Bridgestone 300 Project Bike
Meet my new project bike. It’s a 1985 Bridgestone 300, 23″ (~59cm) in Burgundy Red — an eBay special (I rated a “AAAAAAAAA+++++++++” feedback message. eBay is so weird) from far-away San Pedro. I’m going to try to restore it to a more ride-able condition, although probably not to original components.
My current plan is:
- Disassemble the whole thing
- Throw out all the wear and tear items — tires, tubes, cables, housings, chains, tape, etc.
- Figure out what I have to do to the frame. I’d like to keep the original paint, but if there’s too much surface rust I may have to sand it down and repaint it. (Which sounds like an adventure in and of itself.)
- Clean the drivetrain parts — derailers, crankset, cogs, etc. — and see what all needs to be replaced. Hopefully as little as possible.
- I’m probably going to replace the current 27″ wheels with 700c wheels, just for practical purposes. (Tire/tube availability, mainly.) There’s enough play in the brakes that this doesn’t seem like a big deal.
- I’d really like to put a new stem and handlebars on it, along with new brake levers and some bar-end shifters. We’ll see how that works, budget-wise, though.
- Stephanie got me a nice saddle that would look quite lovely on this sort of a bike. Especially along with some shellacked cork bar tape.
- Reassemble and ride in to the sunset.
After I took these pictures I tried to raise the saddle up a bit to ride it around before I start working on it. Unfortunately the bolt that holds the seat post in place decided to give up the ghost, so it’s officially a non-functional project bike now.
I’d really like to be done with this before next summer. Not quite sure how ambitious that is, given my almost complete lack of free time. I’ll try to post pictures as things progress.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Does this imply you have a used bike to sell?
November 10th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Heh. Nope. This one is currently out of commission and will be that way for at least a few months. Even when it’s done, it doesn’t have mount points for racks or fenders, so it won’t really work as a commuter. Unless I replace my working bike with an LHT or a Sojourn or something like that (which I’d really like to do, but I’d also like a pony) I’m not planning on getting rid of mine.
November 10th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
I don’t think I’d recommend a pony. If you think bike parking is hard to find at work imagine if you needed pony parking.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
[...] timed, I finished building up the old Bridgestone that I’ve been working on since November last night. Calling it by its decals, I give you [...]