I'm a bit - no, very late to this thread, but here's my "commutocruiser". Even though I stopped commuting regularly 6 years ago tomorrow, it's still my "commuting bike".
Here's the story behind it: It's a Ross "Mt. Cruiser" sold in the mid-1990s - swingset tubing, threaded BB, stock 5 speed freewheel. I got a pair of them brand new for me and my new girlfriend for about $300 for both in August 1995 (the same week we bought a Santana tandem). And I've upgraded both of them steadily through the years - hers is an 18-speed city bike.
One thing I quickly noticed about the bike - it fit me better than any other bike I'd owned. Its handling isn't fast at all, but rock-solid predictable and dependable - just the thing for demonstrating emergency maneuvers when teaching skills classes. And with the proper saddle and high-pressure tires it's efficient and very comfortable. It was my primary bike from 1995 until 2010, and I put many miles on it.
15 years later in 2010, I finally built up a several-pounds-lighter version of this cruiser with an aluminum Nashbar frame, and this one became my "backup primary" bike. We took it on the back of our pickup
our Big 2010 Road Trip to Chicago and upper Michigan, and it worked great with my son's trailercycle. But then disaster struck - somewhere in the South Dakota Badlands, an arm on our ancient hitch rack finally fatigued and snapped, and the bike tumbled to the pavement unseen by me in the truck cab, and secured by a stout chain lock, was dragged behind the truck at 65 mph.
For several miles.
When others finally alerted us to the problem, the bike was in sorry shape indeed - wheels tacoed, components and handlebars ground into stubs, and paint missing from a good chunk of one side. We tossed the wreckage onto the shell roof, drowned our sorrows in Wall, and plodded back to AZ.
Back home, I stripped the bike and assessed the damage. The fork was completely bent and the rear triangle was bent inward, but the main tubes were still in plane and didn't have too much abrasion damage. I resigned myself to making it a wall decoration, but something deep within me said: "can we resuscitate an old friend?"
And I pondered the issue for a while. And realized: We have the technology. We have the spare parts. We can rebuild it. We can make it better, stronger, and... no, not faster. And I acquired a replacement fork, took a broom handle to the frame until the strings looked identical on both sides, grabbed several rolls of 3M Super 33 colored electricians tape off the shelf, and began wrapping. And wrapping, And wrapping. And then rebuilding.
The result: a reborn buddy who now has nearly 21,000 miles under the wheels, many enjoyable commutes and other rides, and still the "#1 backup" to the other bikes.
The current component mix is "eclectic mixed with thrifty" - 26" wheels salvaged from a doomed Giant, a Suntour short-cage rear derailleur held on by a hex bolt, a 40-24 Deore crank I painted to hide the blotchies, a 13-25 7-speed freewheel shifted either by Suntour friction thumbies or whatever salvaged index-7 shifter I'm testing, a comfy double-sprung saddle, a side basket repurposed as a front basket (with water bottle and cup holders inside), a $6 Costco flashlight set up as a decent headlight, a kluged-together super-bright rear lighting system, front n' rear racks, and of course a bell. All set up in a manner to offend anyone's sensibilities to the point where they wouldn't dare steal it.
Behold the beloved mess:
As for the "new girlfriend" I bought the bike with: We'll celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary next month.