Changing your Tires and Tubes

What you'll need...

To start you'll need to order new tires and tubes. I suggest using a local bike shop. If you don't have a local bike shop or yours is ridiculously priced check out www.biketiresdirect.com . I ordered my supplies over the phone. I spoke with a nice gentleman who helped me know exactly what I would need to change my tires and tubes.

• Tubes (appropriately sized)
• Tires (appropriately sized)
• Bike Pump
• Tire gauge *we just got a great pump that has a gauge on it!
• Tire levers (Not necessary, but i thought it helped a lot)
• Rubber Rim Strips

Remove old rim strips and replace with new ones, make sure the holes for the valve stem are lined up

Pump tube with enough air to make the tube steady enough to securely fit around the rims.

Place the tube inside of the tire and place the tire and tube around the rim. Make sure that the valve holes are all lined up.

Sorry for the blurred picture but use your tire lever to secure the tire inside of the rim.

PUMP IT UP and then put it back on your bike and you're ready to ride.

Rusty Rims and Spokes

Before......

After....

I achieved this by simply scrubbing (HARD) the rims and spokes with Tom's Soap and Aluminum Foil. Worked like a charm*

Disassembly

Taking the bicycle apart was a scary task for me. I worry that I won't be able to put it back the way it's supposed to be. So, my husband and I took piece by piece off and labeled their parts and sectioned them into small baggies with labels on them. Also we took pictures to guide us in reassembling the bike.

Let's hope we can do this, cross your fingers!

Should I Replace My Fenders?

My fenders are looking the worst out of all of the accessories on my ride. I started thinking today that maybe I should replace them. I found several sites with decently priced fenders. I narrowed my choices down to Southern Cali Bikes. The very friendly and helpful Issac (owner) recommended that I keep the vintage fenders and have the re-chromed. My husband agrees.

Coming up soon, finding a good deal on re-chroming!

Rust, A vintage bike's nemesis.

So I have begun taking parts of my bike off to begin restoration.

I started with the pedals.

After reading blogs and postings about removing rust from bikes I decided to go with a blog that

mentioned a safe and "green" way to remove rust. You can see this post @ http://oldbikeblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/guest-blogger-green-clean-your-bicycle.html

After cleaning the green way...

You can see that the green way definitely helped, but not as much removal as I'd hoped for :(

So, I remembered a relevant urban myth I had always heard:Coca Cola removes rust from car engines.

After several days of changing out the Coke to freshen the acidity, I scrubbed with Aluminum Foil and Dr. Bronners Soap....

And our result

There is still some pitting where the rust has forever damaged the metal, but to me this pedal looks amazing!

In the Beginning

In the beginning I started with a search. After a three month intensive internet search on Craigslist, e-bay and local classifieds I have finally found "The Vintage Ride". I was looking for a beginner project that needed minimal restoration. I know very little about bike's, but I am ready & eager to learn

So I finally found this bicycle on Craigslist listed locally for $50

The bike has little rust, one flat tire, bad tubes and lots of detail work that needs to be done. So first things first, RESEARCH. I have found a nice website that helps with finding the date of manufacture of the bicycle. www.oldroads.com

For example this bike is a Huffy, Old Roads says using the serial number you can find the appropriate age of the Bike.

Using their methods I have come to the conclusion that the bike is a 1955 Huffy Eldorado

Sometimes you can search for the original handbook or advertisement for the make and model and find the actual picture of your model, I was able to find an advertisement, but at this moment cannot find that link. (I will post it at a later date :) )