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Bike coming back

May 6, 2007

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. 

Categories: Artifacts
  1. May 7, 2007 at 08:04 | #1

    She looks like a mean machine!

  2. zilch
    May 8, 2007 at 03:02 | #2

    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.

  3. October 17, 2008 at 14:02 | #3

    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?

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