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Free Bike!
In article ,
Zoot Katz writes: Nothing is free. ..... While it's not "free" it's certainly a sweet and solid street machine at a bargain. I did pretty good, myself. Over the last summer I snagged a number of put-out gimme bikes, all with combinations of serious malfunctions and good parts. I built up one good drop-bar'd streeter out of them. The frame isn't much to write home about, but it steers good & true, and has nicely sculpted lugs with the simplist elegance of mission furniture. The top tube says "Road King" and the down tube says "Seville." DT shifters. It had chromed rims. That's okay, I also scored a Centurion roadie with alloy wheels, so I overhauled those and installed 'em, along with a beefier alu handlebar (foam grips) with which to swap out the orig steel one with the tape peeling off. The Centurion has a bent fork. It also had stem shifters which I kicked off the stem, and then installed the handlebar plus stem into Road King's headset. I also have an old Mercier which has those lovey wide-flanged one-piece Suzue hubs (supporting textured chrome rims.) I'll have to build wheels on those hubs one of these days. The rest of the Mercier is, well, French. The backwards threading, weird sizes and cottered cranks leave me cold. Although I do appreciate good steel cranks. I had a nice old Sakae standard BCD 5-bolter crankset kickin' around, so I stuck that on, c/w a pair of nice KKD cage pedals. I thought I might have to buy clips & straps, but I found some spares in one of my parts drawers. The Road King came with a rattail rear fender and wire rear rack. Maybe I'll reinstall them. It also had a 7-speed freewheel (one of those Shimano Magna-whatevers?) that was seized up. I had a 6-spd 14-28T and its mated chain handy, so that's what makes it go now. My cost -- a bunch of bike skeletal remains stashed in the garage that I hope the landlady doesn't find out about before I get rid of them. The bike goes pretty fast. Maybe that's to do with the 52/42 ringset, lack of add-ons, and all the work I've invested into goading Ol' Pig Iron along. I've dubbed it: "Crazy Daisy". But heck -- a Miyata tourer is an excellent score! Especially since it's your size. Pedals & saddle are personal adjustments anyways, even with a new bike. Are you gonna keep the moustache bars, or revert to the more traditional? Remember the practice among some, to saw half the drops off, invert the handlebar with the half-drops /up/ and pointing back (as opposed to simply twisting a handlebar the wrong way around, with the drops pointing forward, and having the levers upside down) and remount the brake levers & shifters, properly oriented? Of course, that was before brake hoods were comfortable to ride on, and before brifters. Maybe that more upright position kept some folks from riding up the backsides of parked cars ;-) cheers, Tom -- Nothing is safe from me. Above address is just a spam midden. I'm really at: tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca |
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#2
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Free Bike!
"Tom Keats" wrote in message ... In article , Zoot Katz writes: Nothing is free. .... While it's not "free" it's certainly a sweet and solid street machine at a bargain. I did pretty good, myself. Over the last summer I snagged a number of put-out gimme bikes, all with combinations of serious malfunctions and good parts. This weekend, My neighbor is coming over and we are building him up a bike from my old spare parts. He's disabled and never has enough money. He doesn't drive either. I asked him if he had a bike, would he ride it. He said he would. I told him I would give him one. He wanted to find a way to pay for it. I told him it was free and I would have to throw it out if he didn't take it. He accepted. I just love the pride some of the disabled folks have and try their damnedest not to get a free ride as much as possible. So, we get him into a one year old mountain bike that I took off the line because I got a better one. No charge, no money, good feeling all the way around. And the look on his face is priceless. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has removed 5995 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in their emails. Try SPAMfighter for free now! |
#3
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Free Bike!
Daryl Hunt wrote:
"Tom Keats" wrote in message ... In article , Zoot Katz writes: Nothing is free. .... While it's not "free" it's certainly a sweet and solid street machine at a bargain. I did pretty good, myself. Over the last summer I snagged a number of put-out gimme bikes, all with combinations of serious malfunctions and good parts. This weekend, My neighbor is coming over and we are building him up a bike from my old spare parts. He's disabled and never has enough money. He doesn't drive either. I asked him if he had a bike, would he ride it. He said he would. I told him I would give him one. He wanted to find a way to pay for it. I told him it was free and I would have to throw it out if he didn't take it. He accepted. I just love the pride some of the disabled folks have and try their damnedest not to get a free ride as much as possible. So, we get him into a one year old mountain bike that I took off the line because I got a better one. No charge, no money, good feeling all the way around. And the look on his face is priceless. Yeah there is something about helping someone out. And putting another cycle on the road too. A few weeks ago I had a guy at work who killed his Mustang and needed a way to get back and forth to work, he said he had a bike but it was kind of old and didn't ride so well, so being known as "the bike guy" he asked if I could look at it and maybe "adjust" it for him, well it wasn't old, but needed lots of tlc, chain and cassette were well past the worn stage, but the rest of the drive line was in surprisingly good shape, the derailers needed adjustment and the cables needed to be replaced, the brake pads were shot and those cables needed to be replaced. So between what I had hanging around and scouring the websites looking for a new cassette and chain, and a few hours of work I managed to tune up his ride, and now he is a bike commuter, and has said it's not that bad riding into work and he doesn't miss driving all that much. I told him I used to do it all the time but can't do it very often anymore. He has even talked about doing some longer "fun" rides. But he is happy just to be able to get back and forth to work without relying on others. Ken |
#4
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Free Bike!
"Daryl Hunt" wrote in message ... "Tom Keats" wrote in message ... In article , Zoot Katz writes: Nothing is free. .... While it's not "free" it's certainly a sweet and solid street machine at a bargain. I did pretty good, myself. Over the last summer I snagged a number of put-out gimme bikes, all with combinations of serious malfunctions and good parts. This weekend, My neighbor is coming over and we are building him up a bike from my old spare parts. He's disabled and never has enough money. He doesn't drive either. I asked him if he had a bike, would he ride it. He said he would. I told him I would give him one. He wanted to find a way to pay for it. I told him it was free and I would have to throw it out if he didn't take it. He accepted. I just love the pride some of the disabled folks have and try their damnedest not to get a free ride as much as possible. So, we get him into a one year old mountain bike that I took off the line because I got a better one. No charge, no money, good feeling all the way around. And the look on his face is priceless. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has removed 5995 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in their emails. Try SPAMfighter for free now! Way to go you two. |
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