Great stuff. Those early racers were savages. Had to be to survive. Those six day events must have nutz but after reading of the early T de France days, makes todays riders look like weenies. Rabid crowds were just as bad. Mostly to cheer but others just to create mayhem. Bottles and garbage thrown at riders as fascist national teams would come thru. (Done to show support of their own local riders.). Many beaten up, racers could only charge the crowds running with the bike as a shield.

^^^^ choice! Check out that chain tensioner. Chain is hardly making use of the chainwheel.

Been watching this for months. Chicago Goossens Bicycle 1930s Racing Wood Rim 5 Extra Wheels Trouphy Jersey | eBay

Played for awhile today with the 50's Steyr Higgins. Very much a budget build - drive train 3 x 2 works good but has the wrong tensioner. Internal 3 sp. hub and front 46 / 52 with suicide shifter. Can swap the final 18T fairly easy to a 14T. Finally found some period correct 700C swiss weinmann rims to git er' done. Pimped wide gold chain... ala BMX stuff out of the junk box. Was thinking of secretly hiding a small Austrian dagger in the end of the handlebar. Quick surprise release to keep the boyz in the city hood off of me and yanking this ride.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381553308.jpg

Would love to see some close up pics or diagrams......

After I took the pics, finished rear shift cable, brakes. Went with heavier upgrade Weinmann cables. Most everything on it is Swiss or Austrian. Exception are the toe clips, saddle and water bottle but all from the 50's.

Need to find the correct tensioner

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165mm Steyr cottered crank arms

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381554527.jpg

^^^ recent cyclocross event?

Doing some research and came across this vintage mountain bike conversion circa 1967. 1961 was the last time the JC Higgins name was used.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381630958.jpg

Neat story on wombat:
MOMBAT: 1967 JC Higgins Klunker

The tat......

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381786288.jpg


The cover up.....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381786325.jpg


Not sure which is worse.......

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381811280.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381811309.jpg

One of the greats and ultimate win!

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did someone mention Huffy? LOL

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http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5...ike-1988.0.jpg

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The real story of Andy Hampsten's 'Huffy' (Land Shark). Interesting note what happened with the Serotta.

Historic Pro Bike: Andy Hampsten's 1988 7-Eleven Huffy Giro D'Italia | Cyclingnews.com

That's so cool. I remembered that 88 Giro like it was yesterday.

John started messing with frames from his Art Center days. I remember hanging out at his garage after training rides. He was one of the very first guys who painted bikes with crazy colors unlike the traditional single color frames of its time. It was the ugliest paint scheme the first time I saw it while wheel sucking on a long flat road with one of our hot local ripping our legs off us. Unusual that's for sure.

The 80's revisited. Couldn't agree with you more on the paint 7-11 but the play on Huffy :D That team too, just incredible how it came to be.

A bit more w/ Andy.

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walk by this place everyday.

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The 80's decade and bikes of Team 7 Eleven > pistaRicer

I remember those days well. Most guys had their bikes custom build to their specs. Not just the 7-11 boys, but the continental division 1 prod did as well. Look at Edwig Van hooydonck's Colnago with the very longish headtube above the headset and the crazy long seat pin. I bet that thing had an extremely long top tube for him. Those were the good old days where the 7-11 team went to Europe as underdogs and gave them a kicking. I remember Phinney won a stage in the tour.