N minus 9
A decade ago, I started building up bicycles so people could borrow them to ride on my bike tours Most people brought their own bikes, but often I would have parties inquire about if I provided bikes, particularly folks from out of town. I started the tours in 2007 and in 2008 started building up a little bike library to lend to people that inquired.
Today, after a couple of years of delays, I am selling the remaining bikes in the collection.
They are largely interesting to excellent vintage frames, some quite rare, others quite ubiquitous in their day. With a few exceptions, they were powder coated and outfitted with hand-built wheels, and good quality older parts. These are hardly original translations of what the bike should have been, but more of a functional remake with an idea of making a ride that looks as fun as it feels. Retro-mod, Frankenbike, what have you.
This endeavor caused me to relearn a lot I had forgotten about bike maintenance and repair and seek new skills. I learned a great deal through tutelage from some very fine bike folks in Chicago, notably above all, Alex Wilson of West Town Bikes. He was the guy that showed me how to do everything I didn't know, and how to do what I thought I knew already, markedly better. He taught me to repack bearings, reuse good old parts, how to build wheels, how to trouble shoot, and the basics of all kinds of things I was clueless about. Alex is a bicycle lifer and a hero to me. He is a prince in our community of cycling related people and causes.
To aid West Town Bikes in their mission, a quarter of whatever the sale raises will go to West Town Bikes and they will inherit our unsold inventory.
Unless it's my size of course.
You can learn more about West Town Bikes here.
You can read more about the bike sale, the origins of the idea, the tie-in with famous dead Chicagoans, Monday Night Bike Building Club, the process and steps of our retro-mod bikebuilds, right here.
And you can see most of the bikes we built up in the collection, and a few bonus bikes, right here.
They are selling cheap. Often for less than the frame costs, and always for less than the frame and powder coat costs, and always considerably then the sum of their parts, let alone things like hand-built wheels, and a good professional tune-up before sale and dry storage since.
Good bikes cheap. Below is what is for sale and their individual Chicago Velo page, the frame size and sale page on eBay.
Here are the bikes currently for sale:
Cinelli Trophy Proxima - 54 cm | eBay Sale Page
Algren – 80s Trek Road Bike conversion - 52 cm | eBay Sale Page
Captain Gilson – 80s Fuji Sagres SA Road bike - 58 cm | eBay Sale Page
Frances – 80s Centurion Road Bike conversion - 64 cm | eBay Sale Page
Griffin – 60s Raphael Geminiani touring bike conversion - 64 cm | eBay Sale Page
H. H. Holmes – 70s Sekine road bike conversion - 54 cm | eBay Sale Page
Queen Bess – 70s Raleigh Super Record conversion - 52 cm | eBay Sale Page
Sandburg – 80s Fuji Royale road bike - 54 cm | eBay Sale Page
Studs – 50s Hercules 3-speed conversion - 54cm | eBay Sale Page
I will soon be listing other items like wheelsets, rolling work tables, tool chests, bike tools, frames, rims, tires and bins and bins of parts. Stay tuned. Sales on eBay may be renewed if we don't get our bids, but we will seek to wrap this up as the summer ends including the future sale stuff. Local pick-up is free of course.
ONWARD
I plan to begin writing more regularly for Chicago Velo, but the directional change I feel within will be reflected on the material I write about. I am still unsure of what is next, but it will be a different beast entirely. I hope this frees me to write more as I have felt stuck with what it was before, and what I feel like writing about now.
In the interim, thanks for reading and if you or someone you know needs a good deal on a bike, please check out the sales above.
Many thanks to Alex and West Town Bikes, Joshua Haines Photography, Ben and Steven at Tailwind Cycles and the many people that have taught me, helped me, rode with me, built bikes with me, or built bikes for me, painted and coated frames for me, kept me riding, patched me or my bike up and bonded over bicycling with me.
The journey is the point.
- Lee