I've been talking to a local guy at the Friday night rides who's my age & races BMX over by Nola. I thought it might be fun to try, plus there's a bunch of local guys into the big-wheel BMX scene here, so I started casually looking for something that might work.
Friday morning this popped up on marketplace a couple miles away for $100, so I grabbed it from him after lunch(and invited him out to our rides).
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So yesterday I picked a brake from one of the local guys, a stem from another one, hit up the shop down the street for some pedals, a chain, brake cable & stem spacers, then dug the bars/grips out of my parts stash(and also a seat today). Then took it for its maiden ride last night. I'm all-in for under $200.
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The paint looks much worse in person, but that's just one less thing I have to worry about keeping nice.
It weighs about 21.5lbs according to the old bathroom scales I keep in the garage, but the bars & forks are steel & make it noticeably front-heavy, so I may eventually get around to replacing them.
It rides smooth & accelerates pretty quick, so it seems like a pretty fun ride so far.
I have an older diamond back cruiser that is the most ised bike in my fleet.
This size bike is just about perfect imho.
Have fun with it!
gumby
Dork
8/7/23 9:00 a.m.
My Redline cruiser is the only bike I have with geometry I can currently use. I need to get it out more often.
I've put 13-miles total on it over the last 3 nights. It rides smooth & accelerates quickly, but I think I'll need to step up from 42t chainring to a 44t for riding it around town.
Mndsm
MegaDork
8/8/23 12:21 p.m.
That reminds me. I need to pedal my fat ass over to mr. b's and get a new sprocket for my 29. 25/9 isn't great for a big bike.
Well I've put 54-miles on it over the last 7-days. It's actually pretty comfy to pedal around, but the gearing definitely has me spinning at about 8mph or higher.
The bottom bracket is getting noisy so I'm going to go ahead & replace it. I was surprised to be able to salvage it enough to use it at all, so no big surprise.
Otherwise there's no major plans for right now. Once I get into shape enough that I think I can make it around a track at speed I'll head over to Gretna & check it out. At that point it might be time to think about lighter bars & fork, and maybe a better freewheel, but none of that is going to help me today.
I ran my first race with the DK last night. Technically it was my 2nd race ever, but the last one was at least 40-years ago, so I'm not sure it counts at this point.
The track is at Gretna, LA. Basically it's a southern suburb of NOLA, and not too far from NOLA Motorsports Park. There were 4 of us old guys signed up, though one dropped out before the start of the race(I'm not sure why). They put us all in the 46-50 Cruiser class(I'm 52), which is fine. There was only 1 other adult racing, the rest were all younger kids, with the exception of one teenager.
We ran 2 motos, then finals, and I ended up 3rd, 2nd & 2nd, so that's better than I anticipated. I was actually faster in the corners(I'm guessing from autox), and did ok in a couple of the rhythm sections, but struggled to find my groove in the rest of the track. Hopefully that will all improve with more practice & experience.
There were only about 25-riders, so things moved fast & I didn't get a chance to take many pics.
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Awesome I raced my Sunday cruiser a few races the year before COVID. It was super fun. Here's one for us old guys at the BMX track!