Greetings from Hazel Park

[BigStoneGuy]

Greetings from Hazel Park!
Hazel Park, St.Paul, Minnesota that is. I realize I am arriving at the party fashionably late, but hey better late than never. After watching the last two or three build offs from the bleachers, I decided this would be the year I'd throw one of my bikes into the fray. I would have posted this thread earlier but I honestly wasn't sure i'd finish in time to enter. I have kept a good photo diary of the build and will adding highlights to this thread tonight and tomorrow.

I was interested in building a bike specifically for regular trips to the market. So starting with the green Schwinn Collegiate pictured above, I set out to build a pimped up grocery getter!

Lots of hard work and several PBR's later, she is all but done. Just need to reinstall chain and chain guard and wipe off the finger prints. Hoping for good light tomorrow morning to get some pretty shots for the final entry pics.

Scott A.

 

[Funkme]

Sweet,build pics would be nice...

 

[BigStoneGuy]

I just spent a few minutes looking thru some of the entries and there are some really sweet rides here! The amount of creative genius on display is amazing. Everyone deserves major props for pulling these awesome bikes together! I am honored to offer my entry for your consideration.

 

[BigStoneGuy]

So now for a few Build details. I bought this Schwinn Collegiate on an local online auction site. It was completely unremarkable. i think I paid around $20 for it. If you are from the midwest, you know there are millions of these things around. I have always liked using these as build stock.

I had originally thought about keeping the paint but in the end wasn't feeling it. I decided to sandblast and repaint. Sandblasting, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, sanding, copper foil striping, paint striping, and clear coating, represent about a third of my build time. I won't say how many hours I actually spent on this bike for fear my wife will read this.

 

[BigStoneGuy]

This project, is a mixture of revitalized experienced parts, custom fabricated parts and new parts. Here in the Twins Cities we are lucky enough to have many great local bike shops, but for used parts the place to go is Sunrise Cyclery. Much thanks to owner, Jamie McDonald, for helping me find some sweet parts.
Jamie is known locally as an awesome wheel builder. I talked to him about building me set for this bike. He instead offered to guide me thru building them myself. He dug around the shop and hooked me up with some really sweet old hubs. A cool high flange Sunshine for the front and super sweet high flange Campy for the back.

As with all of the aluminum parts on this bike the hubs were polished to a crazy shine.

After installing new bearings, these babies roll like glass.
I laced these to some polished Sun Rims CR18 700c's with DT Swiss spokes and nipples.
Getting the chance to build these wheels with Jamie's help was one of the highlights of this build.
Thanks again to him and his staff at Sunrise.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Nice work! Don't forget to post a finished bike thread!

Luke.