Henry's Rat Rod

Henry and I spend all together too much time watching car shows on TV. These are the HGTV equivalent shows where they buy a beater and fix it up over the course of an hour. Some of the projects that really caught our attention were the rat rods, where they fix up the car underneath but leave the outside looking deliberately rough. I don't have the time/space/money/know-how for much car work, but a bicycle rat rod is something we can try together...

Our project started with an early 90s Schwinn High Plains off CL. The previous owner was abandoning his dreams of a fat tired drop bar bike with a 3 speed internally geared hub, so we picked up the pieces for just $50.

Once again, I failed in blogging by not taking a clean "before" picture. But we got to work stripping off the parts, and then stripping the powder coat from the frame and fork. Two coats from one can of paint stripper was enough to peal it down to bare metal:

We then applied a layer of clearcoat over the bare metal. My expectation is this will only slow down the rust. Henry is looking forward to the rust as it surely develops.

For the build, the original IGH rear wheel didn't work out. Even poking directly into the hub with a spoke, I could only get two gears to work, and the high gear made a clicking sound. I found a set of serviceable 26" wheels with nice Panaracer Gravel King tires for $60 of CL again, so on those went... minus the nice tires, since Henry wanted to use the whitewalls we picked up earlier at that source for all quality bike parts, Wal Mart. Not the most supple tires, but they do look cool:

(unfortunately, a side effect of this is that now I have a pair of nice 26" tires sitting around, which fit exactly nothing else in my shop. This could ultimately lead me down the path of a vintage mountain bike build of my own).

I had a spare Advent nine speed drive train laying around, so that went on, as well as the new Velo Orange handlebars I had just bought for myself, and my favorite old Selle Italia Flite saddle. At 15, Henry can do the low bars. I would flip them upright! And yes, we'll shorten the cables at some point. Someday. The shifter cable and housing was lifted directly off his Marin Nicasio pre-fixed gear, so this quick zip tie job let us get the gears on there quickly.

I only had one V brake in my bin, which was fine... Henry is used to just a single front brake from his regular fixed gear bike.

With the paint off and the clearcoat on, you can see the lugwork and brazing of the frame. It even has bottle stars! Nice features for a bike that probably ran $300 in 1990.

How many of today's entry level bikes do you figure will still be running in 30 years time? Anyway, I'm enjoying this time while Henry works on and rides his bikes. In a year, he'll be driving, and I expect the bikes will be forgotten.