Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Sunday, 15 July 2012
There It Was...Gone!
Well after a long break I was just thinking about some more posts.
Having one project that required a lot more hours than expected a few months ago, I am afraid it had a knock on affect to my whole work load, putting me under a lot of pressure to recover and bring everything close to schedule. Thank you to those patient customers
During those busy few months, I was still able to take some time to build a couple of specials along with my young son.
I thought it would be nice to build a "Tracker" bicycle with him just as I had back in my school days.
We wanted to make it very cheap and quick to build and a bit Retro.
Enter a pink 80's mountain bike that looked as tho it had had a recent soak in the sea. It was intercepted on the way to the local dump. Stripped of everything, cleaned, frame paint stripped and painted black. Wheels painted satin black, scrounged chunky tyres from a friend and all but one front and one rear sprocket scrapped to give a single speed 2:1 ish ratio. The rear sprocket secured to the hub with silver solder.
The bars were reshaped and added to, before receiving a coat of satin black. A little crossed chequered flags HEC emblem was painted on the swan neck and finished off with some traditional brown leather handlebar tape... very retro.
Now we just didn't want to spoil the rakish look with brake levers, cables etc. But, after a test ride we decided to fit the absolute minimum. We fashioned a silver soldered lever with a 3/4 ball soldered to one end and a suitable cable attachment at the other. This was mounted beneath the saddle and pushing the pivoting lever pulled the rear brake centre pull cable to operate the brake block, kinda cool in a suicide shift sort of way!
The bike became very popular outside of the workshop, in fact too popular cos someone pinched it today.
So if anyone see's it on E bay or their local area, please let me know. It only cost about £18.00 but
I really liked it!
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Having one project that required a lot more hours than expected a few months ago, I am afraid it had a knock on affect to my whole work load, putting me under a lot of pressure to recover and bring everything close to schedule. Thank you to those patient customers
During those busy few months, I was still able to take some time to build a couple of specials along with my young son.
I thought it would be nice to build a "Tracker" bicycle with him just as I had back in my school days.
We wanted to make it very cheap and quick to build and a bit Retro.
Enter a pink 80's mountain bike that looked as tho it had had a recent soak in the sea. It was intercepted on the way to the local dump. Stripped of everything, cleaned, frame paint stripped and painted black. Wheels painted satin black, scrounged chunky tyres from a friend and all but one front and one rear sprocket scrapped to give a single speed 2:1 ish ratio. The rear sprocket secured to the hub with silver solder.
The bars were reshaped and added to, before receiving a coat of satin black. A little crossed chequered flags HEC emblem was painted on the swan neck and finished off with some traditional brown leather handlebar tape... very retro.
Now we just didn't want to spoil the rakish look with brake levers, cables etc. But, after a test ride we decided to fit the absolute minimum. We fashioned a silver soldered lever with a 3/4 ball soldered to one end and a suitable cable attachment at the other. This was mounted beneath the saddle and pushing the pivoting lever pulled the rear brake centre pull cable to operate the brake block, kinda cool in a suicide shift sort of way!
The bike became very popular outside of the workshop, in fact too popular cos someone pinched it today.
So if anyone see's it on E bay or their local area, please let me know. It only cost about £18.00 but
I really liked it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)