Mike's Latest Frankenbike

Michigan Mike writes:

Frankenbike assembled from 2 bikes gradually accumulated. Pics of examples of each attached.

Frame/fork/headset from early 90's Centurion Dave Scott Expert Ironman.
Wheels, crank, fenders, bars, stem, brake, chainguard from mid 90's women's Schwinn 'Collegiate' .

I noticed the Schwinn in a thrift shop, along with another old POS that a friend needed to build his own Frankenbike.
Both had Shimano 3-speed rear hubs and bar shifters.
So I bought both. $20 out the door.

The were both ladies step-through bikes, which I regard as both an insult to women and bicycles, and I didn't mind taking them out of circulation if only to melt them into new bean and beer cans.

I noticed the Schwinn was virtually unridden. You can presume, when the tires still have mold nibs on the tread, but are dry rotted and can be peeled away with a thumbnail, not a lot of attention was ever lavished on the bike. I suspect it was a very dissapointed teenage girls 16th birthday present or someone's week-long effort to quit baking cookies.

Got it home and looked at it in the garage for a few weeks. The bike had forged alloy crank and stem. Odd thing, I thought, only one brake, on the front wheel. The left grip was gone, and the rear fender was unbolted from the frame. I assumed someone had an unnerving episode trying to fix the rear brake and gave up, going back inside to bake/eat more cookies.

What to do with this? I pondered.

Experience has benefits.

I looked for frames. My old neglected, beaten, bent, tired, zero-cost Austrian puch 3-speed was great for stumbling a few blocks to the store, but now I lived 2.5 miles from a store. I needed something snappier to handle TP and ice cream fetching duty.

I found a 58cm Centurion frame from the early 90's on criagslist. $60 advertised. OK, Saturday morning, I just decide to risk the 30 minute drive and go see it. Perfect condition, owned by a meticulous person, had a matching one for his son. Now they were both upgrading to carbon. "Will you take $50?" "No."

OK, Here's $60.

Centurions had a good retail name back in the day. Fairly small labeller. Made in Japan, Tange tubes, unicrown fork. Not up to todays standard for stiff/light high performance, so I hardly hesistated before reworking it into a "sports". Experience says 26x1.375 wheels are about the same size as 700c's. Whaddya know? They are. Square taper bottom bracket on Schwinn interchanged nicely with one on Centurion.

Pinch the front fender in under the fork, put it together and it rides. The rear has a coaster brake, which is really nice on the long downhills here. ZIp ties and baling wire secure the fenders to the dropouts

The Brooks B67 seat for $90 was the most expensive part. Oh and 2 tires for $30, so I'm into it for <$200. And for those of you who don't know, Brooks seats are all-day seats.

I've put about 50 miles on it so far, and it's nice, light, quick, seems pretty strong and no drama. My next excursion is to ride it across town to the micropub, where the serious titanium bikes are piled high, to show it off, as soon as my last papers are done.

Mike's Frenkenbike. Click here for more pictures.

The disaster in the background of the 5th pic is some kind of collapsed, insulated tank.

Update January 2017 replaced failed slide show with picture and link.