Another Schwinn Prelude?
After a leisurely lunch on the Marietta Square yesterday, I came across this: Another Schwinn Prelude! It seems I’m not the only one who was unimpressed with the original rusted gunmetal gray look. The owner of this Prelude painted theirs similarly to mine. A base coat of cream with an accent color for the lugs [...]
Schwinn Prelude Redux: Complete?
The Schwinn is all back together now with the new paint job, decals, handlebar tape, and cabling: Here’s a before pic for reference: The red and white striped bar tape was a nice final touch: So what’s next? I might replace the seat with an old Selle Itialia Flite saddle if I can find one, [...]
Schwinn Prelude Bicycle Restore: Clear Coat
It’s been a while but I finally found some extra time to slap a clear coat on my Schwinn redux. I saw “I”, but really my father-in-law took care of this one. Its delicate work, and I’m just not in to that. Maybe next time. Clearcoating is really to hide and protect. It masks any [...]
Schwinn Prelude Bicycle Restore: Decals
With all the painting done its time to move on to puttin’ fancy stickers on the bike. It occurs to me that I didn’t post a picture of the bike with the paint all finished, so here is a shot: Looking pretty slick. I ordered two sets of decals for the bike from eBay. If [...]
Schwinn Prelude Bicycle Restore: Painting II
Its been a few weeks, but I finally moved on to the last of the painting over the weekend. In the previous post we painted the frame in its entirety with a primer and the cream colored base coat. We did a test with the red paint for the lugs and details on the fork, [...]
Schwinn Prelude Bicycle Restore: Painting I
In the last post I wrapped up all of the prep work on the bike frame. It was taken apart completely, sandblasted to remove rust and sanded from top to bottom. Now it’s time for painting! Most of the tools I got to use on this project belong to my father-in-law. In the past he [...]
Schwinn Prelude Bicycle Restore: Prep Work
Cycling might be the perfect sport for an engineer. The mechanics of a bicycle are beautifully simple, and the gear porn aspect of owning and operating a performance machine may be paramount to the health benefits of actually riding. Data is key as a cyclist as well. Altitudes, cadences, heart rates and watts determine my [...]
