Start up

This spring I started up a small business of bicycle repair with the idea of doing something I really enjoy, while helping fellow cycling enthusiasts save a lot of money. I started out helping family and friends, but when word spread of my CHEAP prices, my shop starting filling up with bikes. I'm still having fun, but why is it that the simple fixes end up being anything but that?

   Last summer my son had expressed an interest in ROAD cycling, instead of mountain biking - I think the speed factor was involved. Unwilling to purchase something new, in case his attention span is short (duh!), we decided to repaint my wife’s 1988 Schwinn Traveler, which is actually a smallish men's bike anyway. Not being a big fan of the Bianchi-like celeste green, Carrick found the old paint scheme was rather effeminate.

   After totally disassembling the bike, we had the frame sandblasted. We polished the top, seat and down tubes with a wire wheel and left them "raw metal". Priming, sanding and painting the fork and rear triangle was next, after masking out the decorative lugs. After a couple clear coats over everything, I applied some great Schwinn vinyl decals I found on Ebay. A few more clear coats and many days of drying later, we put 'er all back together, except that we added new brake levers with the cables routed through the bars, a new saddle, a set of clipless pedals from another bike and a computer.

   This summer I am undertaking a project for myself – repainting of a Motobécane Mirage road bike. After tracing my family’s heritage back to the Alsace-Lorraine region, I thought about trying to find a vintage bike manufactured in France. I first heard about Motobécane bikes on an episode of American Pickers and found out later that, after Peugeot, they were once the most prestigious French manufacturer of bicycles to the pro pelotons in Europe.

   I searched for months on Ebay for a machine in the right condition and (most importantly) the right price. A gentleman near Middletown, PA, had the bike I was looking for and was within a reasonable range for a pick-up, being only about 1½ hours away. The Mirage had some cool features like the monogram bar plugs and the older metal headset badge, which for me was a MUST. I hated the tacky plastic badge from the late ‘70s - early ‘80s, and there was no way a decal headset badge would be on my bike!  I will replace the bolt-on wheels with quick-release, and I intend to upgrade the brake levers and hoods (who really wants the cables in front of their face?), although I want to keep the quirky headset-mounted brake levers.

   I’m not too concerned with not having index shifting anyway, since I won’t be changing gears a whole lot.  My plan is to give the bike a cyclocross-type setup for use on the many rail trails in our area, particularly those with a hard gravel surface or with a combination of asphalt and cinder. Mountain bikes are a slow drag on asphalt! I have purchased a second wheel set with slicks for riding when my family travels to the South Jersey beaches. I sold my regular shore ride to help pay for the Mirage project, and I’d much rather put its rugged steel frame on a car bike rack than either of my other bikes with their lightweight frame materials!

More to come as work progresses…