A Clunker Resurrected

A pal (who shall remain nameless) kindly donated their old "mountain bike" to a couple of non bikers who foster ankle biters. I understood that the "mountain bike" had been left outside, albeit undercover, for a number of years so I was expecting a lengthy time spannering a right ol'rust bucket.

However, when it arrived I was relieved to see that it wasn't as rusty as I'd anticipated and after a quick going over all it needed was a stripdown / regrease of the dry and notchy wheel bearings, tighten the headset, brake pad adjustment and nipping up the odd thing here and there. Mind you with the time spent looking for antiquated tools and fiddling with components, I reckon that I could have built a modern bike quicker...

Now this really must be a true "mountain bike" because it's written all over the pink heffer, even on the white wall tyres !

Its amazing to see just much modern components have improved in terms of design, ease of use and not to mention weight. Just checkout the stem with a cable running through :huh, the rear brake cable run down to the center pull brakes and the sloped dropouts needing fussy wheel alignment :x I was very surprise to find that the gears worked fine and although they aren't modern accurate clicky shifters, the adjusters worked well - on the stand at least...

I've no idea how heavy the ol'gal is but someone has already quipped that the front wheel is probably as heavy as Chipmunk's entire FuelEX - the worrying thing is, that I think they're right :o