Bicycle Website Compendium

3 months ago I started my quest into rust.

I am going to attempt to store/categorize/rate all of the bicycle related websites I can find and keep this as a "living" list to help all of the new joiners to the hobby.

FORUMS
The Cabe : http://www.thecabe.com
Mainly vintage American bikes. A lot of very knowledgeable members.

Bike Forums : http://www.bikeforums.net
A massive forum on any possible bike topic you can imagine. First few times I went on the site i was overwhelmed with the amount of information and forums. Global userbase which is nice if you like vintage foreign bicycles.

Ratrod Bikes : http://www.ratrodbikes.com
As the title suggests a lot of rat rodders and a nice amount of things for sale.

Schwinn Bike Forum : http://www.schwinnbikeforum.com
As the title suggests a Schwinn focused bike forum

Retro Bike Forum [ British ] : http://www.retrobike.co.uk
British hosted bike forum

Swap Meets & Bike Shows
Trexlertown, Pennsylvania : Trexlertown Swap Show
http://www.trexlertownantiquebicycleshow.com/Trexlertown.html


Copake, New York : Copake Bicycling Auction
http://www.copakeauction.com/bicycles/pages/home.html


Dallas, Georgia : 3rd Annual Classic and Antique Cycling Swap Meet 


Other
Home of Everything Bicycles: http://www.howiebikeman.com/
this is a collection page of a departed collector and bike enthusiast Howard Cohen. Very nice website.

Velobase : http://www.velobase.com/default.aspx
A database of vintage bicycle parts. A lot of information.

Dave's Vintage Bicycles : http://www.nostalgic.net
Half blog / half info

Vintage Bicycle Blog : http://vintagebicycle.wordpress.com
Very nicely done blog. Something for me to aspire to. :)
Collectors Bicycle : http://collectorsbicycle.com
Nice site of historical information, forum and some ebay listings.

The Hoard Part 1 : My First Dip and the Tornado Spring Saddle

Over the past few months i have acquired about 15 vintage bicycles. The hobby kind of takes on a life of its own. As I have been researching forums, auction sites, for sale sites like Craigslist i have learned a lot about the bicycle fanatic culture, but we will cover that in an expanded post. This post is meant to take a look at all of the current rides in multiple parts.

My First 3
One day, after months and months, maybe years of thinking about picking up a bike and fixing it up, I finally found two rusty babies on Craigslist.  A Huffman La France, yes the name did put me off, and a Schwinn New World. I had no idea if the bikes were rare, working, restorable or worth the time and effort. All I knew is that they were up for sale at $125, in NJ and that I had to have them! This was my first 'pick' ( I kind of hate that term given how mainstream it is. People are 'picking' at pottery barn now. Don't get me started on 'barn fresh'. When did everyone in the 5 boroughs start having barns?? ) so like I said, I was tentative to go to a strangers house and load a couple of rusty bikes into the trunk of my Toyota. So I rolled up to the place which was in a nice neighborhood. The house was of an older design and definitely needed repairs. So the guy tells me to pull into the driveway which was all dirt and has seen better days. We head into the backyard under tree branches and I am thinking the guy seems nice enough, but if he tazes me I am going to end up as a lamp shade. :-\ The bikes are his and his brothers from when they were kids. Long story short he takes $120 because I don't have a $5 on me, but he did make a face, and I got them home in one piece.

Huffman to Huffy
The Huffman I discovered through the bike's serial number is from 1947. I didn't even know bikes had serial numbers! Huffman is the name of the company we know as Huffy. They changed it in the 50s.

The Schwinn New World I am told is from 1942 as Schwinn serial codes were lost in a Chicago factory fire. ( no computer backup?? ) :-)

So where is number 3 you ask? Before I acquired the two above I stopped in another area of NJ and picked up a circa 1970s banaseat girls bike for myself daughter. :-)  This one has a deadline of the spring to be polished, clean and ready for business.

Tornado Spring Seat

So I discovered through a number of purchase offers that this seat is kind of rare. I've seen a perfect version command upwards of $500! im tempted to let it go for some other pieces i need to complete my other bikes, but then on the other hand, it would be nice to restore, or turn it in to artwork that someone could mount on their wall.

Italy -> Bronx -> NJ -> Staten Island

You are probably thinking that all I do is derust folding bikes, and I guess if you look over the past 2 months you would be right. :)

My first ever folding bike is a blue Italian beauty.

1960/70s Bianchi Folding Bicycle
So yes this is my first folder. I was always curious about folding bikes and once I purchased this rusty one and cleaned it up a bit I was in love and that led me to the road puppy.

So the life of this folding Bianchi ... it was made in Italy, shipped to a bike store in the Bronx, made its way to NJ some how and then ended up at its present home in Staten Island. The best part of the deal was that it was delivered right to my house!

I have come across 1 duplicate of this bike [ in red ] at Village Bike Shop in Tuckerton NJ. same exact bike, much better condition than mine with the SAME exact ugly green seat. The bike comes with a generator, light, sturmey archer hub, hand breaks and a nice metallic blue paint job. The wheels are 20x1.75. The back rim is extremelly heavy, while the front i am thinking may be a replacement given the dimpling.

I found the serial number[82312], but no one has been able to tell me an age.

Here are some before pix where you can see A LOT of rust and the seat was mashed to the lowest spot on the post and this normally wouldnt be an issue, however it was wrapped under a nut and i had to really struggle to set it right.

I have derusted approximately 90% of the bike, put on new tubes and tires, added a rim tape which i made from cutting the old tube in to a strip of rubber and crazy gluing it at the other end when it overlapped [ it came out very nice, i should have taken a pic ], cleaned the grips, cleaned the chain - which was fun, adjusted the handlebars and seat fiasco. The below arent the best pix as it was night and these were taken with my blackberry. I'll take better ones and post an update.

SOOOO what is left you say? Lots! The brakes are disconnected, the rims have bends and need to be straightened and the shifter needs to be connected.

I promise the next post will have NOTHING to do with folding bikes! :)

Folding a Japanese Puppy

... no animals were injured in the writing of this blog

I am new to the world of vintage bicycle restoring, collecting, finding, "picking" and now i am a newb at blogging. One thing i am not new at is having my own opinion and enjoying writing about things that I do. :)

Since my background is engineering and computers I tend to like to classify, record, track everything. I may be a slob at home, but my virtual world is in order.

Shimura Seiki Co. Road Puppy folding bicycle
So my first blog is going to be about one of my favorite countries bicycle's. I recently purchased off of a bicycle forum [ thecabe.com ] a "Road Puppy". I really don't know too much information about the said bicycle, but i plan to gather as much as humanly possible.

I found an old ebay post that gave a description below:

You are purchasing a vintage Shimura Seiki Co. Road Puppy folding bicycle.  Unfortunately very little seems to be known about the Shimura Seiki Co. these days however we've been able to decipher that this was a civilian version of the WWII Japanese paratrooper military bike.  A very rare and unique folding bicycle, it sports dual 14" wheels, folding at the both the center of the main tube and at the handlebars (very cool design).  This model is a single speed, freewheeling bike with a coaster brake to provide the stopping power (coaster brake is still functional)....

 Two pics from the ebay posting

When I flipped through all of the pix the bike was pretty much spotless. Chrome was great, everything looked good.

So getting back to my pile of rust work in progress. Here are the before pix. As you can see, quite the bit of rust on my little runt. However, if you look closely at the side view you can see some potential red paint coming through.

So I took my little guy out of the box and set to work, cleaning, oiling, #0000 steel wool cleaning. 30-45 mins later I was able to reveal some original coloring. 

and finally one f the guys over at the vintage bicycle forum I spend way too much time in posted a pic of a puppy in what seems to be a Russian museum. I did take Russian for 3 years, but the only words i can translate are "compact velocipede"

Ad from the 1950s

Would love to hear if anyone has any information on this fine piece of folding bike machinery.