'The actual bike'
The good news: The wheels turn?
The bad news: I'm more of a glass-half-full kinda guy. The wheels turn!
This photo took more effort than it looks
I needed at least something that obviously said 'Huffy'. Still may need a bold, downtube decal
Ahh, just picture a Campagnolo Super Record rear derailleur sitting right there
'Building the bikes America likes'
All my other bikes, literally looking down on it
Hefting it onto the stand, is not so bad, especially if one works out for a living. No wonder the call it the 'Huff'-y...I was winded after it landed in the clamp. Miraculously, the stand didn't crumble. We are coming in at 36.4lbs. Not bad! I mean its not even double that of a top end 70s/80s model! No doubt it would have been more had some generous soul in the past not replaced the steel stem for a nice 'Jun' alloy example -
The funniest part about seeing this stem on the bike was that a couple months ago I was looking for a short reach stem, and stumbled across these 'Jun' stems and really like them. Well, now I've got one! Its the nicest part on the bike, and I'm tempted to leave it, but I first want to see if my Sakae Ringyo New Royal Extra Super Light stem will have a place of honor upon its head. If it fits, it stays.
Photographic proof of my wife's unending love
Well, she let it in the house.
Actually, I think she felt bad for it, as it squealed and screamed from hardened rubber brake pads writhing out in agony against out-of-true rims as I pushed it through the house. A bit of a cry for help, perhaps, as if somehow it knew it was born to be thrown away.
The bike itself is dirty and a little greasy, but from working on plenty of grimey bikes, this one is actually in really nice condition. The seat looks absolutely brand new...perhaps an indication that its hardly ever been ridden? For good reason?
Now, the interesting thing about this one is that it has pointy seat stay caps that terminate on the side of the seattube cluster, much like an actual, normal bike. In all my research, I never came across another Le Grande that had this feature. Maybe it could possibly be a speci...nah.
A couple of interesting observations. There is a paint defect (oh really) at the junction of the top tube and seattube and had me wondering if there was a crack there. Time will tell! Also, maybe it was just an illusion, but I couldn't help but wondering if the bottom bracket was attached off kilter. I was trying to determine the alignment based off of pedals, because it looks like one of the pedals was not rotationally perpendicular to the frame. Going to measure the BB for squareness and see what we've got.