jackbombay

I am a fair bit of a bike geek, but, man, this forum is spectacular, SO much knowledge here. I have more of an early MTB background, but I have recently grown an affinity for all things asphalt, and I do so love the pics posted here of older high performance steel. I may, or may, not end up with an older high end road bike, but I will always appreciate the attention to detail of this forum!

deux jambes

Agreed! This place is incredible & its members are a great bunch of folk. In fact, nowhere else have I’ve ever encountered a more respectable bunch of enablers! 😂

merziac

Heh, heh misery loves company and we got lots of company, its fantastic!

RobbieTunes

Enablers all are we.
Welcome, and fair warning!

Whit51 

Have learned a tremendous amount from this forum over the years, including building and repair tips and which bikes to snap up when they show up for sale cheap. First thing I read every morning.

jamesdak 

You life is not complete until you taste the C&V "wine". Or is some cases....overindulge!




Welcome to the forum and go ahead and pick up some classic steel. You KNOW you want to!

jackbombay

Well, I can make an argument that I should have a C&V asphalt burner at my parents home so I don't have to travel with a bike when I visit them! I'd love a Raleigh with Cottered cranks actually, I'll have to do some CL browsing out in California (I live in Idaho, CL has nothing for C&V bikes here) and see whats around, I'll be out there for Xmas...

I have some classic steel bikes around, Hercules 3 speeds and Raleigh 3 speeds, I did a full restomod build on a Hercules 15 years ago, its a very functional and fun bike, 700c wheelset, ti BB, aluminum bars/stem and seatpost, here it is lounging on the shores of Lake Tahoe after a century ride,



I really should put up a build/detail thread for my Hercules, as it is a fairly unique build, although I'm sure there are similar builds floating around here in the C&V forum!

I also have a tall bike that I built, here are a couple older pics of it, its rides great, frame is dead straight, rides no hands beautifully... I can run my road bike wheels in it with center pull brakes or I can swap it to 26" wheels and run cantilever brakes on it. I do take the tall bike on quasi real bike rides, I've ridden several half centuries with it and have climbed some serious mountain on it too, both asphalt and gravel, And believe it or not, I've had this tall bike well over 50 MPH on numerous occasions!

jamesdak 

^ You're gonna fit right in here!

Chicago Al 

Early MTBs are more than welcome, too! I'm just scratching the surface of that subject lately myself, but if you have a favorite old-school MTB, search for say 'Stumpjumper' or 'Fat Chance' and you'll find lots of enthusiasm. Also a couple of threads on building them up as either drop bar or commuter style bikes. The Mtn Bike subforum here also sometimes has posts about older bikes but mostly they seem to regard them as curiosities.

merziac

When you say built, do you mean "made" as in built the frame?

Fahrenheit531 

Nice work on that Hercules. A very cool bike.

riva

I'm scared to ask questions about that tall bike.. something I don't need to get in to.

jackbombay

Yep, got one bike from from the local dump and 2 from the thrift store, cut them up and welded them back together, with a MIG welder, the welds are totally functional, but certainly not pretty like TIG. So far I'm about $160 into the tall bike, and about 40 hours of my time.

Thanks! If for some reason I had to get rid of all but one of my bicycles, the Hercules would without question be my pick.

It a bit surprising how rarely anyone comments on it when I'm out and about on it, even bike shop geeks I know have almost zero interest in it. I find the history of cycling so amazing, so its hard for me to comprehend how people that are "into bikes" have no interest in the history of bicycles.

jackbombay

Spontaneous smiles don't happen all that often in our modern world, but that bike makes spontaneous smiles happen with such regularity its astounding. I have several bikes to choose from as my townie, and I'll ride the tall bike for a few weeks at a time, then other bikes for a few weeks or months, then back to the tall bike, and the looks on kids faces in particular are so good, a car will drive by me and there will be a kid in backseat freaking out yelling at his parents about my bike, adults love it too, hippies love it, and rednecks love it, if you drew a venn diagram of things that hippies love and rednecks love there would be virtually no overlap of those 2 circles, but this bike is there :-) Earlier this summer I was on a 40 mile loop around the valley here on the Tall bike and was approaching a highway crossing, there were 4 road bikers there on modern carbon road bikes, full spandex, and I pulled up next to them on my tall bike, the guy I was closest to slowly turned his head my direction and spontaneously blurt out laughter when he saw my bike, I track stood there for a moment (it track stands VERY well due to it being a taller inverted pendulum) until a gap in traffic came along and I crossed the highway, the roadies were still chuckling about my bike...

merziac

H**Y CRAP, that is flippin awesome!

You just rocked your way right into the very elite among us, fantastic!

Sadly I am not a builder but have huge respect for any and all who do.

My guy is Jim Merz (hence the avatar), PDX builder from about 72 to 82 when he went to work for his buddy Sinyard at Big S and had a big hand in changing the bike world in many, many ways both big and small.

Also hear you about C+V interest and/or lack thereof, even here in PDX the different tribes couldn't be more indifferent, you really have to seek out like minded folk and it can still be a real slog.

riva

Yeah I've got enough bike storage issues without getting involved with those things. Don't get me started.

jackbombay

Thanks!

I'm flattered! I will say that I am *not* a "frame builder", I have built enough things in my life that I can figure out how to do a lot of stuff, but professional frame builders are gods amongst men! To line this frame up during the build I used a few little torpedo levels and some string :-P

I have a buddy in California that builds frames for a living, the precision with which he builds is magnificent!

Thats a bit surprising for PDX, I figured there would be a half decent C&V society there, but I suppose to so many people, old bikes, are just old bikes :-(

merziac

jackbombay

Well you may not have built it from scratch but you did a heck of a job with what you did do, looks great from here. We have plenty of tall bikes here but most are pretty crude which seems to be the vibe they are going for.

You may be on to something.

canklecat

Yup, these folks are pretty, pretty, pretty okay.

RobbieTunes

yeah, we need to find him one....

jackbombay

Thanks!

While I wanted a tall bike, I was certainly going for a more refined build, welding one frame to the top of another does get the rider up there, but that's kind of like a school in summer, no class! :-P I like them all really, the tall bike that gets made in half an afternoon, and the professionally built ones I saw in NYC a few years back. My bike is obviously in the middle, far from professionally built, but far from just 2 frames stacked on each other and zapped together.

A bike? I did find one in the classifieds here, a touch bigger than I'd like, but workable, the price is certainly right, It could use a disassembly and clean, but it doesn't need much, here is a link, I did PM the seller as well, he hasn't posted here in a bit, but hopefully he still has the bike.

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...l#post21225922

canklecat

Yup. I'm thinking a penny farthing, given his inclination toward elevation.

uncleivan 

I keep looking at the tall bike. What is the length of the toptube? Just trying to get a better sense of the size. I'd probably get hurt trying to ride it, but it wouldn't be the first error in judgement on my part. Very much like that it doesn't look like the usual two bikes more or less stacked on top of each other.

jackbombay

59.5 cm from center of head tube to center of seat tube. The main triangle is untouched by me, having that to work from made it all fairly straightforward. The main triangle is a Specialized Hardrock, here is a pic before paint, it is hosted by photobucket so unless you have a photobucket "patch" for your browser it will be blurry I think,





Its actually very friendly and easy to ride, just watch the standover height :-P

But really, a bicycle is an inverted pendulum, as you make an inverted pendulum taller it becomes more stable, everyone that rides it is amazed at how friendly it is.

Cyclist753

That bike is so tall it takes 5 seconds before it shifts!