New Bike Day

A while back I decided to take Amanda's wheelset and use them for my own which left her bike sitting in a corner with no wheels. Since moving to Portland, Amanda also decided she no longer wanted to ride "Fixed" anymore but wanted to ride "Free" instead. I had a spare Velocity 36hole Aerohead wheelset laying around so I decided to use this wheelset on her bike. Her original ratio was 49/18 and was pushing about 73.5 gear inches. Since Portland is somewhat hilly I decided to lower her gear ratio to 49/19 which pushes about 69.6 gear inches. The only problem was I needed to get a 19tooth freewheel cog. Taking the advice from my friend Ben, I went down to 21st Avenue Bicycles. Man! That place rocks! Everyone there is really nice, especially Hugh. He helped me out this whole weekend with parts and explaining tricks of the trade to me. Anyways, luckily 21st Avenue had a 19tooth freewheel cog in stock, yay! While Hugh was taking off the previous cog and installing the new cog I decided to look at some tires for Amanda's new build. Her previous rims, the one's I stole, were bright blue. I wanted to stick with the blue theme and came across some blue tires which were perfect as well as some matching bar tape for the handlebars! Since the bike is now a freewheel bike I needed to get more housing and cable for the brakes. The bike already had a front brake but I wanted to put a rear brake on to ensure the safest ride for my one and only true love! The bicycle chain however needed 3 links added to it because of the bigger rear cog, Hugh was awesome and hooked me up by finding and old chain and adding the links for me! I really suck with the chain breaker tool so I'm glad he did that for me. Anyways, there are still a few things I need to work on such as the rear cable line which I have excess of and needs to be cut down (it's very apparent in the picture)and buying a new stem because the one I put on there I got from a dollar bin. Other than that, I think the bike looks good for a quick build up! Here is a before and after of the bike! Enjoi!
- AMY!

Before:



After: