Stirring it up: Collegiate and Haro

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Went to a bike swap a couple of weeks ago and these two found their way home with me:
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The Collegiate is going to get chrome fenders and a mattress saddle and North Road bars, the whole treatment to look like a standard (non-Sport) Collegiate, just because I love the way they ride.

No idea on the Haro; I'm not really into BMX but it's worth more than the mid-school GT I traded away for it. I figure I'll play with it for a little while and then move it along to someone who wants it more than I do.
 
Collegiate is cool! What size rims?
26". I'm a sucker for 26" camelback lightweights. This makes a total of four: 2 Collegiates, a Speedster, and a Ross Compact that's very similar to the Schwinns, all with 26 x 1 3/8 wheels.
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The Speedster was actually cobbled together with parts from a Ross 10-speed and fenders from Niagara Cycle. It gave up those fenders recently for the blue Ross and is now slated for a BMX cruiser/strandie-style makeover.
 
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Very cool...I have a ton of camelbacks...20", 24" (only 1 frame set), 26", 700c/29" from Schwinn, NYC Bikes, GT, MacNeil and probably others I can't remember at the moment (I lack a 27" Schwinn...they seem to be rare birds). I keep my eyes open for the Ross camelbacks to show up on a local CL, but haven't had any luck yet finding one.

Great looking bikes :thumbsup:
 
I love the style of camelback frame bikes, but are they all smaller frame sizes? I have a short inseam (30") but am just under 6 ft tall and like to ride pretty upright for comfort.
 
The specialized crossroads, GT streamline series, and NYCBikes Camelbacks are all modern-ish camelbacks that come in a variety of sizes (crossroads and streamline series were in production in the early to mid 00's...NYC Bikes still available, I think).
 
Specialized make great steel frames, they've been having them made in Taiwan since the 80s. According to Charlie Kelly, they were the first ones to rip off Mountain Bikes' design. They allegedly bought one of those early frames Tom made for Charlie and Gary to sell, and shipped it overseas with a note saying to make a thousand of them. Are you an original if you are the first one to rip someone off?
 
... forgot 1...maybe 2. I have a Raleigh Colt camelback as well, and there a bunch of versions of Raleigh-built versions in different sizes.

Have a '59 Hawthorne that is Raleigh built...kind of a camelback, but with twin top tubes.
 
A crusty Sierra Brown girls' '72 Collegiate gave up its fenders and bars for this.
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For as beat as the donor bike was, the chrome bars and stem came back beautifully. My wife actually commented on how nice it was, and I took the opportunity to tell her that part of the reason people love to restore Schwinns is that they clean up so well.
 

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