The Great Bicycle Rebuild part 1

When I transitioned from elementary school to middle school (from 4th to 5th grade) I fell outside the bus limit. Since school was close to a mile away and my first bike was a BMX type that didn't coast, my parents got me a new bike. I fixated on a crazy mountain bike with 32 speeds (I'd had none of course on the BMX). They agreed and for awhile I rode it back and forth to school. This was close to 20 years ago and I still ride that bike. I took it out for a couple summers to a small town in Missouri where all there was to do was ride past corn fields. I put a lot of miles on the bike, but it also sat dormant for long time periods. I didn't own a helmet until I lived in the city and decided the chances of getting hit were up'd a lot more than in the suburbs. I put a little cat eye mirror on it, but otherwise it had remained basically untouched for years.

The bike is a white Raleigh Technium Heat. I got it based on the fact that it had a ton of speeds and at the time a brand new thing: push button shifting. I had tried to manage my Dad's bike with a slider type knob where you just sort of know when it's slid to the indistinct right spot, so the push button was just about all I cared about. It never really worked right. We took it back in a couple times for adjustment and then I just lived with a periodically dropped chain and clicking up and down to make one shift. I got skilled at putting the chain back on and learned to click the button just right (possibly more superstition than anything). After a time I started tinkering with the adjustments and eventually got it working fairly well.



A few years back I rotated the original tires which were knobby off road tires. the knobs were well worn down, but still a good 1/8" which seemed good enough to me. After about 20 years though the rubber had started to rot as you can see in the pictures. At one time the wall of the tire was solid orange-ish rubber, but the reinforcement strands started showing through and bits of dry, hard rubber flaked to the touch. I decided I was ridding on time bombs and started thinking long and hard about what to do next.

I love the look of the new cruisers. If I were ever to buy a motorcycle (I've got the license actually) it'd probably be a Honda Shadow or similar cruiser. I just like the rake on the front and the nice slow flow of the frame. This is something that might get my wallet one day, the Elektra Ghostrider:



But for now my plan is to rebuild the old Raleigh. I dropped by Grove Street Bicycles which has an amazing business going for it. A lot of great stuff packed in a little store. Lots of staff and LOTS of customers, so maybe this is one local business that won't fly by night. They set me up with some Kenda hybrid tires and tubes.

At home, the old tires were so stiff with age that most of my time was spent removing them and the new ones felt as though they just flopped on by comparison (though they were a good fit). I learned that my 26" x 1.50 wheels can take 26" x 1.95 tires quite nicely. I figure the hybrid make a lot more sense now that I'm an old man who stays on the trail more often than not. I'm excited to try them out, but I also noticed as I did the tire replacement how dry the cassette had gotten and how worn the teeth are.

Here's some pics of the new tire:




So I think this is the first of many updates on the modernization of my bike. There's some rust in spots, the cables have stretched considerably over the 20 years, and I think I need a little bit more comfort in the ride than I did when I was half my age. Maybe I'll get frustrated and buy a new bike or maybe I'll do a full restore on the old one. Hopefully the weather will clear this weekend and I'll hit the local trail with the new tires and see how excited I am by the first upgrade.

The saddle is first on the replacement list, but I'm having some trouble with those rusty cables and getting the front derailleur adjusted so that might trump it.