Of Sidecars and Noir

Two things keep entering my mind.  Bicycle sidecars and Film Noir.  Not sure if there is a connection….  too late at night anyway…

Thanks for Pedallas for the sidecar.

On Dumpster Diving and Garage Sales

Every Frankenbiker, junk-yard, and freak-bike maker knows one thing.  You need parts!  You always need parts!  Several people have asked me how much each of my projects cost (or how much it would cost to buy a Tall-Bike in a shop! Ha!).  My typical answer is, “Besides the paint (gosh-darned money sink!!!), not much.”  The bikes are usually free or a couple of dollars.  The parts are salvaged off other bikes.  When I can’t get the part off another bike, I’ll buy it new for around 10 to 20 dollars.  The Tall-Bike project has probably cost me about 30 to 40 dollars and that is mainly in the form of new tires and tubes.

With that in mind, and before I get into the specifics of how to locate parts, I want to touch on what you might have to buy new.  Tires, tubes, and chains are the first thing to go in neglected bikes.  Rubber rots and the chains tend to rust the most.  While chain rings and cogs will rust pretty quickly as well, you can usually salvage them.  Chains need to bend and flow smoothly and I’ve found that it’s easier to buy a new chain for around 10 dollars than to try and salvage it.  Often times, I’ll fully change out the brake lines (or derailleur lines) as well, because of these same issues.  Beyond this, plenty of Acetone, bearing grease and CLP (i.e. Break Free, Cleaning-Lube-Protectant) are a must.  In the Corps, I hated CLP! It wouldn’t clean as well as the solvents and it took forever to get a rifle to inspection-ready with it.  But I rely on that stuff now, more than ever.  Often times you can get a rusty, gritty, freewheel cogset clean by just putting it through a CLP rinse.  I really need to buy a jug of the stuff, the little cans go too quickly.

Alright! On to the fun stuff…  “The Hunt” as we call it! The two main ways to get bikes for parts or base structures is through garage sales and dumpster dives / landfill roams.  Let me immediately say that Criagslist is absolute crap for this purpose!!!  While you can get a good, ready-to-go, bike from CL for a good price, you cannot reliably get junk parts cheap.  Too many CL’sters want to get a large return on their purchases.  You’ll have people buy a walmart bike for 70 dollars and try to get 50 back for it!  Their cries of “Ridden seldom and only dropped once” translate into “Left in the backyard to rust and rot.”  I’ve found that it’s just not worth the trouble.  Stick to the couple of blocks around you for what you need.

Garage Sales: Time – Saturdays;  Enemy – Housewives and old Biddies :  You can’t plan for this hunt.  Stay away from the newspapers and (again) Craigslist (anything listed will be picked over clean).  Get up early and start driving around your neighborhood.  You’ll see plenty of signs.  When I say early, I mean it.  Be out of the door around 7:30.  Most sales start at 8 and end in the early afternoon.  If you don’t get out early, the sales will be picked clean.  Those little old ladies never sleep…. they’re always roaming the streets looking for “deals.”  Creep the hell outa me….

Take about twenty dollars with you.  For a VERY GOOD bike, I will pay at max 10 dollars.  For a crap bike, I might pay 5, if that.  If they want more, drive on.  You’re not here to buy a good bike, you just need that crank-arm! Also bring a good adjustable wrench.  Typically that is all you’ll need, though a set of allen wrenches and a good hammer doesn’t hurt either.  You just need to take off the front wheel and maybe do some other adjustments to get it in your car or truck (or hatchback!).

Now here’s an interesting fact that I’ve found.  To begin with, good bikes are the first thing to go.  If you don’t get to a sale that has a bike by 9 oclock, chances are someone else has picked it off before you.  Now! If a bike hasn’t been bought before 9 or so, chances are it’s a complete rusted pile of junk.  These aren’t always bad, you can typically salvage them and bring them back from the brink.  If you wait until a garage sale is about to end, you can typically snag these bikes for free (they were going to throw them away anyway).  I got two Huffy bikes and a 1980 Schwinn Suburban like this.  They couldn’t sell it and when I stopped by and asked the price, they just said to take it!  One Huffy is the top part of my current tall bike, and I’m restoring the Schwinn Suburban (had a bit of rust on the handlebars, that’s it.  Actually was never ridden and still had the original manual attached to it).  All of that being said, I don’t recommend waiting until the end of the afternoon.  Too risky… Places close early and you can never rely on a person just giving stuff up.  Instead, get out early and hit the sales until about 4 in the afternoon.  You’ll get great stuff in the morning and a chance for free stuff in the afternoon.

Dumpster Diving and Landfills: Time – Depends on pickup, Enemy – Winos, Store Managers, junk-yard Dogs and Tetanus!!!:  First off, it is actually illegal to dive into a dumpster without permission.  My buddy, Chad, back in highschool, found some metal ladels behind the fast food joint that he worked for.  Took them home and got fired the next day for “stealing.”  So, what do you do?  First off, a real good way to find used bikes for free is to cruise the alleyways (or curbs, depending on where trash is left).  Do this the day before the local pickup.  People will throw away perfectly good bikes.  Now! Before you just take it, make sure you go and ask permission.  This is other people’s property and they might, honestly, have just parked there bike there.  Don’t be an arse….

Dumpsters at apartment complexes are great for this as well.  Head out before a trash pickup, and you’ll see them parked right next to the dumpster or inside the box.  Be careful… don’t get hurt…  I hear that the dumpsters behind the Goodwill stores are good for this as well.  Many people donate their bikes to goodwill only to have the bikes thrown away because they don’t work properly.  Again… go inside and ask permission (I cannot stress this enough…).  I hear that Landfills are great for this as well.  I just haven’t tried it yet.  The idea is to go just AFTER a pickup and look through the area for salvagable parts.  Talk with your local landfill manager for public times and rules.  If you want a really great rundown on Dumpster Diving, I recommend Lars Eighner’s writeup (found here) on it (Thanks Mr. Dunkin for making us read this in highschool!)

What to look for: So, what exactly are you looking for?  For me, it’s pretty much any adult bike. 24 inch on the small end, 26 / 700 on the high end.  I don’t pick up kid’s bikes as I honestly have no use for them.  They don’t swap out parts very well and I like to leave those for the families that really need it (kids grow out of bikes so quickly, a single kids bike will pass hands through many different families before its thrown away).  You’ll never know when you will need a part, so keep a good stock handy.  I was working on my tall-bike and found out one of the cranks that I was using didn’t fit the particular bottom-bracket that I was trying to stick it in to.  I went through my bike pile and found a crank that fit perfectly.  This saves you a lot of time, effort, and money in the long run and is quite fun while you’re hunting.   Heck, you might even find a couple of bikes worth restoring (can get a pretty good turnaround for those…)

===Pictures: My garage… currently dirty…. picked through parts pile.  Note: Three bikes in this shot are not junk bikes (I’m not tearing up your bike, Alex!).===

Bikes Can Sink!

I’ve been getting some complaints lately.  It seems that I have been covering the “welding” and “bicycle” parts of this blog, but I’ve been neglecting the “Women” aspect!  I seek to remedy this and have even included a bikini picture to boot! Ha!

My dear friend, Candice, has recently returned from a cruise through the Cayman Islands.  She has posted up some pictures in facebook and will hopefully (hint hint!!!) be doing a writeup on her blog – Some Day, Not Today , shortly.

While scuba diving, she ran across a bicycle at the bottom of the ocean, right next to a shipwreck!  Apparently the bike at the bottom of the ocean is a tradition.  When dive instructors prepare to leave the island, their friends will take their bike and throw it into the sea.  I honestly think that, in light of the bike being RIGHT next to a shipwreck, this is an obvious case of a boat failing to yield the right-of-way to the bicycle.  I mean, come on!, bikes have a right to the sea lanes as well! Share the Ocean!

Alternate Caption:  Nothing says “off-roading” like handlebar extensions and the sea bed!

2011 Dallas Bike Plan

Tate and Bergerandfries (The Commuter Coordinator) over at DORBA just posted up some great information about the new 2011 Dallas Bike Plan Citizen Bicycle Advisory Committee (DBP-CBAC, whew!).  This committee along with two others (Project Review Committe – DART, DISD, Hospital Districs, etc.  and the Bicycle Policy Steering Committee – Public officials and shareholders, etc.) will help with the advising for the 2011 Dallas Bike Plan.   The mission of this plan is “To create a comprehensive bicycle master plan for the City of Dallas that will serve as a model for the region. To increase bicycle use for all trip purposes while reducing bicycle crashes.”

The DBP-CBAC is composed of a diverse range of citizen cyclists (and a couple of non-cyclists) which include hardcore commuters, racers, triathletes, and a bicycle courier on down to the recreational and occasional riders.  The next meeting is open to the public and will be held on May 27th from 5-8pm.  They will be looking for public input and commentary.  I don’t have the location right now, but I will update as soon as I get it.  There will be a website opening up as well.

For now, there is more information (and the minutes of the first meeting) on the DORBA Commie Forums here: http://www.dorba2.com/forum/commie-forum/7443

If you’re in the DFW area, head on over to the forums and give your input.

Tall Bike Pt. 3 – Painting

To see the first two posts of this series, go here:

Tall Bike Pt. 1 – Stripping the Bike

Tall Bike Pt. 2 – Welding

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Well the painting has taken a bit longer than expected as well.  I enlisted the help of an old friend, Matt Eby, for his painting expertise.  The man is a perfectionist!!!  I must say that every time I asked him to scale back his operations for the sake of time, he gave me the most excruciatingly disgusted looks!  Alas, it turns out I have short patience for painting!  We primed it, taped off the detailing sections, painted, sanded, painted again… LEFT THE TAPE ON TOO LONG!!! (My fault), ripped paint off, repainted it, etc….  So, the paint job ain’t perfect (again my fault…), but it looks pretty gosh-darned good by any tall-bike standard   We just finished putting on the top clear coat (ha… we…. Matt did it… I was walking around the garage cussing…).  We’ll do one last sand this next weekend, buff it out, and put some shiny on it.  After that, I’ll start putting the bike together and we should have a finished project by next week or so.

A couple of things that I learned: Using “just rattle spray-cans” as a “cheap” way of painting a bike is ludicrous! We ended up using nice car paint… whew!  Hell, even if we just stuck to Rustoleum, the cost would have been high.  I opted not to powdercoat it, because paying someone to do so would have been too expensive.  Heh! If I would have done so, I would have saved about 50 dollars!  Also! I will never again paint my detail work… way too time consuming.  Instead, I’ll paint (or powdercoat) one base coat, and decal the rest.  All in all, though, it was a learning experience! And the end result, for my first try, came out pretty decently.

A bit on the decals! Wow!!!! I can’t speak highly enough for Matt (not Eby) over at BikeNames.com.  Not only does he have great communication (email conversations at 7 at night), but he’ll try to do just about anything.  I forwent his online shop and just ordered custom, directly from him.  He was able to produce the specific fonts I wanted (with small caps!) and was able to produce a decaled vertical Texas Flag for me as well.  The cost was very low, too.  I received four sets of worded-decals for $4 ea. and the flag was $9 (tax included, free shipping).   You can’t buy premade decals for that cheap.  A note on the vertical Texas Flag.  I tried to find one online and couldn’t. If you take a normal Texas Flag decal and turn it down sideways to make it vertical, the red and white are backwards.  Texas Law states that: [" (b)  If the state flag is displayed vertically: (1)  the blue stripe should be above the white and red stripes; and (2)  the white stripe should be, from the perspective of an observer, to the left of the red stripe."]  So I had to get it custom made… And Matt was happy to do so!  He did a great job too, take a look at the pictures to see them.

Ha… Something else too! Went down to Transit Bicycle Co. to get some Ape Hangers (if anyone has them, they do!).  Though they didn’t have any in stock, they were able to order them.  I started talking about the tall-bike (can’t shutup about it…) and they got pretty enthused.  They ended up shoving a giant tire in my direction and saying that I had to put it on the bike.  And by shoved I mean, they gave it to me, wouldn’t let me give it back, and insisted that Transit was “sponsoring” my bike hehe.  So! I got a really kick-ass rear tire.  This thing is huge! And has flames as treading!  Most road tires are about an inch thick (or so), most mountain bike tires are around 2 and a quarter…. this thing is THREE inches thick!  Seriously!!! I haven’t actually checked to see if it will fit between my seatstays! The tube alone cost 12 dollars and had to be specially ordered! (most tubes cost around 4 dollars or so).  So now I’ll have a very skinny tire up front, and a very thick large tire in the back.

Got two junk wheels, overhauled the hubs, lubed up the bearings, so we’re set to go.  The only thing I need to do after the painting is finished is put all the parts on, take it to an LBS to get chains and breaks cables set up and ride it.  I promise to get some high quality photos up and to film my attempts to ride it   So far, five locations have insisted that I bring it around to show them.

Flag and Decals

Flag

Decals

Matt Clear Coating

Wheels (Front & Back)

Rear Tire Tread

Thickness….