First all Amen to what the wise CycloFiend had to say. If Craigslist in your area isn't yielding good results (or at least reasonably priced results then I would suggest 2 options. 1) the season of garage sales is upon us (in NA at least) and you can often find a good old 10 speed that someone just wants to clear out of the garage at those, my best method for finding old 10 speed era bikes is my local bike co-op, in Seattle that is Bike Works. They rehad and resell a number of bikes that get donated to them but they have a whole warehouse of bikes that they haven't been able to get to or are just a frame etc and they are much more reasonably priced than 95% of whats on Craigslist and I know the $$ I spend at the co-op is going to bike causes I feel good about.
Hope you and your friend find a likely lugged steed and have fun with it. Ryan <https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Q0RliCBFcqQ/UYA_T_xN-kI/AAAAAAAAAm8/Gg9RgGdSToA/s1600/Schwinn+Le+Tour+III+AFTER.jpg> <https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8grGJZFc_uM/UYA_WSfWNwI/AAAAAAAAAnE/mPUldWOdDxk/s1600/Schwinn+Le+Tour+III+BEFORE.jpg> I have included a before and after of 1978 Schwinn Le Tour Mixte I just built for my sister in law. It came from the bike co-op for $40 and got the bigger tires, upright bars, bell and basket treatment along with a alot of TLC. On Tuesday, April 30, 2013 9:21:31 AM UTC-7, Cyclofiend Jim wrote: > > Breathing new life into an older frame is an honorable thing. > > But, I'd have your friend ask themselves if they really do enjoy that part > of the process. It is actually easy to drop a pretty good chunk of change > trying to revitalize older bikes. Personally, I love the process, and have > enough parts and bits hanging around that I can kludge/bodge something > together which will work. And it's always a good thing to support your > local ReCyclery if there's one about. > > A big part of making Rivendellizing a bicycle is about making it > versatile, useful and rideable. If you go back through some of the > Rivendell Readers, you'll find a series of articles where the folks at RBW > take a single-purpose or poorly executed bicycle and work it up. Those are > really good resources worth tracking down. > > Most of those deal with, in not-particular-order, the following: > - Bigger Tires - maxing out the frame's clearance for better suspension > and comfort > - Fenders - making a seasonally useful bike > - Racks/Baskets/Bags - because one should not limit oneself to a single > tube and multi-tool in a tiny little seatbag. > - Comfortable Position - which means a different things to different > people. But, bars higher and closer is a good direction to start. > > Some of the best bikes for this are the "bike boom" Japanese frames, > especially those with more of a touring design. But, a lot of those have > been cannibalized for fixed gears, or have lived hard and brutal lives of > neglect. Those frames are getting on 40 years old now. While that's a > testament to the quality of the workmanship and the basic material > underlying it all (Yay STEEL!), it does become a labor of love. > > At some point though, you do end up with a useful bike which is not a > Rivendell design. While I like my other bikes, there is a definite > difference in handling and behavior between them and my Quickbeam and > Hilsen. I worry sometimes about how happy the chromed fork blades are on > my old Dawes, considering it spent most of its years out of my control. > And wedging in a pair Jack Browns last weekend was an exercise in > frustratingly small clearances. > > - Jim / cyclofiend.com > > A lot of this is covered in "Just Ride" which if your friend hasn't read, > they might give a gander to. > > > > On Tuesday, April 30, 2013 8:06:34 AM UTC-7, Rick wrote: >> >> I know a lot of you folks have both Rivendell's and other often older >> bikes that you have converted to the Rivendell style. (My pre-Bleriot >> experiment was a partially successful Riv-izing of a Specialized >> Rockhopper.) I have a colleague interested in doing the same as a stepping >> stone toward a possible Riv purchase, and was wondering what y'all would >> recommend as a good frame candidate. We have a number of fixie-oriented >> folks in our urban environment that tend to prey on lugged steel in the >> secondary market (no offense to these fine citizens, but their interests >> have changed the marketplace somewhat as to particular Schwinn's, etc.), so >> I thought I should get some help with a wider range of ideas. >> >> Rick. >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en-US. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
