The "Casey Jones"

[two spot]

I originally posted about this bike back in 2008. This started out as a 2001 Schwinn Panther that I bought at Target. This bike served as sort of a beater for a number of years. Then in 2008 I stripped it down to bare steel, repainted it, fabricated some new parts including the tank, headlight mount, suicide bell and some other stuff and I added a whole bunch of new components like the leather saddle and brooks grips, new wheels, sprockets, pedals and the cream Felt Quick Bricks. The build was done in honor of my rescue dog who happens to be named after the famous R.R. engineer Casey Jones.

So today I converted this bike to a three speed by installing the discarded wheels off my Felt MP.

Here it is. The Felt MP in the back got new rims and an 8 speed hub so it was the donor vehicle for the Schwinn's new wheels.

The Felt rim JUST fits in this springer fork. Anything wider would require re-working the fork.

The Shimano 3 speed was wider than the original 1 speed so I spread the rear triangle with the jack from my car.

The black Felt rims and the 5 star hub look right at home in this fork.

Strangely the twist shifter almost matches the primer brown color of the bike.

I didn't feel right using plastic zip ties to secure the shift cable so I cut up an old leather belt and made straps to secure it.

Here are a few more of the bits that I fabricated for this bike.

Heat shield.

Headlight mount.

Suicide bell.

Regards,

 

[sleepy]

Once again, an excellent display of creativity.

Bike looks superb! 8)

 

[Rat Pilot]

Very cool bike!!!

 

[Rizzoguy]

I just picked up the same black Springer for x mas. I love that bike! Shcwinns
more recent models have the thicker tubes than classic models. Nothing
shcwinn
Bout that bike. I say it's one heck of an original...

 

[NicksGarage]

Very cool. Love the combo and the creative details. Especially the headlight mount.

 

[two spot]

Thanks for the comments everybody. I hope I have redeemed this discount store "Schwinn" by customizing it a bit.

more recent models have the thicker tubes than classic models. Nothing
shcwinn
Bout that bike. I say it's one h*** of an original...

I bought this bike early on in my interest of cruisers. I think it cost me $200. I didn't really know what I was buying but it seemed like a sturdy simple cruiser. I have done a little research into the lineage of my bike. This frame was manufactured right around the 2001 bankruptcy of Schwinn/GT. With 100% certainty it was manufactured overseas but looking at the Schwinn company timeline, the late 90's and early 2000's were an extremely turbulent time for the brand and it may be hard for me to exactly determine who manufactured this frame under the Schwinn name. It was either built just before or just after Pacific Cycles Acquired the brand. At any rate, the frame seems beefier than the "Schwinns" you see in discount stores these days and many of the components seem higher quality. Ten years ago it also cost more than current discount store "Schwinns" of today too. What does all this mean? Well I don't really know but this isn't the first time I have been told that it isn't a "real Schwinn". Frankly I'm not sure what else to call it though.

That said I have cosidered buying a new Worksman frame or some other straight bar vintage frame and swapping many of these components over to a different frame entirely. I have so many hobbies that I'm not sure If I want to get into that right now. We'll see, if the bug bites me and inspiration strikes sometimes I can't help myself.

Regards,

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Some awesome details you made up on that bike!

Luke.