New/Old Bike For Randy

Randy came over, today, and we finished building his new/old city bike.  We started building this bike, a few weeks ago, converting the Schwinn LeTour fixed gear I had built for him, a few years back, into a city bike.  We used what parts we could from the mountain bike I had also built for him, and bought a few new pieces, such as the handlebars.

The wheels are 700c Bontrager RaceLites I took in trade for a Campy bottom bracket, a few months ago.  The tires came off of the wheels I had hoped to use on the Fuji Touring  IV.  The crank came off of Randy's mountain bike, as did the cog-set.  The reverse brake levers were some I had hanging around for another project (but this project got done first).

The wine crate isn't actually connected to the chromed steel Wald rear rack, yet.  Randy needs to reinforce the bottom of the crate, and varnish the wood before bolting it together.

The bike should serve Randy well as an around-town bike and occasional commuter.

I always enjoy this kind of project.  It took us a couple of days worth of messing about to get everything to work.  I had to adapt a bolt-on cable hanger to accept the rear derailleur from his mountain bike.  Then, we had to modify the rear brake to hit the 700c wheel on the 27"-wheeled frame.  Of course, we had to dig through my spare parts to find cable guides and clamps.  All of the normal little problematic things that you get into when installing equipment from four different decades on a 30 year old bike came into play.

It was a fun build, particularly as it was followed by Magellan and tonic...

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