Recent content by rickpaulos

High tensile steel is not high quality. The limited production is one reason for the higher prices. None of the economies of scale production to keep mfg cost down.

seat post clamp? odd to see serrations on the outside.

Well, at 26 years old it qualifies as vintage.

Listed at 250 locally.

Fresh find, not quite Vintage but pretty cool. Aluminum frame with diamond shaped top & down tubes, rectangular stays. Solid sprocket but it's swaged to cast iron crank arms. Cleaned & tuned up and ready to go. The knobs vibrate the entire frame on smooth asphalt.

I get bikes that have been worked over by clueless owners. This one looks like it got attacked with a hammer and chisel. Trying to remove the bb. The bearings were chunky. Left end of the bb axle smashed over and useless. This is the left side cartridge ring. My bet is the former owner never...

scraped this out today. wrong size wheels. 26 instead of 26. You can see the brakes won't reach. bent fork looks like the front wheel was filled with spray foam. Why not, look at all those spray foam auto repair jobs on youtube from Mechanical Nightmares or Just Rolled in. Cool 1 piece brake...

Twins on standby.

Oooh, a "Giant" bmx.

1981 Raleigh Competition GS Reynolds 531, Suntour dropouts, frame made in Japan during Huffy's brief licensing of Raleighs sold in the USA. GS = Campangnolo Gran Sport componets. A rebuild project still in progress. Has Shimano aero levers and DiaCompe brakes yet to be replaced with Campagnolo GS.

needs a pair of the special hubs. The rest is regular bike parts. I noticed the sprocket is on the left side too. One issue is one of the rear axles is missing the left hand threaded inboard nut and someone decided to weld the axle to the bearing. Hubs run about $20 each.

rebuild done. 27.9 pounds new chain. Upped the freewheel from an 18t to 19t. rides downwind fine. The 20-30 gusts are a problem going into the wind. A couple of miles and I'm not going to miss it.

The more I work on this bike, the worse my impression of it gets. Those WTB Thick Slick tires are 650 grams each. That's very heavy. Like cheap walmart knobby mountain bike tire heavy. The wheels are very heavy. The black spokes are overly tight and rusting. Should be replaced but not for...

Speaking of a dot on a test wall... I stopped by my local Walmart to look for paint and the aisle of spray paint looks like a graffiti train car. Test sprays on other cans and the shelves.

I've had so many spray cans stop working due to getting clogged up. Lately i've been storing the push buttons in a plastic peanut butter jar with paint thinner and a lid on it. Watch the plastic lid expand. But even the cans get blocked up. I think I need a method of using the rest of the...