Reader Project: Giuseppe's 1973 Schwinn De Luxe Twinn

Giuseppe wanted to share his new tandem project with me, and I wanted to pass it along to you all. This is the first tandem we've featured here, and it's a real beauty. Giuseppe has big plans to transport the entire family, so wish them luck on their inaugural ride this week. Check out more photos of the rehab process at Giuseppe's blog.

Reader Project: John's 1955 Huffy/Raleigh Sportsman

I'm a bit slow in getting this posted, but John and I have been exchanging emails as he has been busy resurrecting this lovely 1955 Huffy/Raleigh Sportsman he found on Craigslist-- just like mine, only red. Notice the Raleigh-style fork that has been added to replace the original. John finished his work very quickly, especially considering this was his first old bike project. He has lots more photos of his process here.

Reader Project(s): Steve's 1967 Schwinn Breeze and 1960s(?) B.F. Goodrich Bicycles

Here's a trifecta of lovely Schwinn-made bicycles from OBB reader Steve (regular readers of the comments on this blog will perhaps recognize Steve as "SS:Mtn Biker").

The first is a straight-forward, brand-name 1967 Schwinn ladies' single-speed with coaster brake. There is no model identification, but I'm guessing from frame style, chain ring, and chrome fenders that this is a "Breeze." Corrections from people better-versed in Schwinn anatomy are happily accepted.

The second and third bikes are undated his and hers Schwinn-made B.F. Goodrich bicycles, which were sold in that company's tire stores. Both have single-speed coaster hubs.

Apparently, prior to the 1950s, Schwinn branded their bicycles under different names to cater to big chain stores, but then dropped the practice, except in B.F. Goodrich stores. Other than that, there's not a lot of information that I could find on the Interwebs about these bikes, so dating is hard, but I'm taking a wild guess (based mainly on frame style, decals and motifs, etc.) and saying maybe 1960s. If anyone has better information, please pass it along.

I love the clean, simple lines of all three bikes, due in large part to the lack of brake levers, cables, and calipers. I know they fell out of fashion for a few decades, but coaster brakes are coming back, baby! And I, for one, think they're pretty neat. Some might disagree.

Reader Project: Margaret's "Mystery English Bike"

Margaret from London writes that she has just picked up a circa-1920s English "mystery bike" that she plans to fix up and get working again. From Margaret's blog:

"This is a circa 1920s bike that I'm thinking of buying and fixing up. It's in fairly rag order, but the bits that are most important are still sound. The wheels (possibly including rims) and chain will definitely need replacing, but that is necessary in a lot newer bikes than this one! Look at the brake system, it's amazing! They are called rod brakes, and it's still possible to get brake blocks and everything for them. The bike is in Watford, which is around an hour out of London, but they claim that the wheels still turn, so i reckon I can get it back to the flat for some extensive surgery."

Anybody out there on the intertubes know what make/model this is? I'm guessing that careful perusal of some of the links in my "Information and Resources" section might yield some possibilities. Margaret promises more photos as she gets to work on her mystery machine, and maybe even a post or two on her process.

Reader Project: Mark's J.C. Higgins

I got a nice email from "Mark" the other day, who's working on an old J.C. Higgins 3-speed. He originally asked about removing rust from spokes/rims. My response went a little something like this:

I've found that a very fine grade steel wool ("0000") and lots of patience is good for removing rust on spokes and wheels and other non-painted metal surfaces without scratching or damaging the metal. For lightly rusted surfaces with just a few spots, it should work fairly quickly by itself, but for the heavier rust, you might try a few drops of oil applied to the spot you're working on (whatever you use to lube your chain is fine, as long as it's not WD-40) . Make sure you wear gloves when working with the steel wool, however, as thousands of tiny metal splinters don't feel so nice under your fingernails. I believe Menotomy Vintage Bicycles also sells a rust removal kit with a special formula solvent, but I haven't used it so I can't personally vouch for its effectiveness.

Mark wrote back to say that the steel wool worked just fine, and sent me some photos of his J.C. Higgins:

Thanks Mark! I hope you'll keep us updated on what you're doing (and where you're going) on your bike. I'd love to hear from anyone who's working on a project, either with questions/solutions/tips or just with photos of their machines. Help make the Old Bike Blog something more than just me randomly posting bicycle-related miscellany. And for goodness sake, don't worry if your bike isn't some rare, top-notch old velocipede--any ol' bike is good enough for us!

Reader Projects Gallery

Now that we've had a few Reader Projects features, I've put together a little gallery of the "before" pictures and added a cool little slideshow gadget in the navigation bar to the right. Just click to view the gallery, also available here.

Right now, I've just got the full side-view photos of the projects up, but if readers would prefer, I can add all the detail shots, too. What do you think?

Also, if one of your bikes has been featured here, and you've since finished working on it, send me the after photos, too, and I'll post an update and add them to the gallery. And, of course, if anyone else would like to have a bike featured as a Reader Project, I'd love to have it. Just send me an email with a few photos (before or after) and a description of what you'll be doing/did to get it fixed up.

Reader Project: Amy's 1960s J.C. Higgins

Amy's husband found this bicycle in the trash and rescued it, and now Amy is refurbishing it, hopefully in time for spring. This is my favorite kind of Reader Project, because Amy is doing the work with no previous experience working on bicycles. The backwards fork/fender was like that when it was found--makes me wonder if the previous owner junked it because it "just didn't ride right!" I've been getting updates periodically from Amy as she goes, so I'm hoping I'll be able to share a lovely after picture of the finished bike (maybe sometime around April, Amy?).

All you J.C. Higgins aficionados, can you tell based on the pictures what model/year this is? Based on some online research, Amy guesses it's a "Flightliner," can anyone confirm? I've included a few more photos than usual in the hopes that someone can provide some info.

Reader Project: Lissa's Blue Bombshell

Lissa from New York posted a comment about my wife's Schwinn Suburban a few weeks ago, saying that she has one of her own that she has recently invested in as a supplemental and possibly alternative form of transportation to her car. Her beautiful "Blue Bombshell" as I dubbed it (a name that's stuck, apparently), needs a bit of work to get it going again. As she reports (with a few helpful tips on cleaning):

Up until now, all I've done is clean her up a bit -- steel wool and a combination of vinegar and water have cleaned up the rust on the wheels, the handlebars, and all of the little metal bits that surely have specific purposes, but which I don't have particular names for. My friend has all of the tools necessary for restoring her to functional use, so with his help I'll be removing (and possibly replacing) the gears and the chain, the brakes and brake housings, and the inner-tubes....While he has the bike in pieces, I'll do some other cosmetic stuff with the kickstand, rear rack, wheel hubs, and underside of the seat beneath the fabulous leather saddle, making a CLR-based paste to work on some of that rust.

Lissa also wanted to know what would be a good surface treatment to protect the paint. I suggest a few coats of a quality automobile polish which will go a long way to protect against scrapes and scuffs. However, a slightly scruffy-looking bike is a surprisingly good theft-deterrent, so don't make it look too nice!

Lissa is planning a move to New York City and is looking forward to using her bike to haul herself and her accoutrements around the city. She promises pictures of herself tooling about the city with stuffed panniers and baskets full of produce. We'll look forward to it, Lissa, and happy riding!

Reader Project: Ian's 1971 Raleigh Superbe

If you read this blog regularly, you'll remember Ian from his 1936 Rollfast, which I posted on back in December. Seems Ian has caught the bug, and couldn't pass up this $20 Craigslist find. Yeah, I know, that's twenty dollars, not a typo. Sheesh.

I saw the post on CL for $20. Didn't know much about the bicycle, but it had a Brooks saddle clearly in the pic, so I thought I'd check it out. When I saw the bicycle I was hooked. It had a baby seat mounted to the back which, while practical, was unsightly (what a snob I'm becoming!) and worse, it smelled of cat pee. I opened my trunk to put the bicycle in, turned around to pick up the rear rack (not in pics yet) and then put that in. As I was driving away I hear, "Meow!" the cat had jumped in my van! My heart leaped for a sec., then I figured what happened, pulled over and let the cat out.

I don't know, Ian, $20 for a bike and a cat, not a bad deal!

More photos from Ian here. And as always, check out the Old Bike Blog Reader Projects Album for images of all past Reader Projects.

Reader Project: Adrienne's 1962 Columbia Roadster

Well, her daughter Úna's, actually. Adrienne is one of the principals at the new blog Change Your Life, Ride a Bike! She found this 1962 Columbia Roadster on Craigslist and overhauled it for her daughter to use. Check out the full photo set on Flickr. Says Adrienne:

"Blue is a 1960's Columbia Roadster. I bought her for $40 from a man named August after deciding it was time to learn how to take care of my own bike. There are 5 cyclists in my family, and with kids growing out of or breaking bikes on a daily basis, my husband is kept quite busy being the family pit crew. So, while James built up our Xtracycle, I took the bike stand next to him and learned how to take apart and rebuild Blue.

The bike Gods looked kindly upon me for this project. I have old and quite serious neck injuries that leave me with less than optimal hand strength. Every time I approached a bolt I did so with trepidation- would this be the frozen one? When I picked Blue up, she had been outside for a while and was very rusty and dirty, so I figured there would be a lot of frozen bolts. There was not a single one! At some point she had been completely serviced and put back together by a bike shop, so everything was done right, she had just been neglected.

The biggest job, by far, was dealing with the rust. The paint was very solid in some places, and pitted and corroded in others. I had originally thought I would repaint her, but there was no way to match the glorious blue, and after using some copper wool and penetrating oil on the whole frame, I found that the anomalies in the paint were beautiful in and of themselves. They gave Blue a patina that spoke of her past. A bike with history is a great bike, and after finding the original owner's name engraved on the underside of the bottom bracket (Caroline) by I assume her father, I decided to keep her as is. I smoothed her out and gave her 8 coats of polish. It was the right decision, she is lovely!

Blue now belongs to my daughter, Úna. She loves her new bike! Now I need to find one for me!"

Reader Project: RB's Raleigh Superbe

Long-time reader, first-time "Reader Projects" contributor, RB of A Balanced View brings us his most taxing (and interesting) current project, a 1951 Raleigh Superbe Dawn Tourist. I've excerpted a very small amount of text from his blog below, but it's really worth following the link to read RB's more extensive description of the work he's doing on this bike and his other projects.

As far as I can tell, this is a Raleigh Superbe and the frame number - a “P” number stamped at the top of the seat tube - suggests it was built in 1949 or 1950, at least according to the online sources here and here. The rear hub is a Sturmey Archer DynoFour -the date code appears to be “5T” which suggests (to me, at least) 1950 [editor's note: since writing the original post, RB has tentatively dated this bike as a 1951 Raleigh Superbe Dawn Tourist]. When I acquired it, it looked as if it had been attacked by a maniac armed with a floor mop and a bucket of green household paint.

There are lots more pictures of RB's Superbe at his blog, including some really horrifying close-ups of the paint "job" and some really wonderful ruminations on the chicken-shaped spoke reflectors that somehow found their way onto the bike.

Reader Project: Peter's 1936 Hawthorne

From the same reader who brought us the electrolytic rust removal tip, comes this 1936(?) Hawthorne. Peter is yet another reader undertaking a refurbishment without prior experience, so I'm very happy to add his bike to the OBB Reader Projects ranks. Right now, Peter is focused on cleanup and rust removal, and is considering some work on the paint as well. I'm happy to offer the OBB archives (for what they're worth), as well as the information and resources links in the sidebar. Keep us posted, Peter, and happy wrenching!

Also, if anyone with Hawthorne expertise can offer a model or definitive date for this machine, please leave a note in the comments.

A bit more on Hawthorne here.

Reader Project: Pete's Mystery "Aircycle" Bike

Edit: Bernard of Cyclone Coaster has answered in the comments that this is a 1939 Roadmaster built by Cleveland Welding Co. (CWC), USA. Thanks Bernard!

Yeah, I'm still here. Just busy with non-blog and non-bike stuff lately and for the foreseeable future as well, but I'll try to get back to semi-regular blogging here. Thanks to my loyal readers and lurkers for being patient.

This first post after my hiatus is long overdue, I'm afraid. Thanks for your patience, Pete.

This bike was picked up at a garage sale, and could be a Dutch(?) version of a balloon tire cruiser. The tires, in fact, are of Dutch origin (Swift). Pete doesn't think the fenders, chainguard, or rear rim are original, and he knows the Schwinn saddle isn't, but otherwise, there's a lot of interesting stuff here that I don't know anything about. I'm posting most of the photos Pete sent me in the hope that someone out there will know what this is, where it came from, and roughly how old it is.

Reader Project: John's 1963 and 1964 Huffy Sportsmen

Remember John's 1955 Huffy Sportsman that was a brother of a different color to mine? Well, by some strange twist of fate, John came upon two more Raleigh-made Huffys, an almost-identically matched pair, in fact, and decided to restore them as a wedding present for his nephew and bride (the men's is 1963, the women's 1964). The results are astonishing, and John did a fantastic job of documenting his work. We hope the happy couple will spend many enjoyable hours awheel on these lovely bicycles.

Reader Project: JP's 1968 Robin Hood

Before

One of the great and terrible things about the Interwebs is that you get to meet people of like mind who you wouldn't have had a chance to meet otherwise, and then spend a whole lot of time online discussing the finer points of brake levers, chain guards, and fender stays.

After

Flickr user the-macnab has been working on this 1968 Robin Hood (a mid-level brand of Raleigh) for quite a while, and his friend williamhutchinson was also working to restore a Raleigh Sports, all about the same time I was working on the Huffeigh. The three of us exchanged comments, tips, and frustrations as we worked, and engaged in a sort of long-distance race to finish our respective projects. I believe I finished first, but my project was decidedly less ambitious than either of theirs, and I cut a lot of corners (like painting rusted chrome parts silver instead of replacing them). I'll do another post on William's amazing work on his Raleigh, but this long-promised post is all about the J.P.'s Robin Hood, and it is well-deserved.

Check out his full Flickr set on the restoration process.

Give a Hoot! Contribute!

Hey, are you working on an old bike project? Fixin' up that old Schwinn, J.C. Higgins, Raleigh, or whatever? We'd love to hear about it and see some pictures of your work. I'd like to have the Old Bike Blog be something more than just a place for me to post random stuff about old bikes, so send in pictures of your projects, write a post about your old bike, or just show off your latest garage sale or thrift shop bargain. Send all communiques, missives, and threats to bahdet[at]gmail[dot]com.

Image from the very cool Aussie Bicycle Recycling Network.

Reader Project: Diane's 1963 Schwinn Hollywood

Diane left a comment a while back asking for help dismantling an original Sturmey-Archer grip-shifter on her 1963 Schwinn Hollywood. She eventually figured it out herself (with help from the OBB and its readers, yay!), and her success has energized her efforts to clean up and restore her beautiful old bike. Here's what Diane has to say:

The bike had a tremendous amount of rust on her from top to bottom I mean on EVERYTHING! I didn’t know where to start or what to use that wouldn’t take the whole thing down to the metal…I began with a regular hairbrush to get the flaky rust off. Then I took a product called Rust Cure and extra fine steel wool from Ace Hardware which I read was perfectly safe for the chrome areas and they did shine up like a new penny (or nickel)…but the spray dripped onto the paint on the fender (also covered in rust) right where the decals are…I panicked and rubbed the area with a golf towel (husband wasn’t very pleased with that choice) and shockingly it also shined up like a new penny! No damage to the paint or the decals! After I followed this process on every inch of the bike…she looked exactly the way she did when mama let me have it as my “big girl bike”. It’s a pretty awesome product used sparingly and with caution… I also repaired the brake by myself, the chain & the tires…the grip shifter is the finale…but then I get to begin a much more thorough cleaning and restoration of the chrome and such.

I love hearing stories like this from readers who aren't "bike people." Diane says that before she started this project, the only thing she knew how to do with this bike was ride it. That's just like me when I started this blog, and now fourteen months and four bikes later, I've learned so much more than I ever expected. Folks, it is possible to work on your own bike, and fun too, and you don't have to be a hard-core mechanic to do it. Having the bike to ride is important, but it's also the sense of accomplishment and feeling of pride that comes along with doing your own work on your own bike. And, as you gain confidence with each new task accomplished and skill mastered, you can move on to more complicated projects. Sure, there will be setbacks, but even occasional failures are instructive. It's all about learning, doing, and overcoming challenges--lessons that transcend working on old bikes.

Reader Project: Charlotte's (Mom's) Dawes

Charlotte runs the very wonderful Chic Cyclist blog, which we've mentioned here before, and has recently picked up a new old bike to refurbish for her mother to use on errands. It's a 1954 Dawes, made in Birmingham, England that has been kept in a family friend's basement for some twenty-odd years. Charlotte rides a Dawes herself, and had lots of nice things to say about them. You can read more about Dawes' old-time bicycle philosophy here, but Charlotte is quick to point out that the new Dawes bikes, which you can find on eBay for $200, are now made by an American company and have nothing to do with the old English-made cycles. Here's what Charlotte plans to do:

The current plan is somewhere between refurbishment and restoration. I want a clean and pretty bike my mother looks forward to riding. There are some decals which are gone. I haven't decided what I want to do about that. Perhaps I'll hand-paint them back on? That would probably be in the refurbishment category? I figure anything I do will stay true to the original Dawes vision of nice frame which one customizes with personal component choices....

You can see more photos here, and I'm sure Charlotte will continue to post about her progress, or at least give us a nice "after" photo with her mom aboard.

Reader Project: Ian's 1936 Rollfast

As promised, here is Ian's 1936 Rollfast, mentioned a couple of posts ago. Ian sent me the full link to his Picasa album, which for some reason was chopped off in his comment the other day. Here's the link, which includes some very helpful text and some nicely labeled parts, including the bits of the bottom bracket and headset. I hope I can encourage Ian to post some more pics, too, especially of that stylish rear reflector. And maybe it's just me, but I actually like those painted black handlebars with the brown grips.

Reader Project Update: Margaret's Mystery Bike

I'm totally floored by what our friend Margaret is doing with her still-unidentified mystery bike in London. I posted a "before" photo from her blog last week, and she's done a lot since. I'll post a few pics here, along with some of Margaret's description of her work, but I want folks to check out her blog for more photos and a lovely running narrative of her work. I'm starting to think maybe I should hand over the Old Bike Blog to Margaret! I'm irrationally excited to watch this project unfold from afar, and I hope everyone finds it as interesting as I do.

Margaret writes: I'd really like to identify it, but unfortunately the back hub is so rusty that I can't find any serial numbers. Attached are the most distinctive parts of it - the front decal which is painted on and says "H" - which i'm fairly certain is Hercules, an old English bike company set up in the late 1800s.




The next is the saddle, it says Lycett Model L21.








Finally is the gear changer which says oswaldtwistle and field co. I sent a mail to the English Cycle Museum and they say that it's pre WWI! It's coming apart very nicely. I'm trying to tackle the dynamo at the moment, it's really stuck on pretty well!





This is the front fender before clean up...

...and this is the front fender after.









Front hub before...









...and front hub after.









Margaret has tons more photos and description of what she's doing with her bike, which she's named "Audrey Hepburn", at her blog. Really, go check it out.