It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
As restoration projects go, this was more of a clean up than a true restoration. The bike was in a truly awful state when I got it and I should have taken some “before” photos, but I didn’t. The rim of the rear wheel was completely rusted, the tyres were cracked and peeling, there was surface rust on all of the chrome parts and the paint had faded, especially on the handlebar and forks.
So I set to work trying spruce this thing up with minimal financial outlay. Turns out it was easier than I thought, it just required a bit of work. The tyres I swapped out for some Maxxis Wormburners I had lying around, the original hand grips were replaced with decent Bontrager ones, and I had a suitable chrome rear wheel lying around to replace the rusted out one. As well as replacing those parts, I resprayed the headstem and the rear rack as well as using a cut and polish compound on the paint work. This worked well on the black pain, but wasn’t as effective on the handlebar or forks as they are both day-glow green. The forks came up alright with a bit of extra effort and I rotated and flipped the handlebars so that the faded side faced down. The result is as you see below. Now all I have to do is sell the bloody thing.
We love retro!
Shiny!
The length of the frame takes some getting used to.