Starting with a new bike?

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So what's the word on starting with a new cruiser? I get it's cool to have old, rusty, rare etc stuff, or conveneient to build with what you have already collected. But, as a second (or third or fourth) bike, what about starting with a new bike? For less than $200 you can get a bunch of pretty decent cruisers, then throw some different forks, tires and seat and then it's starting to be sorta custom.

Besides the principle of doing this, is the geometry all different on the new ones, etc?

Thoughts?
 
New bikes are COOL. Old bikes are COOL............Whatever makes ya HAPPY! :D
 
I think these were the first bikes we ever built. Both bought brand new at department stores and stripped as soon as we got them home. I can't even recall what color the girls was when we bought it. Wish I had a pic of it.

lounge_lizard.jpg

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The main problem is that the new cruiser will be cheapish with aluminum frame and rims; it won't be the cast iron Schwinn of yesteryear. Another problem is that the best style of frame seems to be the double bar, where you have two top bars, while the newer cruisers mostly have a single top bar and then two smaller tubes down below. Appearance from the side is similar, but not as good for hanging a sign.

As for using an old, rare bike- I wouldn't do that unless you're just really talented. If it's a piece of old junk, and I convert it into new junk, that's okay. But I'd hate to take a piece of history and turn it into new junk.
 
I think you have to look at it from a different angle. If you have an idea of what your next project will look like as an end result and you can find a similar new bike to start with then just start adding up the cost of individual parts. I have, in the past, cut up brand new bikes to build new cruisers. If I'm planning on using the wheels, brakes, cranks, pedals, bottom bracket, or forks for the project, then the cost of those components alone almost always add up to more than the complete new bike. I can then sell the frame or cut it up and uses pieces of it for the new custom. Believe me a threaded bottom bracket tube or a neck tube can cost quite a bit unless you want to buy 25 at a time from a frame builder.

it's important to be specific to pick a bike made from aluminum or steel depending on your abilities. I've seen, and made myself, some radical bikes from aluminum but it can be a difficult material to work with without the correct tools or skill level. Steel being easier to weld and fabricate, seems to be the reason most choose a steel bike as a starter.

If you start with an old junker and build a new bike out of it, that's cool too. I've gotten old "barn finds" and started working on them only to find out it was a rare prewar skip tooth balloon bike. So back into the pile it went or off to my bro's house cause he restores bikes and sells them for a killing.

My favorite "new bike buy" was about five years ago when Kmart in Denver, CO was discounting all of their "OCC" Schwinn Stingrays cause they just didn't sell enough of them. I bought (10) bikes at $29.97 each and cut them all up. I saved only the wheels/tires, forks, handlebars/neck, neck tube, BB and cranks. The rest got chopped up and taken to the trash! Those bikes listed new for $199.97 each. That's one heck of a markdown. 20 inchers don't really interest me much but I figured I'd hang on to the parts for a future project. I'm planning on building some smaller 20" fat tired mini-stretch cruisers for girls and kids based on my full sized bikes. Those parts would take care of 5 bikes right there with minimal investment of my own.

So yeah if you want to start with a new bike you can, just make it your own, and own up to it!

Later Travis
 
I'm in the middle of a buildup of a Huffy I got at Kmart. It's a Beach Cruiser type of thing, I just tore it down, took the frame to bare metal, cut off a couple tabs for chainguard, etc and it's supposed to be coming back from powdercoater today. I'm doing a retro/BMX-ish thing with it and I think it looks really cool. I'll have less than $300 in the whole thing between coating, purchasing and modifying. Buy new, buy old, who cares? Let's ride . . .
 

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