Today I finished fixing up my bike—after much anguish, tears, blood, and gnashing of teeth on a biblical scale. I think it turned out pretty spiffy. If this is all you want to know, stop reading now.
A few weeks after I got my mission call, I found out that I would need a bike for the 2 year duration of my mission. Being the cheap frugal man that I am, I decided not to spend $700 on a new bike, but fix up my old one and save some monies.
My bike is a 1973-ish Schwinn Le Tour III that my grandma gave me about 5 years ago. When I got it, it still had all the original parts on it. The tires were like rocks and the brake pads were like even harder rocks. Once I brought it back to New York from Montana, the cables seemed to instantly rust. It wasn’t the safest bike; but that didn’t stop me from riding it. I never died on it so I wasn’t in a big hurry to spend money to replace many of the parts.
Then one day I thought, “I am going to be using this bike for my main form of transportation for the better part of 2 years.” This made me think that maybe I should bring some of the parts forward several decades…
With the help of a friend, I replaced the tires, tubes, cables, housing, brake pads, handle bar tape, and the chain. I had no idea how to do any of it. So I basically winged it all. It hasn’t fallen apart…yet…
I got most of the parts from a place called Niagara Cycle Works. They have great selection on their website. My friend and I went to their store in Niagara Falls and the guy was extremely helpful/knowledgeable/friendly. So that was awesome. I highly recommend them.
It was fun doing everything myself. It makes me way more confident; I know how to fix a lot of the stuff in case I need to in a jam.
Everything at this time—surprisingly—seems to be working. But time will tell how long all my fixes will last. I hope a long time…
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samwarnick posted this
