Hall Hall Hauler

I'm just now realizing this has been a really light year on posts...like almost half the usual.  How did this happen?  I'm gonna blame my wrist and recommit myself for a better 2014.  Also trying to decide if I should do more with this thang.  Now that I'm directing NEMBA Racing I'm thinking about maybe sharing more of the trials and tribulations of that or maybe getting into more in depth gear reviews maybe?  Who knows, hopefully I'll put my money where my mouth is.

But for now A PROJECT BIKE!  It's been for-EEEVER since I've done a restoration build. Maybe I should get back into dumpster diving as well?  Although I've heard most dumps aren't really cool with just anybody crawling around in their metal piles anymore.  LAME.

Before.

Ok. Back story. This ones got a good one. Many moons ago while still slinging cable in the telecom game I stumbled upon this ride resting on its kickstand in the middle of a large attic space in Samuel Reed Hall Hall at PSU.  Seemed like it was in decent shape and at the time I was worried it possibly belonged to one of the Res Life staffers in the building so I left it be.  Then less moons ago I was back in the attic assisting with the re-purposing of the campus webcam and low and behold it was still just sitting there.  Res Life staff rolls over pretty frequently so I was fairly certain that at this point it was not owned by anyone still around.  I wasn't in a place to take it right then so I left it and made a deal with the Telecom guys to let me know next time they were headed up there and I would tag along and snag it.

That time came not all that long after that day and of course we get there and its gone.  I had missed my opportunity...or had I? Yes I had. At least for awhile. On the way out we noticed that it had been moved down into the lobby of the building. I was ok with taking an obviously abandoned bike from an attic but I wasn't comfortable with taking it from the lobby when best guess is one of the current Res Life staff at the time had gone up there and found it and decided it was sweet and took it down to try and revive it.

There it sat for probably months? and every now and then the guys in Telecom would swing through and tell me that it was still just siting there.  Hall Hall was actually up for renovation and being repurposed for academic space and in its final days as a Res Hall the Telecom guys were over there going over specs with contractors and finally got the bike and the RD in the same room at the same time.  RD finally confirmed that no one was laying claim to it and BOOM...mine.

Now that we've got that out of the way lets get to some deets.  What we have here is your standard issue Columbia 3 speed straight out of Westfield, MA.  If I had to guess probably from the 60's right before the 10 speed boom in the 70's.  It wasn't in horrible shape but the front brake was broken and the rear hub had basically been reduced to a singlespeed thanks to years of gummed up grease.  I was hoping to just swap out the broken brake and front wheel with stuff from the parts bin, maybe some new/used rubber and some new cables.

Unfortunately I didn't have any brakes that were going to work which kind of derailed the whole project, you can get away with just one brake if its the front one but I didn't want to only have a rear brake.  It occurred to me that I had plenty of old V-brakes so I started scouring the interwebs for an old 1in threaded fork for 26in wheels that had canti studs and found a brand new one on ebay for about $40.  Seemed like a reasonable investment into this ride so I went for it.

posting this to make shop owners cringe.

wicked grips. dyude. guy.

Trimmed the fork to fit and it installed real nice.  Put some new levers and grips on and now it just needs some new cables and the rear wheel true'd up.  Also thinking about trying to install a huge wire basket that I have but I'm not sure if its going to fit yet.

Almost After.

Should hopefully have this thing completed soon and I'll post an official after pic once its ready to shred.