So, I had this idea for a while to do a bike for my five year old niece. Well her birthday came and went and I'm still working on it. No matter, it's still not bike weather for her yet and she doesn't even know about the bike, no harm no foul, right? BTW, I just made up the name Jane too for the bike, it's not my nieces' name.
So I'm in to recycling if I can, picked this up off the local craigslist for $30? in January. I talked her down a bit. The lady paid $175 13 years ago! Not even a 'nice' bike mind you. I said I might need tires, etc. who cares anyway, I just didn't want to pay $50 for something I'd be putting even more money into. Anyhoo.
I had thoughts of stripping and powdercoating the frame, didn't know what color early on, didn't like the white vinyl look (too pimpy for me), I was thinking either all black components, OR chrome OR alloy, but not both or all three. I'm very picky about just sticking with two colors at most. The paint is in such good shape I just pulled the stickers off and cleaned it up. Getting that goo from the stickers off took forever! Don't tell me about goobegone, vinegar, or WD-40--I tried them all, a dry towel and elbow grease took it off. I looked at rims on ebay, etc. and wound up buying these:
I got them in the mail and they were the rims alright, only the rims! No sprocket! Here's a bit of advice, don't buy anything from FUHUAsports if you can help it. That dillweed shows a crappy picture of the rims without showing the hubs visible. There is no fine print either that says, 'hey buddy, these don't come with a sprocket', it just casually mentions $x.99 extra for the sprocket with your order. Oh, you wanted to see Avatar? Fine, here's your ticket. Oh, you want to sit down, well, that's a little extra.
Anyhoo, the rims are pretty cool and I found out are cut for any bmx freewheel sprocket which just spins on. I found one at a bike shop for $10.
I hadn't planned on getting a rear freewheel, I was trying to keep it simple and was just going to run a coaster brake to avoid snaking the cables through the frame, etc. Long story short, I got a hub adapter for the front from Choppers?, a disk and rotor also off ebay for $20, and everything is coming together nicely for a front disk brake setup.
I still plan to run the cable tucked away as much as I can. Quite a bit of grinding and fitting so far, looking good though.
So I'm in to recycling if I can, picked this up off the local craigslist for $30? in January. I talked her down a bit. The lady paid $175 13 years ago! Not even a 'nice' bike mind you. I said I might need tires, etc. who cares anyway, I just didn't want to pay $50 for something I'd be putting even more money into. Anyhoo.
I had thoughts of stripping and powdercoating the frame, didn't know what color early on, didn't like the white vinyl look (too pimpy for me), I was thinking either all black components, OR chrome OR alloy, but not both or all three. I'm very picky about just sticking with two colors at most. The paint is in such good shape I just pulled the stickers off and cleaned it up. Getting that goo from the stickers off took forever! Don't tell me about goobegone, vinegar, or WD-40--I tried them all, a dry towel and elbow grease took it off. I looked at rims on ebay, etc. and wound up buying these:
I got them in the mail and they were the rims alright, only the rims! No sprocket! Here's a bit of advice, don't buy anything from FUHUAsports if you can help it. That dillweed shows a crappy picture of the rims without showing the hubs visible. There is no fine print either that says, 'hey buddy, these don't come with a sprocket', it just casually mentions $x.99 extra for the sprocket with your order. Oh, you wanted to see Avatar? Fine, here's your ticket. Oh, you want to sit down, well, that's a little extra.
Anyhoo, the rims are pretty cool and I found out are cut for any bmx freewheel sprocket which just spins on. I found one at a bike shop for $10.
I hadn't planned on getting a rear freewheel, I was trying to keep it simple and was just going to run a coaster brake to avoid snaking the cables through the frame, etc. Long story short, I got a hub adapter for the front from Choppers?, a disk and rotor also off ebay for $20, and everything is coming together nicely for a front disk brake setup.
I still plan to run the cable tucked away as much as I can. Quite a bit of grinding and fitting so far, looking good though.
