I was at my grandmother’s the other day and noticed an old road bike sitting in the garage. When I asked her about it she said it was my grandfathers and hasn’t been touched ever since he had died when I was much younger. In fact, it still has the wooden clothes pin stuck to one of the cables that he would use to pin up his pants so they wouldn’t get caught in the chain.
Now I understand that I could probably go out and just buy a brand new bike that would end up being better quality, less work and possibly cheaper than if I were to rebuild this one. But it holds some sentimental value and I would like to rebuild it and use it as sort of a memorial to him.
So enough sappy shit, what kind of cost am I looking at here? The frame itself is solid. Gears are possibly salvageable but I’m thinking I want to make it a single gear and replace those main components. I’ll end up blasting the frame and re-coating it, new seat and tires. But beyond that I’m not sure how much things will add up.
Also anyone have any good sites that I can read up on? And possibly good sites to order parts?
chances are the bike is crazy far outdated. for example i bet it has a 1" headtube, vintage side pull caliper brakes and 27x1 1/4 wheel set. if youre going to do this somewhat right i would say you will sink at least $300 into it.
It might just need some new tires and for you to lube everything. I’d say go for it. Unless it’s crazy rusty or something. Doing bike maintanance is super easy.
I wouldnt try single speeding it just restore it new cables tires tubes possibly chain if rusted solid(depending on how much use new chain may skip for a while). Lube it up and clean it ride the bitch.
personally i would throw a set of flat bars on, new cables, new brakes, new wheels/tires/tubes (700x35), take off the front deraileur, convert to a single ring front sprocket, put on a new rear deraileur, new chain, new seat and new pedals.
i think it would be dope. i just threw together a new bmx bike and always want to shred. it stays in my car at all times lol…
I think I need to do more research before I start ordering parts from there. But thanks for the link.
Yea I’m leaning towards making it a single speed or fixie, but haven’t quite decided. I’ll start with tires just so I can grease everything and ride it a bit to see how bad all the parts are. It’s actually not badly rusted which is amazing considering it hasn’t moved in over 20 years.
Thanks for the advice guys. :tup:
Now for the crank, is it a standard size and width for the part that goes into the frame? (sorry I don’t know the terminology) As for the tires, I know that they still make the old sized tires but once I see how straight these wheels are, I may just order new ones.
and the only gripe i have about just starting with tires is that youre going to sink 50 bucks into tires and tubes for 27x1 1/4 wheels that you should upgrade anyway…im sure they are a single wall steel rim laced to an insanely shitty ball bearing unsealed hub. you can get into a cheap set of 700c wheels that will be a HUGE upgrade for the bike for like 150.
Well I just came back from Berts and I can get tires for the old wheels at $15/piece. So $30 vs $150 seems pretty major if these wheels are straight and won’t cause me any trouble. If they fail me, I’ll upgrade then and still only be out $30. But again, I still need to determine if these are worth keeping.
Pics? It has to have horizontal/semi horizontal to make it a fixed. 1" headtube is straight you can still find threaded and threadless (and fork) in 1". Most other factors depen on a variety of things, personally I think it would be baller to get a recent groupset and have a nice useful bike with a meaningful frame
What kind of bike is it? If it has horizontal rear drop outs it will lend itself easier to single/fixed gear configurations. I recently built up a Peugeot frame using my old components and buying some new ones that did not transfer over. I had to buy a 1" threadless fork, which is getting to be hard to find. I ended up getting it through Nashbar.com for $80, it is plain carbon with an aluminum steerer tube. The headset was also a bit of work to buy, it ended up coming in wroong like 3 times but in the end I got it. I had to buy a new crank and bottom bracket, got a pretty nice SRAM for $99 through Ebay. For the front derauiler I had to get a shims as my Dura Ace front was for a thicker tube diameter then the steel frame I was putting it on-Ricks in Buffalo had shims for $7-but if you are goiing SS this is not a concern. I also had to get a smaller diameter seat post, forgot about that. The frame was bought by my dad for 70, he was all poopy pants when it arrived and wasn't lugged steel, so it sat in a box for years until I built it up. So basically it is a 15 year old brand new frame as I was the first person to build the bike. It rides really well and for the small amount of I have into it I couldn’t have bought anything close to it in terms of quality. Of course it doesn’t exploded up climbs like carbon but steel has a seemless ride and I can hit 50+ downhill and it is rock solid where my carbon bike will get twichy. Here it is all assembled
