fiishing touches

I just put the finishing touches on the bike, a vintage Brooks saddle and an LED light. I got the saddle from Dave, it's a little beat up, but it looks really nice on the bike and it's already worn it. Both of those sound good to me. Put a cool little LED light for safety. Thanks to Mike for helping me out with the saddle earlier today. Big thanks to Mike and Zach both, I couldn't have done this without those guys. I hope to surprise dad with it soon. Maybe next Sunday.

95%

Here it is almost finished. New seat and some LED lights and we're done. Then it will be time for the unveiling. I'm just going to show up to KY unannounced with it and surprise him. Hopefully he'll like it.

Guard Dog

Watch out! Stella will cute you into submission.

The Build

Saturday I was lucky enough to have the combined genius of Mike and Zach help me out with rebuilding dad's bike. We put it up on Zach's fancy bike stand, stripped it, then stripped the donor Panasonic bike. The the hard part. Mike got a few cuts, and after a few PBRs and a couple of trips to Halcyon we got it going pretty good. The shifter and brakes took some doing, but they work great now. We were able to keep the frame, of course, and the bars. We got some new grips and everything else on the bike was replaced. I need to get a new seat or try to get the rust off of the original. Sadly, we had to loose the fenders and rack to make way for the new wheel set. In addition to the seat, I will also get some LED lights to put on the front and rear. The bike looks great and it's almost there.


Stripped on Zach's bike stand



Here's the badge, pretty cool.



Work table, if you look hard enough you may be able to find the case of PBR.



Old rusted and busted parts.



Getting close, new derailer.



Almost there, Zach hamming up for the camera.



The new grips from Halcyon, I love them.

Donor Bike

I've been searching Craigslist for a few days and I also had Zach on the job. He found this great deal on a bike to use as some donor parts to get things going on dad's bike as well as a project bike of my own. It's a Panasonic 500, yes that Panasonic. Back in the day they used to make some pretty high quality road bikes. I've ridden this bike a couple of times and it rides great and is a lot faster than expected. The components are in great shape, I'll need some cables and new brakes but that might be about it. Hopefully we will start the process this weekend.

In the Beginning

My dad told me a few months ago that one of the things he wants to do before he dies is ride his old bike again. I've never done much for my dad so I wanted to make sure that this actually happened. Dad's bike has seen some better days for sure, but some good days are ahead for this old cruiser.