Cheap Bike Challenge: Another Rockhopper

Over on the iBOB list, there's a summer challenge to buy a bike for less than $200, spend less than $200 fixing any issues, and then ride it at least 200 km. I had an idea to pick up a '90s hybrid for this, but a lack of choices in my size combined with unresponsive sellers left me at a loss. I didn't really want another old mountain bike, but sometimes you have to go where the market takes you:

New Bike: my $100* Jones LWB**! (2012 Specialized Expedition)

 * The frame was $100 on ebay. I probably could have found a complete bike locally for not much more if I wanted to be patient, but this came up at the right time when I was looking for a winter project.

** Not really a Jones of course. But after owning two Rivendell Clem Smiths and two Jones LWBs, I guess I felt like trying another long chainstay bike.

This frame as envisioned by Specialized is an old man's comfort bike:

New Bike: Brompton, and the Folding Bike Continuum

Round about four years ago, I stopped on the way home from Detroit to buy a Bike Friday I'd found on Craiglist. I was riding a Dahon, my first folder, and I was hoping the Silk I bought that day from Roger would be a nice upgrade. I didn't care for the Silk, and ended up driving to Indianapolis to meet a guy from Chicago and trade it for a Crusoe, which I still have and enjoy.

Which is a long intro to leading up to another CL search, another meeting with Roger on the way back from another trip to Detroit, and another new folding bike. This time, a Brompton:

New Bike: 1982 Specialized Sequoia

I've had my '84 Trek 610 for about two years now. It's set up as a geared/fendered/650B bike right now, which had me missing a nice 700c fixed gear. I put up a wanted post on the iBOB list and ended up meeting Andrew to buy this old Specialized Sequoia frameset. I quickly got to building and set it up in an image of what my Trek used to be, a 700c Albastache-barred fixed gear:

2023 Mega Bike Update

Looking back over my bike fund spreadsheet, there's a lot of action to cover in my usual bike churn. More than usual, even. I don't write here much anymore, but sometimes it's useful for me to track my history and collect my thoughts about what has passed through the garage. 

With the addition of the Rapide from my last post, I sold my Ragley Marley (cheap-ish) to my buddy Marc, trying to consolidate my moutain bike fleet down to boost wheeled 29ers. I had a lot of good rides on the Marley, and no real complaints with it, but the churn is relentless. I credit the Marley with opening up my eyes to the newer geo bikes, and how well they can work:

The Churn Counter

It's been a while since my last post, so you might imagine that I have had some turnover in my bike fleet.

You would be correct. 

I sold my Marino, but it wasn't the only bike to pass through my garage:

Thinking that the success of conventional wisdom in my full suspension mountain bike would translate over to a hybrid style city bike, in December I impulse purchased this Kona Dew when I found an XL in stock:

It rode well enough and was comfortable, but the fat tires can feel a bit ponderous for my bike paths, and the cheap mechanical disc brakes didn't feel great. It was an interesting experiment, but I sold it off this spring. I just like my mix of odd steel bikes, fixed gears, and small wheeled bikes better.

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.