It’s one of those gorgeous Illinois Spring days – 65 degrees, blue sky, light breeze, and I have a bucket full of salvaged bike parts, and a 5-speed Schwinn bicycle rescued from the neighbor’s trash. This is a good way to spend Sunday morning, though I do wish the Methodist church nearly a mile away would tone down their PA system. If I can hear the “bells” then they must really be loud, and 19th-century revival hymns aren’t exactly great music.
The bucket provided most of the necessary parts – even the seat – though I did use new tires, pedals, and cables. This morning I re-packed the wheel bearings, replaced a broken spoke, trued up the wheels, and just generally tidied up.
It’s worth the effort because it is a quality machine. I would far prefer it to any brand-new $150 bike from Wal-Mart. It is a big bike with a chromoly frame straight and true, so it’s fairly light and handles great. Another hour’s work or so and it’ll be ready to find a new home where it can spend several more years doing what bicycles were invented to do.
She looks like a mean machine!
She does indeed. Schwinn bikes are well worth restoring.
Next time I get back to California, I should fix up my old Alenax, a real oddity I picked up at the Salvation Army: a bike with up-and-down pedals. Not very efficient, but fun.
Thats a lovely old schwinn…
I have an Alenax too, and you are right about them being ODD.
Those pedals make no logical sense.
What where they thinking? Where they thinking?