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basscyclist thread picture thread

A nice thing about those old Trek frames is that they fall into a large swath of years when components were relatively standardized, and a lot of replacement parts such as bottom brackets are still available. I've got a 1982 Trek 311 frame that's unfortunately too big for me (60 cm, I'm 5'10") but would be lovely to build up. And they have the classic aesthetics too. They make great single-speeds.
Whelp, I've made an offer, he made a counter offer, I'm getting a trek 830 frame for $50 CAD and picking up tomorrow, probably.

I'm hoping that with sound choices in used parts and some good patience, I might be able to make something relatively slick for maybe another $400 in parts, depending on what I want to get. I might just call a couple dumps or scrap Yards and see if they've got bike stuff... But that's a "later" thing.
 
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Nice! That should be an excellent base to build off of.
Any local bike co-op or old bike wrencher should have a box or ten of parts to make up a respectable build for not too much. A good wheelset can be your biggest challenge.
the bike recyclery (or something like that) is an on-line shop for mostly top quality classic bike parts. I’ve bought a couple things from her, and the cost and shipping was reasonable, but I’m much more of cheapskate scavenger/ salvager so tend to spend more time than money on bike builds.
 
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I got to visit Schwinn!

It's "bike week" in Madison, so there are various events happening. Wednesday morning, there was a tent with coffee and donuts at Pacific Cycle, which is located along a main commuter bike path. They now own the Schwinn brand. Of course I showed up with my Schwinn. I got chatting with one of the managers at Pacific, and he invited me to see their collection of Schwinn bikes. There were a couple of hallways filled with vintage Schwinns in showroom condition -- better than most museum bikes that I've seen.
 
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Whelp, picked up the frame today after getting all of our appliances sorted. Managed to figure out the date based on the colour of the frame and text, verified by a site dedicated to this stuff. 1988 model. The frame has the bottom bracket (square taper), fork and stem, front derailleur, front brake, and that's about it.

I don't see why I shouldn't keep the front brake, but I'm not married to a cantilever. I've never seen a u-brake. I also really couldn't care much less about a 3x system tbh, been running my CCM as a 1x for a while now and haven't had much reason to miss it - but the CCM DOES have Shimano SIS derailleurs, they're really not expensive.

Other than that? This frame is LIGHT. Cut down a screencap of a page from a catalog.
 
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View attachment 4718242
Whelp, picked up the frame today after getting all of our appliances sorted. Managed to figure out the date based on the colour of the frame and text, verified by a site dedicated to this stuff. 1988 model. The frame has the bottom bracket (square taper), fork and stem, front derailleur, front brake, and that's about it.

I don't see why I shouldn't keep the front brake, but I'm not married to a cantilever. I've never seen a u-brake. I also really couldn't care much less about a 3x system tbh, been running my CCM as a 1x for a while now and haven't had much reason to miss it - but the CCM DOES have Shimano SIS derailleurs, they're really not expensive.

Other than that? This frame is LIGHT. Cut down a screencap of a page from a catalog.
I would be careful with the stem.

The original stem on my fixie broke without notice. Luckily it was while an uncle of mine was riding it on the patio at 5km/h. Just broke. Fine on the outside, all rotten on the inside.
 
I would be careful with the stem.

The original stem on my fixie broke without notice. Luckily it was while an uncle of mine was riding it on the patio at 5km/h. Just broke. Fine on the outside, all rotten on the inside.
I'm ngl, after I've had some R&R from this move, I'll be taking every ounce of this frame apart that's supposed to come apart. Give everything a good clean and inspection, there's a small amount of surface rust in places - that's getting a cleaning and an inspection. I'll even try to clean the inside of some of the tubing that I can get into, as well. After that? Spray the inside with fluid film.

After that? I'll start planning out what I WANT to do with this bike - I figure it'll be a nice summer ride. I'm not attached to the original parts, but I'm not against restoring it "in the spirit of the original."

I'm also not against getting a 7-speed cassette with some twist shifters, or rapid fire shifters, and a 1x drivetrain, with turquoise accents to go with the decals.
 
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That is a pretty frame! I would probably rig it as a single speed, but that’s how I have felt since I moved to this pancake flat peninsula.
It's honestly in the list of possibilities. I definitely won't go full brakeless fixie, the part of Kingston I'm in is pretty hilly. But a single wouldn't be completely outside of possibilities.

Also, honestly, I didn't like the grey in the single photo I saw at first, I figured I'd paint it. I took one look in person, though, and it looks much better. I'm not incapacitated by any means, but my back deserves a break after this entire week, otherwise I'd have carried it to the apartment and you'd be seeing photos that hopefully capture it better.
 
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Did you take any pictures?
No. It didn't occur to me until I was almost leaving. Also, I know my own workplace would be pretty jittery about someone with a camera, and I didn't want to take advantage of my guide's hospitality. The building is not normally open to the public.
 
Nice frame. those spots aren’t too bad, on my screen they are kind of similar.
If that’s the old school Trek paint I would just put some stickers over the worst touch ups and enjoy it a road-worn classic.
The lines look similar to my Haro Escape from the same time period, but I bet you could get even wider tires in it.
I'm not going to lie the stickers would never have occurred to me if you locked me in a room with this bike for a month and told me to come up with a solution.
 
Moving some stuff in today, this is the frame in it's current state. Lots of touch-up spots in the wrong shade of grey.

They also painted the chainstay black, I assume to cover the area from chain slap.
Since it's naked, now's the chance to make sure it's not crooked.
 
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Took the kids out to a local trail centre with what I'd call "easy" downhill trails the other night. They've done some work on them lately so they have a few optional jumps and drops which kept it fun for me. One of the trailbuilders was up there with his camera and got some pretty nice pics. My son wasn't patient enough to wait for him to get set up so there are no pics of him, but he got a great shot of my daughter. I'm just getting over covid so this was about my speed.
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