up the trailer-bike to it so it sports the hugeugly hitch. Now it's getting a drop bar. The MTN TEK will get the Mary bar and become the loco for the trailer bike. It'll also be the town bike/errand bike. It'll actually be sharing these duties with all the other bikes since I'm equal opportunity that way and don't believe in "rain bikes" or "commuter bikes". They all like to take turns at different kinds of rides. (The road bike doesn't like the trail stuff quite so much since it seems to flat every time I do that. Even with the sausagey 25c tires.)

#1 is getting the Bonty cyclocross drop bar that I pulled from the LeMond Poprad. I'm not sure if I'll like that or not. I have a feeling that I'll need to score a used Midge on Ebay eventually. To be happy. We'll see.

Still. I never imagined that I'd be building up a couple of bike from used/scrounged/Ebay parts.

And digging it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Rein-BIKE-nated...yes, that is a goodie (it has occurred, er...o-biked to me but I've never used it..)
Brian welcome to the mad mud world of bike daydreamers...
I only fantasize about putting a bike together since it involves steps. And I guess I rarely "do" steps (i try to do everyhting is one fell swoop)
Cheers 2 u
Jacquiephelan.com