I got a new bike for my birthday.
It's not a new bike, its from 1993 but it's in flawless shape. My birthday is at the end of the month but I didn't want to get outbid on the ebay listing for it lol. It came with different handlebars and tires which I swapped on to my sons bike so he can take it to college.
His is an old Raleigh we had in the garage I took the liberty of putting on new click shifters (It had grip shifts which I hate, everyone hates, ew ew ew), chain, and tires. It's also too big of a bike for me or else I would have just used that for my little project.
I added Nitto bars and a modern stem. My daughters bikes both have white tires so I got white ones to match as well. I always wanted a basket on a bike so I got one of those too.
Now if it could just cool off I could actually ride it outside. I spent two weeks swapping and replacing the new parts and such in the garage and ended up getting heat exhaustion without ever going in the sun.
This isn't the first bike project I've had. Back in 09 I refurbished a 70's bike that turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. It had swept back bars which were hard to steer, the crankset needed replacing, and I wasn't skilled enough to fix it well. It got tossed during a move long ago.
So I had been wanting a new bike but as you can easily google, new bikes are crazy expensive for something that isn't used as a daily commuter or professional race situation. Like, I can't ride on the roads here, not safe for cars to pull over in an emergency much less ride in the slim shoulder of a 60mph road. No sidewalks, no nothing. But our neighborhood had the sense to put big driveways at every house so nobody parks in the street, super easy to ride a bike just around here. Much safer for me and the kids. Plus I could stand to get out of the house and move around.
Anyway, bike is finished and I just wanted to show it off. I've always wanted a nice bike and this one cost less than a Hobbit Collector Booster Box. I have some project ideas for it, mainly a tracking device I want to hide in it. The parts aren't valuable but the vintage frame in that colorway isn't exactly landfill.
Here's to having a hobby that isn't at my computer.