Silver Angel (name might change)
The story:
This bike was purchased earlier in the year and was originally going to be cut up to modify the frame of my WBO bike, Retroped. However, when it arrived and I looked at it, I straight away thought of my great-great-niece who will turn 6 years old towards the end of November. I decided then that I’d build it up for her. Here’s what it looked like when it arrived...
Initially, I had no idea what it was... apart from being a bike. It had no handlebar and the seat was obviously not right… it was just some ordinary modern style seat in bad condition. It had obviously been repainted a few times over the years.
When my niece mentioned a Czechoslovakian bike that my great-niece had when she was little, I got the feeling this wee bike might be from there too, so I searched online but found nothing.
I started to search for clues on the bike which lead to me stripping it down. On the head tube, under all the paint, was a foil sticker. I tried to get the paint off to see what was on the sticker, but no luck. However, under the sticker was good condition paint that could be original, and the steerer stem, being hidden inside the head tube, also has what could be the original paint. Under the sticker is metallic blue and on the steerer stem is a metallic aqua colour... was it two-tone? Still no clues as to what make the bike is at this point.
Then I looked under the bottom bracket and there’s a serial number there, but it didn’t help much. The next step was to look at the rear wheel. It’s a coaster brake and they often have identifying marks on them. Sure enough, on the reaction arm was the name ‘favorit’, so I looked up that name online and found a site that said… “Velosteel/Favorit single speed coaster brake Hub made from the old sachs /sram torpedo machinery when they were sold to the czech republic”. Aha!
A bit more looking and I found a post on a forum that mentioned… “I have a set of these steel wheels with a Favorit Coaster Brake hub. I remember Favorit from the 80's when I worked at my LBS which was a Favorit/Rapido dealer here in Canada.”… so I searched for ‘Rapido’ and found it. (strangely, doing the search again now only reveals one of the images I found previously... silly internet!)
I believe the wee bike is a 1960s Rapido Super Deluxe.
What’s quite amazing is that when I got it, since it had no seat or bars, I thought of getting a banana seat and ape hangers to make it a muscle bike… and that’s exactly what it was originally.
Here’s a photo of an original one...
found here… http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?threads/show-your-muscle-bikes.11599/page-5#post-428787
This one’s in the aqua colour like I found on the steerer…
So anyway, I decided I’d go ahead with the muscle bike theme and started making plans, such as what colour to do it.
At first I thought I’d do it the original aqua colour and looked for that colour in local shops, but it’s not available. I asked my great-niece what colour she thought would be good and she gave me a few options. I decided to go with silver with the seat and handlebar grips being the chosen colour... but what colour?
I knew I’d have to get the seat and other parts from overseas as it’s not often available locally, so I searched online and ended up buying the banana seat, sissy bar, apes and grips from bikeworldUSA...
As you can see, I chose purple.
More parts have been ordered and are still on the way to me.
Glen.
The story:
This bike was purchased earlier in the year and was originally going to be cut up to modify the frame of my WBO bike, Retroped. However, when it arrived and I looked at it, I straight away thought of my great-great-niece who will turn 6 years old towards the end of November. I decided then that I’d build it up for her. Here’s what it looked like when it arrived...
Initially, I had no idea what it was... apart from being a bike. It had no handlebar and the seat was obviously not right… it was just some ordinary modern style seat in bad condition. It had obviously been repainted a few times over the years.
When my niece mentioned a Czechoslovakian bike that my great-niece had when she was little, I got the feeling this wee bike might be from there too, so I searched online but found nothing.
I started to search for clues on the bike which lead to me stripping it down. On the head tube, under all the paint, was a foil sticker. I tried to get the paint off to see what was on the sticker, but no luck. However, under the sticker was good condition paint that could be original, and the steerer stem, being hidden inside the head tube, also has what could be the original paint. Under the sticker is metallic blue and on the steerer stem is a metallic aqua colour... was it two-tone? Still no clues as to what make the bike is at this point.
Then I looked under the bottom bracket and there’s a serial number there, but it didn’t help much. The next step was to look at the rear wheel. It’s a coaster brake and they often have identifying marks on them. Sure enough, on the reaction arm was the name ‘favorit’, so I looked up that name online and found a site that said… “Velosteel/Favorit single speed coaster brake Hub made from the old sachs /sram torpedo machinery when they were sold to the czech republic”. Aha!
A bit more looking and I found a post on a forum that mentioned… “I have a set of these steel wheels with a Favorit Coaster Brake hub. I remember Favorit from the 80's when I worked at my LBS which was a Favorit/Rapido dealer here in Canada.”… so I searched for ‘Rapido’ and found it. (strangely, doing the search again now only reveals one of the images I found previously... silly internet!)
I believe the wee bike is a 1960s Rapido Super Deluxe.
What’s quite amazing is that when I got it, since it had no seat or bars, I thought of getting a banana seat and ape hangers to make it a muscle bike… and that’s exactly what it was originally.
Here’s a photo of an original one...
found here… http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?threads/show-your-muscle-bikes.11599/page-5#post-428787
This one’s in the aqua colour like I found on the steerer…
So anyway, I decided I’d go ahead with the muscle bike theme and started making plans, such as what colour to do it.
At first I thought I’d do it the original aqua colour and looked for that colour in local shops, but it’s not available. I asked my great-niece what colour she thought would be good and she gave me a few options. I decided to go with silver with the seat and handlebar grips being the chosen colour... but what colour?
I knew I’d have to get the seat and other parts from overseas as it’s not often available locally, so I searched online and ended up buying the banana seat, sissy bar, apes and grips from bikeworldUSA...
As you can see, I chose purple.
More parts have been ordered and are still on the way to me.
Glen.