17: Windsor - Part 2

After acquiring this splendid Windsor frame and fork, the first item of business was to clean it up…remove the dirt, grime and gunk left over from years of use/storage and throw a quick polish on the lug work. After a solid hour’s worth of elbow grease, I was happy with its appearance.

The next task at hand was locating a bottom bracket kit that would work with a pair of Truvativ cranks pulled off another bike. I ran into issues of the spindle being the right size to accept the cranks, but the bottom bracket accompanying the spindle wouldn’t fit into the frame. After going through 4 different makes and models at Royal Cycles, Jason was able to find an acceptable fit. I really wanted these old cranks to fit to avoid having to purchase a new pair just for this bike.

While making the bottom bracket functional, we tackled the headset as well...the steering wasn’t exactly smooth. Over the years a single ball bearing had broken apart and grinded up the interior of the frame, making a fine mess and a ‘notched’ feel when turning the forks. Once again, Jason saved the day and cleaned ‘er up real nice and installed a bargain headset…turns like a dream after the repair.

With the bottom bracket, crankset and headset in order, it was time to start throwing parts on and turn the Windsor into something usable for transportation and delivery.

I pulled out a set of 700cc rims from the basement, threw on a 17-tooth freewheel and put air in the tires…wheels in check. Grabbed an old set of mountain bike straight bars for 5 bucks, cut ‘em down to 20.5 inches, put the brake lever on, some grips, found an old stem at Old Spokes Home and the steering was complete.

Now I was at a point of having a complete bike on my hands, with minimal money invested. The final step was installing rear baskets, which was made easy by the good folks at Old Spokes Home. I rolled into their shop, let ‘em know what I was after and it was a 1, 2, 3 deal. Select the part, they installed and I pedaled out the door with a completed Grocery Getter on the Cheap.

Total cost on the bike was: $250.00
Frame/Fork: 125.00
Bottom Bracket/Headset: 50.00 (installed)
Chain: 5.00

Baskets: 60.00 (installed)
Handlebars: 5.00
Stem: 5.00
All other parts handed down, found or pulled from the basement junk pile.

My goal was to build a basket bike and not spend a grip of cash. Locating the frame and fork, digging through the crates finding old parts, dealing with bottom bracket issues, hitting up my homies for spare parts and finally putting it all together was really really fun ! I'll definitely build another bike to fit a specific purpose...why not bring an old frame and fork back from the dead (or storage) ! 

.BLOTTO.

All images © Dean Blotto Gray / Blotto Photto 2008

Original publish date: December 29th, 2008