Lean Mean Commutin Moe-chine

I was getting tired of the wear and tear of commuting in bad weather, etc., on my "nice" road bike. So I found a Duvallslist special 1980's Raleigh bear of a bike to make my commuter. The guys wanted $100, but after I convinced him that it needed some serious work, I left with a smile and only $65 poorer. The purchase:



In this picture, I had already replaced the dingy saddle that came on the bike with the old one that came on my "nice" road bike (I had upgraded) that I had laying around. I was convinced with a small amount of work I would have a new deluxe machine. First things first, the brake cables needed to be replaced and the handlebar / brake levers were a little too archaic.

Since it's what the super-hipster Seattleites do, I decided to make myself a nice set of bullhorn handlebars. So I spent $5 on a used set of drop handlebars (like the ones that came on the bike), and cut them off.


Then I mounted them upside down (ie. bullhorn), slapped some new aerobar brake levers ($10 local tri-shop), that fit into the ends of the bars, adorned the bars with some spiffy new white tape ($5), and had a new comfy, cool setup.




With a couple of more upgrades that cost about the same amount as the bike... I added on some nice but used clipless pedals ($30) and, a necessity for commuting in Seattle, fenders ($30). A fun project and now a pretty nice bike for a total of ~$145, my new commuting moechine.

What's next? Maybe go single speed to get rid of the old school friction shifter levers... but the commute has a pretty serious hill, so we'll see.