A New Old-ish Schwinn Klunker in a Day

-
First ride - Saturday evening

Taken at 9 am

Taken at 5:30 pm

Really, I went backwards. It all started with this youtube video:

Klunkers 3 on YT

    I've watched the video a few hundred times or so. The big guy on the yellow bike with no cables, shifters, or brake levers became my idol for a week or two. The video made me want a klunker. Specifically, it made me want a yellow Transition Klunker, but that bike was no longer being produced. It didn't take me long, though, to figure out that the TK was mostly an upgraded copy of on old straight-bar Schwinn frame. A little web surfing let me know that Schwinn is still producing a version of that bike for industrial use and I could buy a new one for around $450. (And it comes in yellow!) But I'm too cheap for that kind of fun!


    Then, I rediscovered the Rat Rod Bikes forum and found a lot of people building bikes based on used Schwinn Heavy Duti frames they purchased from a forum member. So I bought one a few weeks back for considerably less than $450.

    This weekend I was blessed with an amazing thing - some guiltless garage time. I used that time to assemble the bike I'd been wanting all along. (I cheated a little on the klunker build rules - the bike has a 3-speed Shimano Nexus rear hub, but it does still have a coaster brake.)

    She rides great. The big motorcycle handlebars feel goldilocks right - thanks Spencer! The only thing left to change is a new rear sprocket with a few less teeth so I can use 1st and 2nd for cruising and 3rd for my rare need for speed.

Okay, I'll quit rambling on, but I wanted to share the newby.

May you be blessed with time to build and ride, to get out and enjoy the world around you.

Be well, friends!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Turn-Key Klunkers (Or DIY your own)

-
Image
Yep, my most recent distractions have been variations on the klunker. I've always been fond of upcycled vehicles, the ones where you take something old and uncared-for and turn it into something useful and enjoyed. Cafe racers, resto-mods, rat rods, lowriders, bobbers, all of them have caught my eye over the years. And the klunker fits right in. About forty years ago, some people in California started using old balloon-tired cruiser bicycles and modifying them to become the prototype for the modern mountain bike. If you do an image search for a klunker, you get something that looks like this: That's a whole lot of DIY retro-coolness! But wait.... Yep, at least eight of those are not DIY - they are new! Sure enough, for those of you with klunker lust who'd rather ride than wrench, there are options out there, and some are relatively affordable. The Retrospec Sully For a little over $300 you can have a well equipped klunker with retro looks and qu...
Read more

Finally - tackling the No-Weld, Longtail DIY Cargo Bike (for hopefully less than $100)

-
Image
I finally started, y'all! Long-time readers of MH or 2WM are thinking, Jeez, MH, it took you long enough! To that I say,  Both of you are absolutely right. Our biggest-ever posts on both blogs have been about cargo bikes, and the really big one is about a No-Weld DIY Longtail Cargo Bike . So, here we go, people - it's time to build one. This week, the final piece fell into place: a Giant Simple Single cruiser bike ($35ish). Originally, I planned to pick up a cheap Huffy cruiser for the build, but cheap Huffys (Huffies?) have been rather rare lately, so I ended up with a nicer (but cheaper) bike. The free swingarm donor The other two main components that previously came into place are a nice and very cheap 3-speed Schwinn step-through ($20 and not pictured) and a junky full-suspension mountain bike ($0). So, the goal here is to balance this equation: Giant + Schwinn + Junky MTB = Longtail Cargo Bike < $100 Humble beginnings (I'll also...
Read more

Fossil Free Friday: Passing on the Electric Scrambler Jones

-
Image
(Getting it out of my system) The Scrambler Jones It happens more often than I want to admit. I go through a season of jonesing for a motorcycle to ride. It doesn't make financial sense, it doesn't make logical sense, and I know that if I had one, I would not ride it much. But I dearly miss the feeling of riding a motorcycle along a windy road on a beautiful day. The latest jones has been slightly different - it's still retro and it's still electric, but this time it's dirtier - I'm jonesing for a scrambler. When I look at what's commercially available, there's not much other than one very desirable bike - the Fly Free Smart Desert. Yes, I straight up want one. The Fly Free Smart Desert But they finished the pre-sale and haven't started the post-sale (and I could not afford either, snagit!) Subtract the surfboard, the ocean, the cool helmet and jacket and goggles - that could be me! What else is out there? I've ...
Read more