Fixing bike 50, Reid Town Bike with crate rack.

 

All done with crate bolted on.

All done!

Secured plywood plates with holes for tee nuts

Crate positioned above rack and ready for drilling

Timber clamped in place and ready for drilling

Broken Rack Spring and taillight

As found

Hi Today, Ive been working on a Reid bike. This was abandoned in a neighbouring street with not much wrong - front wheel out of true, rusty basket,  mudguard stays loose, broken tail light, broken rack spring and spots of random paint were the only problems. I've fixed everything except the rusty basket and paint spots. By adding some custom timber to the rack it can now carry a crate. The bolts are m8 althread rods mounted in scrap Unimold, a recycled plastic. I tried making plywood bolt heads, but they just fell apart on me.

Fixing everyday bikes has been part of this blog for just over a year now (see below), but I've done 50 of them now. I'll stop documenting them unless there's something special that comes along or I do a special mod or something. As well, fixing bikes like this has recently become a job for me, I am now working Sundays, supervising volunteers who fix bikes for the needy at back2bikes.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Start date, Jan 2021

Update, March 9

I went in to the city on Monday and bought a bag for the bike from Daiso. It is cheap and cheerful, $3.10 for quite a large recycled bag. Anyway, its just the thing for lifting the appearance of the rusty basket at the front of the bike. Color even matches! Will take the bike to Wecycle on Saturday. 

Also, the very crap bike shown behind donated a tube so I could fix the back tyre.

Rack detail showing m8 tee nut embedded between plywood pieces, and in custom bolt. This setup allows a milkcrate to be bolted on.

Update May 23: The bike sold to Sarah on Saturday, and she plans to use the crate on the back to carry her small dog. This was up at Wecycle, for wecycle, for $100. This was with the help of Mike, Gayle and Simon. 

Mike helped me choose the bike and set the price, and Gayle handled the cash of the sale. Simon went above and beyond the call of duty, going out and fetching a crate he'd spotted by the side of the road when he realised we'd sold a crate bike with no crate to go with it. Sarah very happy!