I really enjoy bike repair and modification. I am not always succesfull with repairing a bike however I am always learning!
This is the bike I am currently working on. My dad bought it in college and rode it a lot, but recently it had been sitting getting rusty in the garden. Currently I have replaced the tires, tubes, seat (I used some old upholstrey fabric to cover it), chain, and derailleur. When my dad rode it, he "converted" it into a single speed which basically means that he removed both of the derailleurs and bought a chain tensioner. The chain tensioner is broke so I replaced it with a old shimano derailleur, but I am still having a bit of trouble keeping the chain on the cogs. When you do something that needs a lot of torque, you can hear the chain miss a tooth on a cog and your peddles will shoot forward unexpectedly. This basically means that I cannot climb any hills with this bike :( . The back axle is also bent, and I lost some of the bearings from the rear wheel hub so I think that I will just replace the whole back wheel. This is a pricey decision so I am looking into some cheaper alternatives like buying smaller replacement parts and fixing the rest myself.
UPS bike? I found this random full suspension UPS bike. Does UPS have an official bike delivery route?
New bike! Well, sort of. It's from the 1970s or the early 1980s according to my friend because the shifter cables run down and then over the bottom bracket instead of under. It's a Motobecane Mirage. The frame, fork , crankset and the rest of the bottom bracket, and one of the wheels (I don't know which one, but they are slighty different), and seat are original. The tires are terrible and so are the brakes (currently I only use the back one because the front pads are bad). I found the bars used as well, but I think they are also french like the rest of bike because somebody very helpfully wrote "french" in black sharpie on them :)
I picked up this frame seeing it a couple times at the shop. I have only every ridden a hardtail and decided that it would be fun to try full suspension. It's a Kona Kikapu from an unkown year. The mechanic at the register said that it was vintage so I'm not really sure. The second picture is my first attempt at painting a bike. All things considered it could have turned out much worse. It has a lot of like puddles or something on the bottom tube, but besides a couple places that I didn't apply it thickly enough the paint job is OK.
To paint it I took a really fine grit sandpaper block (something like 320 grit) and sanded over where I was going to paint. I removed the rear suspension and fork so that I didn't get paint in the wrong places. I then wiped it down with soapy water and dried it. I used a primer and color paint that I found at Home Depot (It was the cheapest thing I saw that was still primer). You don't really need to use primer especially if you aren't completely removing the paint underneath. Now I just need to touch it up, spray some kind of coat over it so that it doesn't scratch, and add some writing!
This is a fun vintage tandem that my uncle showed me. He didn't know when it was bought, but I think it was probably from the 80s or 90s. Both tires were flat and the front brake didn't work. It was a fixie and quite heavy, however it was really fun to ride. It took a couple tries to figure out how to peddle in sync. Thankfully I biked with some friends who ride a tandem and was able to recreate the launch process. In the end it was good thing that the tires were flat because that was what helped us stop the bike after coasting down a hill.