His, Hers & Ours

  

Hi Everyone! 

This is the first "his" post, but I've got to admit, he's not the one writing this. Jared's been putting a lot of work into fixing in his bike, so I'm here to show off all that work to the world! 

The "Before" Picture

A couple weeks ago, Jared adopted this 1979 Schwinn Traveler from my dad. He had originally purchased this bike before marrying my mom, before the kids came along, and most definitely before me. He got a lot of use out of it, but eventually it just became an ornament hanging on the wall in their pole barn, collecting dust and, unfortunately, a whole lot of rust. When Jared and I were in town on a visit, we saw this beauty sitting outside, ready to be donated to a rumage sale. Ironically, though, Jared has been searching Craigslist for a road bike for months now--when we move to Vancouver, we're not planning on bringing Vanna Green (my old green minivan) along, leaving us with only one car, so instead Jared's planning on commuting via bicycle. So he immediately snatched the opportunity to adopt this bike. Considering its age, this bike was in pretty good shape. There were some issues though:

Worn tires, a little bit of rust

More rust...

And more rust...

And a couple spider webs too :)

 Jared started out by stripping off parts of the bike, piece by piece, to decide what all needed to be replaced, and what just needed a whole lot of cleaning. Within a couple evenings, Jared's bike was in pieces.

Baggies of parts--all labeled 

With the help of WD-40, steel wool and a whole lot of elbow grease, Jared was able to scrub the rust off the bike. Eventually, the wheel spokes and other parts were actually shiny again. 

Jared was able to remove most pieces by himself, but found that, for those pieces where a special tool was necessary, many bike shops in the area were willing to help out--most of the time for free, too. And the one shop that did charge got a nice little surprise--apparently, at one point or another some bees decided to make this bike their home, and unfortunately, the shop ended up with a floor of dead bees. Oops! A couple parts did need replacing too, like the tires, but Jared was able to find some great deals shopping at nashbar.com. 

By the next weekend, the bike was down to just its frame, ready to be sanded, primed, and painted.

 

That's all for now, but check back again for an update on the painting process!