"rat" Urban?

[red_beard13]

Hey everyone. Time to have some building an old beater i picked up cheap.

Ripping into a mid 90's diamondback sorrento mtb i scored for 15 bucks. I never did take a pic right when i brought it home but it had stupid styling bars on it plus a rear luggage rack. lol

I cleaned it up and made some adjustments then air'd up the tires and actually road the thing 20mi with a set of inverted bars i installed and the original beat up tires. looking at this bike the next day made me laugh that it got me back to the house! HA

So now taking it apart ive found the crank gears are egg shaped really bad as if the bike may have been slammed straight down on the gears themselves.

Found a nice set of wide appearing 26" wheels at a yard sale, brought em home to find that they have solid rubber inner tubes. Talk about alot of work getting those off the wheel. I have never seen a solid rubber tube before.

Here is an older set of streetable wider white walls that are to be mounted on these wheels when its done.

I would like to intall a single gear on my crank but not sure which one and how to....this bike has 3 piece cranks, can i just install new crank arms and a single gear or does the whole deal need to be replaced? Also would like some other options for the rear cassette. Dont think i need 7 speeds. idk, this is where brain storming comes in...any oh-pin-yuns?
Goal for bike is to be built on the low buck side by reusing other old bike parts.
Besides my heavy cruiser i swapped out springers on this will be the first real attempt at an "rat" urban bike resurrection.

Thanks for reading, please feel free to add your .02!
Ryan 8)

 

[ratdaddy]

those "egg-shaped" chainrings are "Biopace" chainrings. They are supposed to be that way. Some dude said "scientifically, these will blah-blah-blah, more efficient pedaling stroke blah-blah-blah, etc". They suck. They are weird to get used to and nobody liked them when they came out, so they don't make them anymore.
You might be able to get used to them, but personally, I would either switch out the crankset or at the least find some round ones that work.

 

[red_beard13]

wow! very interesting! Still want to go with a single gear crank set

 

[red_beard13]

k, put a lil work into this project last night.
both front and rear wheels/tires mounted up, nice look and the width really fills up the frame as well.

found a single gear crank set to replace the egg shaped 3 gear set. its from an old "auto bike", the free wheel is in the crank set, now also in the rear speed hub. Pretty cool operation.

Then i swapped out the bars and neck mount for another style, also added the updeated brakes and levers along with the original 7spd shifter.

Over all this build has been successful thus far! the bike is actually pretty fast and shifts quite nice.

Now that everything is coming together on the mock up stages its almost time for a full tear down, blast, clean, paint and reassemble! ugh! lol nothings ever done!
Hope you like the build it up

 

[MadMax '58]

...........

 

[wheelbender6]

A sturdy Sorrento is a good score. Glad you did not replace the tires with another set of knobbys. The knobbys are more vulnerable to broken glass on the city streets.

 

[red_beard13]

thanks madmax, that truck is coming along nicley, but slow. glad you like the bike build too...peatbog, never thought of entering a competition with this bike, i enjoy building cool stuff (cool to me ) and then moving on to the next. i should read up more on the contest and see what its all about...wheelbender, i have never been a fan of the skinny knobby tires that came stock on some "mountain" bikes.
Glad you guys like it. ill keep posting as i do stuff.
8)

 

[MadMax '58]

.......

 

[red_beard13]

Holy side pipes batman! Thats awesome!

 

[Bama Bill]

I put a 3.8 Buick in an 80 Luv about 20 years ago.Easy swap.

 

[red_beard13]

?, what are the springer front ends with the dual side by side called and wheres a good place to score them?

 

[MadMax '58]

..........

 

[red_beard13]

sweet! thats it, i love the way the dual springs look on this set up. thankyou sir