Rollfast

Finished! (mostly)

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:37:27 GMT

I've had a very busy couple of weeks, so I haven't had much bike time. But I finally got the fenders sorted out on my bike last night! The bike is basically finished now. I still need to round up some tiny screws for the headbadge, but that's really all that's left to do now. So, here she is!

I took her for a spin last night to make sure the fenders didn't rattle or rub, and everything seems to be a-okay. I'm ready for some bicycling adventures now! :)

Iron Ranch Vintage Bike Swap Meet

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:17:27 GMT

I dragged my family to the wilds of Ridgefield, Washington this past Saturday to check out the Iron Ranch Vintage Bike Swap Meet. It was pretty awesome! Lots of neat old bikes and random parts for sale. Not a lot in the way of truly antique, but there was one vendor who offered some (very expensive) antique cabinet cards and lanterns. Strangely, I didn't see any Rollfasts at all! Not a one. Here are some photos of interesting bikes (and a motorcycle) for your viewing pleasure:

These were my personal favorites, the black and green Olson and the green mystery bike.

I'm not sure what this rusty old critter was, but I can imagine it was a stunner back in the day!

This ghostly pale Harley was a show stopper, just beautiful.

Another mystery bike, it looked very old to me.

A gaggle of Schwinns, check out that red Phantom!

It was really a fun event, I will definitely go back next year. I only had a $20.00 budget this time, but even then I was able to get some wide cruiser handlebars and a retro rear-view mirror and still have money left over. Most of the vendors' prices seemed reasonable, except for the guy who was asking $10.00 for a rusty Schwinn headbadge screw. Bless his heart.

Old goth lady on a glowing bike!

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:45:24 GMT

My husband snapped this while I bumbled around our street after a little ride this evening.

During our ride, we discovered an incredibly tiny woodsy park in our neighborhood that we'd never really noticed before! I will have to ride my bike to the tiny park and have a tiny picnic! :)

Whew!

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:01:37 GMT

It's time for a big update! First, my bike is up and running, but cosmetically not quite ready for a public introduction. I will give you this sneak preview for the time being:

For those of you who aren't familiar with my artwork, the little critter on the chainguard is a "womberscootch", which is a sort of small dog-demon-monster, my little art mascot.

Next, let me regale you with the sad tale of the springer fork. The story goes like this: the steerer tube was too short, I was very sad, and came incredibly close to giving up on this project. Not only was my bike still forkless, but I was out a pretty penny and my funds were dwindling. I decided to try the Recyclery one last time, but they didn't have anything new. I was starting to wonder if all my options had truly dried up. On my way home from The Recyclery, I remembered there was one eastside bike shop I had never visited. It was a little shop on SE Belmont. I walked in, tired and disappointed, and asked the fellow behind the counter if they had any forks for sale. He told me that they only had a few and invited me to the work area to look at their selection. Indeed, there were only a few forks hanging from a beam. The usual too-narrow middleweight vintage forks, a couple of mountain bike forks with big shocks attached, and...one vintage style chrome balloon tire cruiser fork. It was perfect. The steerer tube was plenty long, it was brand new, and it was a nice style. The guy told me it had been sitting there for at least five years. And the price was right! $15.00. I took it home and lo and behold, it worked perfectly! What a huge relief. I felt like I had given birth to a baby elephant.

So now my bike is complete and I have ridden it several times this week! I'm still in need of a better seat and fenders, but otherwise it's together and quite pretty and very fun to ride. It turns like a herd of buffalo and is definitely a workout to haul up hills, but I love it! Once I get the little cosmetic things sorted out, I'll post some full length photos.

I hate to say it, but I think that fixing up old bikes might be addictive - I'm already wondering what crazy project I might undertake next. I learned so much from this experience, and I want to keep learning more! Besides, I have fenders and a springer fork that still need to be used.

So, that's where I'm at for now. I leave you with these groovy jerseys from Team Estrogen

P.S. I nearly forgot! I was browsing Rollfast stuff on ebay, and found a vintage magazine ad for Rollfast's 1959 bike assortment. And there was my bike. A 1959 Rollfast middleweight, Model 766. It originally had 1.75" tires. Oh, how I wish I would have seen this ad a few weeks ago! But it's okay, I really dig the giant white balloon tires, I'd be sad to see them go.

Yay!!!

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:16:02 GMT

My fork is ready to be picked up today! Which means I can assemble the rest of my bike this weekend and ride it! It won't be absolutely finished - I still need to find appropriate fenders and my chainguard isn't quite ready. I changed my mind on the design on the chainguard and repainted it, only to be thwarted by rainy weather this week. I haven't been able to clear coat it yet. I'll be able to do that today or tomorrow, but then it will have cure for a week or so before I can attach it to the bike.

One step closer...

Mystery solved! Sort of....

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:30:42 GMT

Hey, guess what! I was just browsing Rollfast stuff on ebay and came across this bike. This is what my bike probably looked like (more or less) once upon a time. And you know what? My fork IS the original Rollfast fork! Here's where I went seriously wrong: because the bike had 26" wheels on it when I bought it, I assumed that was the proper size. Actually, it should have 24" wheels. It all makes sense now! I'm working with a stripped down version of what was once a fancy girl's bike, rather than a woman's.

Regardless, my bike will be pretty darned pretty when I'm done, and I will ride it with pride! It will probably look more like a Schwinn than a Rollfast with the spring fork, but it's a crazy custom job, right? And I need the 26" wheels so the bike will be big enough for my height. It's all going to work out in the end.

Now I know what to look for in a vintage girl's bike frame, size-wise. Never trust the wheel size alone! Live and learn! Please disregard all my past theories. :)

Case closed.

PS I should add that trying to research anything about vintage cruisers is a crapshoot at best. If I seem to be floundering, it's because there really aren't many books about vintage bikes other than picture books. I can't even find a book about basic bicycle repair that touches on one-speeds! It's too bad I'm not into multi-speed bikes, there seems to be a ton of information on those.

Forked!

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:17:05 GMT

Despite a thrilling tour of the east side bike shops of Portland, I was not able to find a decent fork for my bike. It was a learning experience, though. I learned a few things about my bike and the fork - I'm probably right in thinking the frame is a 50's balloon tire frame, but several folks who looked at the fork told me it was a modern mountain bike fork. Hmmmm. What happened to the original fork? And why were all the vintage forks I found too narrow for a balloon tire? I don't know, but I finally settled on something that I could order and would be appropriate for a vintage style.

This weird chrome fork with the bulbous spring thing on the front is a spring or springer fork, invented by Schwinn back in the 1930's. It was created to give bicycles a more motorcycle-esque look. They were also created specifically for balloon tire bikes. You'll note if you scroll down to my post about the Schwinn Starlet, that the glamour shot of the bike features a spring fork. They were used on many bikes by Schwinn, including the famous Phantom and later the groovy Krate bikes with the banana seats. I've got one on order. Hopefully, it will do the trick. Here's a lovely old Schwinn with a spring fork.

My tour of the bike shops also taught me that there are insufferable snobs to be found within every hobby. 90 percent of the people I dealt with were awesome, but that other 10 percent? Apparently, there are some people who find vintage cruisers gauche, and these folks have no patience for newbies interested in them. Eh, whatever. I love to learn new things, and I know it will take a while before my knowledge is up to snuff. I really don't understand people who are impatient with newbies, especially if the newbie is really keen to learn. I totally get that there are a lot of newbies who act like they know everything, but I promise you I am not one of those people. I learned early on that there's no shame in not knowing something, especially if you're open and happy to learn. So, please be patient, I'm working on it.

I leave you with this ad.

Wow, that kid is REALLY excited!

The Further Adventures of The Frankenstein Bike

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:14:45 GMT

Okay, I guess it's time for a Big Update! I haven't had much time to work on the bike this week, so I spent some quality time with it yesterday. Good way to occupy a hot, boring Saturday, right? I decided to go ahead and re-assemble as much as I could, since I now have all the parts rounded up, cleaned, painted, and/or restored. Or do I?

I assembled the handlebars and attached the fork. Not much problem there. Greased up the bearings really well and everything seemed to go together without a hitch. Moved on to the crank. Here's where things got mysterious. I took lots of detailed pictures of the bike before and as I took it apart, so I'd know just how all the bits and bobs went back together again. My picture of the disassembled crank didn't match what I had laid out on my towel, parts-wise. Something was missing, Something important that would be MIGHTY hard to replace: the notched washer that goes into the center of the dust cap before the last nut screws on. Yikes. I searched everywhere, couldn't find it. I couldn't figure out how on earth I could have lost it, especially when I'd been so careful to take pictures of everything and put all the little parts in baggies with labels.

At that point, the garage was about 100 degrees and I was starting to get really frustrated, so I moved on to something I thought would be easy and would give me a good idea of what the bike would look like finished: I tried to attach the front wheel.

But the posts were too big for the slots on the fork.

And the tire was entirely too large for the width of the fork. It was impossible to jam up into the fork, regardless of the posts.

Perplexed, I slipped the rear wheel on the frame and it fit perfectly, plenty of tire clearance on either side between the tire and frame, the post wasn't too big.

Again, more mysteries. First of all, I don't know enough about old bikes to know whether or not the difference in post size between the front wheel and back is a common thing. I've never come across it before with the various bikes I've had throughout the years. The thing that really confounds me, though, is the tire not fitting into the fork. The original wheel and tire on the bike were the same size, a 26" wheel with a balloon cruiser tire. Granted, I noticed that the tire was jammed into the fender, but I blamed a bent fender on that. And again, I don't know enough to be sure, but shouldn't the width of the fork be similar to the width of the frame in the back so that one can use matching wheels and tires?

I suspect Dr. Frankenstein put this bike together. Doing a little more research, I believe this is what I'm working with here: a 1950's Rollfast frame, a 1960's or 70's Schwinn fork, a 1960's Rollfast chainguard, and mystery fenders (which I'm not using because they're too rusted through and bent after all). I think that fork is probably meant for 24" tires or thinner 26" tires and that someone just jammed that fatter tire in there and called it good. I'm amazed the previous owner rode the bike around like that. This is all just a guess on my part, of course. The reason I think the fork is a 70's Schwinn is because I went back and looked at pictures of a little 70's Schwinn 24" I fixed up last year and the style of fork and especially the chrome bits are exactly the same.

Anyway, after ranting and raving and having a small cow, I realised that the only way to fix this is to either go with smaller or thinner wheels and tires or get a new fork. I am choosing to look for a new/old fork because I WANT MY BEAUTIFUL GIANT WHITE TIRES, DAGNABBIT! (Not to mention that I can't afford to invest in another set of wheels and tires). It's actually for the best, though, because I discovered that the fork is a tiny bit bent and doesn't align perfectly when it's in the headtube, something I couldn't really see just eyeballing it. Randy noticed this problem before I did. I'm pretty sure I was delirious from the heat.

As for the missing washer, Randy found it in my coffee can of solvent where I'd been soaking small greasy bits. It's a good thing, too, because I think I would have totally flipped out and given up on this bike if I hadn't been able to find that part.

The good news is that the bike is really going to be beautiful. The white tires with the white frame and green and black accents are very striking. I also have some beautiful sparkly silver handgrips and flowing white streamers. And the orca whale squeaker horn, of course.

I'll be visiting the Recyclery this week, in search of a proper fork. This pushes back having an assembled bike a week or so yet again, but I still think I should have it all done by September.

Why do I have such a propensity for difficult projects? They seem to seek me out. Please wish me luck!!

Delays delays!

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:41:50 GMT

Well, my big box of bike parts arrived last night. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to use the fenders I bought. Also, the company forgot to include the fender braces, so I'd have to wait on that anyway. Oh, these delays are killing me! I think I'm just going to go ahead and try to fix up the original fenders. They look pretty rough, but so did the chain guard before I refinished it. I guess a few more days doesn't really make much difference, especially since the weather is supposed hit nearly 100 degrees this weekend. I wouldn't go walking in that heat, much less riding a bike. I'll be happy if my bike is up and running by September. I'm especially looking forward to autumn, that will be an amazing time to go bike riding!

On the upside, my new wheels and white tires are gorgeous. I am in love with the white tires!

Etsy find

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 23:43:41 GMT

I've been collecting antique photos for ages, but this is my first bicycle-related antique photo! A cabinet card found in the vintage category of etsy.

They're all dressed the same, which makes me think they were a bicycling team or club. The fella with the 'stache is certainly a handsome devil!

Edit to add: I have been informed by a reader who knows more about these things than I, the following - these fellows may have belonged to a club, but chances are they are dressed the same because that was the custom of those days. Specific activities had specific costumes and to deviate from that just wasn't done.

In the shack

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:30:15 GMT

What is this hanging in my art shack, along with my collection of goofy pop art crap and Frida Kahlo mannequin?

Yes, it's the painted frame of my Rollfast, hanging by one of my dog's extra leashes to cure for a week. I painted it on a fancy home-made contraption made up of a couple of sturdy wooden dowels attached to a heavy board. I placed the frame on the contraption by sliding the dowels into the head tube and the tube where the seat attaches, upside down. Once the paint dried enough to handle (a day or so), I hung the frame by its head tube in my art studio out of the way. I now have the fork on the wooden dowel thingy, where it will stay until it's cured and ready to be reattached to the bike. This whole operation is incredibly fancy and upscale!

On to other things now. I was perusing Sewing Central when I happened across this darling thing!

This is a late Victorian-era cycling outfit for ladies that you can make from a pattern! The pattern, by Laughing Moon, offers two styles of bloomers, a split skirt, and two different tops. I believe the Rational Dress Society would have approved of this ensemble.

Personally, I can't wait to take my bike out when the weather is colder and I can wear cute coats and gloves while out and about!

Starry-eyed!

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:22:53 GMT

Well, my bike's frame is painted, as is the chain guard. I still need to paint the fork, but I only have one small work table so I'm having to do this in shifts. According to my email, my 25 pound box full of bike parts is on its way, so I may just be able to put my bike together sometime next week! Yay! If I can get the fork painted tomorrow, it will be okay to handle by next Wednesday or so. I painted my logo on the chainguard today and clear-coated it. Now it needs to sit as well.

On to other things, how cute is this bike?

It's the Starlet, which was available from Schwinn in the early 50's. I think it's just adorable! It came in green, too, which I would love to see! Here's a great old ad for the bike:

I just love old stuff!

Just a quick late evening Sunday post

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:29:10 GMT

Yay! The frame and fork are ready for primer! We used some non-deadly paint stripper to get the house paint off, and elbow grease and 200 grit for what was left of whatever was under that. Unfortunately, the original paint must have been sanded off by the person who painted the bike with the metallic blue under the dark blue latex because there were only small sections of it left. Remember the ghostly decals on the chainguard? Those had been sanded down, too. They should have just left it alone, it was probably pretty cool! Oh well, it will be cool again, just different. I'm sure that people who restore old bikes see stuff like this all the time and it makes their blood curdle. It's just like when I see someone cut apart a 1920's dress to make a "reconstructed" garment. Yikes!

I'm getting excited! I wonder how long it will take for my big box of parts to arrive? My chainguard is ready for painting, I hammered out my cute little logo/design this weekend and will start on that tomorrow. As soon as I'm done painting it, I'll post a picture.

Weekend!

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:41:43 GMT

I'm going to try to get in as much work on my bike frame this weekend as I can. Hopefully I'll have made enough progress within a couple days to show off some new pictures! But for now, I leave you with another lovely Mucha...

I think that starting next week, I'm going to do some features on bike accessories and that sort of thing. I keep seeing so many cute bells and horns and stuff!

Random bicycle stuff roundup

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:23:18 GMT

First off, let me refer you to a nifty blog I just discovered! It's the Copenhagen Cycle Chic blog, where their subtitle is "Normal people in normal clothes on normal bikes". This is the side of cycling I am interested in, and this blog is chock full of nice photos of good-looking Copenhageners riding around town on a variety of funky bikes. No spandex to be seen anywhere! The blog inspires me to get out and photograph some people on bikes in Portland.

Speaking of good looking people on bikes, I think I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't post a non-tiny version of this image:

On to news about the Rollfast! I ordered all my new parts last night, with the exception of a seat and a kickstand. The place I bought my parts from didn't have a seat I liked, so I'm going to have to do a little more searching. I'm so excited! I'm hoping to have my frame about ready to go by the time my big box arrives.

I ordered a little book about restoring vintage bikes last week and it arrived yesterday. It's written by long-time bike collector Richard Truett. It's going to be invaluable when it comes time to put my bike back together again. Though the book is really aimed at people who want to restore original vintage bikes with original parts, it's still amazingly useful for someone like me, who's just trying to bring an old Frankenstein bike back to life. The writer offers tons of tips and tricks, resources, and anecdotes. I highly recommend it! You can get a copy at The Classic & Antique Bicycle Exchange.

I still haven't heard from my neighbor about the sandblasting, but I want to get this show on the road, so I may just go ahead and start stripping the paint on the frame this weekend. That's it for today!

Time for some before and after pics!

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:30:46 GMT

Here are some progress photos for you:

First, here we have the chainguard as it appeared when I first got the bike. The paint job is brushed on with latex house paint or something similar. I could see that the painter never bothered to sand off any rust spots and just slopped some blue paint right on over them.

So, I stripped the latex with some paint remover and found the ghosts of the original decals, this time lost under a layer of metallic blue spray paint. Now I could really see the rust and dings and could get down to sanding.

After sanding the whole with 220 grit sandpaper, I found that the original color of the bike was white. The decals had been sanded off by a previous owner (the person who painted it the metallic blue) so I have no idea what color they were. I think they are from the 60's, and am suspicious that the bike is a Frankenstein affair, put together from various donor bikes. I sanded it smooth and primed it.

That's where I'm at now. Today, I'll give it several coats gloss white paint and let it cure for about a week. Then, I'll lightly sand it with very fine sandpaper (1200 grit) to remove the gloss a little. Next, I'll paint my logo/design and then clear coat the whole thing, letting it cure again for a week. Hopefully, by the time the chainguard is done, I'll be pretty close to putting the bike back together!

Lastly, Merna checks out my new bike basket:

Oxalic Acid

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:27:36 GMT

I realised at some point yesterday, as I perused a bicycle parts website, that I'm not really fixing up an old bike anymore, I am instead building a custom bike using a vintage frame! I thought I'd be able to use more of the original parts than I really am going to be able to. I was hoping the oxalic acid would be more of a miracle worker but the fact of the matter is, if something is trashed underneath layers of crud and rust, removing the crud and rust doesn't really help. I will give the oxalic acid props for being pretty handy as a crud and rust remover, though. It seems to work best on things that are cruddy but maintain most of their chrome beneath the rust and crud. I was able to save the handbar stem, which is now shiny and bright, but the handlebars just don't look very good, even after major elbow grease. Turns out I can get a new pair just like them for less than $7.00! Oh well, live and learn!

I made a list of everything I'm going to order for the bike, and the grand total is a little over $100.00. Not too bad for a custom bike, and certainly a lot cheaper than a quality new bike. I think that after this is all done and my bike is finished, I will be an expert on fixing up a funky old bike! I'm also going to have a box of weird parts left over I'll need to pass on to some other insane old bike fixer-upper.

I'm in a holding pattern right now, until I get the frame and fork stripped, there's not much for me to do right yet. I'm working on finishing that art to paint on the chainguard in the meantime.

Ahhh, Mucha. He was a poster art genius!

Progress

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:33:07 GMT

First, let's worry about these poor ladies and their squashed innards for a moment, shall we?

As I type this, I am soaking the handlebars, handbar stem, and seat post in a bath of oxalic acid! I finally found some at a paint store. I've already soaked the handlebars overnight, but they were particularly bad. I took some befores and afters, so I'll post those when I have them all cleaned up. Oh! And that pedal wrench worked wonders! The rusted on pedal is now off the crank arm and the crank stuff all disassembled and out of the frame. Lastly, my next door neighbor may be able to sandblast my frame and fork which would obviously speed up the painting process. I hope he will be able to do that!

That's it for now! :)

Pedal wrench

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:49:34 GMT

It's interesting how old things can tell stories. In the case of this bike, the more I work on it, the more I learn about its past. I stripped the top layer of paint from the chain guard yesterday to find that the bike was originally white, then badly spray painted metallic blue over the top of that. Someone rode it with the chain guard loose at some time in the past because there's a semi-circular scuff right where the crank arm swings by. I can vaguely see the original decals but after doing some searching on the internet, I still have no idea what era this bike comes from. There are only 2 mentions of it online, and they're both posts in forums written by people who know nothing about the bikes. The only reason I know it's from the late 40's or 50's is because I was able to find a couple of pictures of Rollfast bikes with the same frame and chain guard from that era. Specifics, however, escape me!

Speaking of crank, it turned out I did NOT need a fancy tool to disassemble the crank. It's a one-piece crank and only a 3 piece crank needs that tool. It's actually quite easy to take apart. HOWEVER, it turns out I need a fancy tool for something really dumb - I need a pedal wrench to remove the left pedal. Because, you see, I can't take out the crank from the frame without taking the pedals off. I took the right pedal off with no problem, but the left refuses to budge. It's rusted on and no amount of WD-40 is helping matters. I have no leverage and have been trying to take it off with a short little crappy 9/16 wrench. Bike Gallery will be holding a pedal wrench for me this afternoon, so hopefully the leverage it affords will get this damned thing loose! It's kind of funny that I was all worried about taking apart the head and the crank case, only to be thwarted by a kickstand and a pedal!

Once I get the pedal off, I can take out the crank parts and then prep the frame for painting! I've decided to paint it the original color of white, with something fancy painted on the chain guard. I want to get the chain guard ready for the design first, because I have to wait for the top coat to cure for a few days before I can paint the detail stuff.

In other news, I can't find any oxalic acid! I've got to call some more places. Considering how many bike nerds use it, it's got to be available somewhere!

I leave you today with this crazy thing:

rackin' frackin'!

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:42:47 GMT

I managed to get most of the bicycle apart yesterday. However, I apparently need some fancy tool called a "crank puller" to get the crankset apart, so I guess I'll be going out again today for that! I got super cranky working on that crankset, hardy har har! Actually, the worst of it was trying to take off the hideous non-original kickstand that some INSANE person attached to the frame wrong. Over time, the insanely long bolt holding it on there got bent, so getting that sucker out of there was simply a nachtmare. I'll be feeling pretty good about this once I get it completely disassembled and can start working on the frame.

Now, if I can find some oxalic acid, I'll be able to save a pretty penny because it is supposed to be awesome for removing rust from metal parts, which in turn means I won't have to buy so many parts and can spend my money on groovy sparkly grips and a fancy cruiser seat. It's actually used as a deck cleaner, so I'm hoping Lowe's or some other hardwaresque type place carries it. Home Creepo does not, which doesn't surprise me, because they hardly ever have anything I'm looking for.

I'll try to get as much as I can done today. My goal is to get it all apart and start stripping the frame.

I think this is my favorite vintage bike art I've found so far:

gettin' a move on!

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:34:49 GMT

We visited some local bike shops today! Unfortunately, I got cranky towards the end because I was hungry and it's all hot and muggy today. But the good news is that I found new handlebars and pedals, and got a helmet. I know I don't need to helmet yet, but I found the one I wanted and had the money, so why not? It's a black Nutcase helmet with a big green shamrock on the top. I'm going to have to order the rest of my bits and bobs online.

There's a bike shop on SE 9th called Clever Cycle that has the most GORGEOUS Dutch city bikes. They all look like they're from the 1920's and they have skirt guards. So amazing! But yikes, $1800.00? If I was a rich person, I would buy one. Pretty much everything in that shop was totally out of my league, except for a wonderful green wicker basket that I'm totally going to buy when my bike is all done. It's big and hangs off of the handlebars. Then, when you stop, you can just lift the backet off of the bars by the handle on the basket! Perfect for trips to Safeway and the farmer's market! It's a bit spendy at $45.00, but really pretty awesome and just the right color.

I just realised that I don't have a tire lever to take those ancient tires off the rims! Yikes! I may have to hit the road again soon. I'm going to spend the rest of the day soaking my bike in WD-40 and taking it apart. I leave you with a beautiful vintage Peugeot poster from 1930.

thar she blows!

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:09:34 GMT

Here's my funky old bike! As you can see, she's in need of some work. Luckily, it's all cosmetic. See that huge chain guard? That there is a canvas just crying out for art. I've got a neat design already worked out to paint on that. Randy is going to help me with some of the painting of the bike, since that's pretty much what he does all day at work. The first step will be to disassemble the whole thing (and label all the nuts and bolts so I can put it back together properly!). I'm probably going to have to order some of the parts online, but I'll check out some of the local bike shops for parts, too. The main thing it needs are new wheels and tires.

The last thing I will do when it's all done and put back together is attach my squeezy whale horn to the handlebars. :)

Vintage Rollfast ad

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:15:09 GMT

I'll be taking a bunch of pictures of my old bike later today and of course will post some here. I'm hoping to take it all apart this weekend, so I can strip and prime the frame, but the cooler weather report is making me think I might have to put it off a few days.

Here's a neat ad for a 1936 Rollfast. It's very fancy! I love how the art deco aesthetic of the 1930's showed up in everything, even the most utilitarian items. As you can see from the watermark, the image is from http://www.nostalgic.net, which is a great vintage bike resource.

first post!

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:06:49 GMT

Welcome to my new bicycling journal! Check out the profile to see what kinds of things I'll be posting here. Here's a nifty picture to look at until I get a proper post together:

Of course, they can only cycle so far before collapsing into oxygen-deprived heaps from those corsetted waists! Don't let the puffy clothing fool you, these are a couple of tough chicks!