About Delightful Cycles
Tips, Info and other Ramblings
+Reid Cycles Ladies Bike Review - NEW
+Buying a quality vintage bike: The sum of every part
+An Illustrated Guide to Using Gears
+Starting and Stopping Technique
+The importance of fenders aka mudguards
+Hows the paint? Powdercoats vs 2pak spray paint
More important info keeps on coming….
Reid Cycles Vintage Ladies 6-speed Special Edition Bicycle Review
Detailed Reid Cycles Vintage Ladies 6-speed Special Edition Bicycle Review here.
Feedback
Theres eBay Feedback and then theres the smiles on the faces of the new owners of Delightful Cycles.
I dont have a lot of eBay Feedback yet, but the photos speak for themselves. Today I delivered two beautiful vintage bicycles, both were under $600 and the new owners couldnt look any happier.
I also offered to deliver, even in the rain. So you can count on me to go that one step further than any other eBay seller. It took a good hour to carefully load the bikes on the rack and then wrap them all up in cling wrap and plastic bags to protect the white tyres and $90 saddles from spray from the rear wheels.
First stop was Lemongrass House in Newtown to deliver the yellow Apollo won off eBay. It was a cute little store selling homemade bath products with an equally cute owner who cracked up into laughter when I asked if I could take a photo of her and her new bike.
Next stop was Dee Why to give Rachel the first Dream Bike ever made. Its been a good month and a half of sending emails and progress updates. She had been getting very excited about it or so I was told by her parents. She finally got to see her bike and she was very very pleased. I would go as far as saying her young daughter was even a little jealous! I also made a CD of the progress shots and final shots for her to share on FB.
It was a real pleasure to see how happy people were with their bikes. Just the icing on the cake in a very enjoyable process.
How much can $545 buy you?
I thought it would be useful for anyone who is interested in buying a bike to know how much $545 would buy you when shopping at Delightful Cycles.
More established eBay sellers are selling bikes which have been stripped and powder coated and built up using generic, low quality parts, both new and used, for Buy It Now prices around the $550 mark.
Thats a lot of money and it can buy you a lot more from Delightful Cycles. For $495 I can restore any bike you provide me with upgrades including:
- new leather saddle (in brown, honey brown and black),
- new alloy fenders,
- new wicker basket,
- new alloy rear rack,
- new white walled or gum walled tyres,
- new shellaced cotton tape handlebar grips (in brown, honey brown or black),
- new handlebars,
- new pedals,
- new cables (in the colour of your choice),
- new kick stand, and
- new silver chain
Of course, you can customise your order in any way you like, and your order can be catered to just about any budget. So if you’re looking into buying a vintage bike, why look anywhere else?
eBay or evilBay
Its not known as evilBay in some circles for no good reason. Unfortunately many evilBay vendors are making false and misleading representations about the products they sell and bicycle restorers are no exception. Ive seen bikes built up using cheap shortcuts, unsafe brakes, rust on chrome simply sprayed over with silver paint and seat post bolts installed the wrong way. Its fairly important in my mind to be aware of these practices because unlike buying a bike in the real world, eBay buyers are far more vulnerable to misrepresentations because they cannot physically touch or see what they are buying close up. So eBay buyers simply have to trust that the sellers are honest, legitimate, and knowledgeable, then hope for the best.
Its obvious that I have really picked on sellers such as a vintage bike seller in Melbourne, however the public really is entitled to this information because most eBay buyers are not aware of the unprofessional and unsound practices some eBay sellers are engaged in. The lesson to be learnt is not to simply avoid melbournes vintage bike sellers, but to be wary of ALL eBay sellers, including of course, Delightful Cycles. It really isnt simply about saving money, but its about your physical safety and peace of mind as well.
So here’s some things that you should know if your looking to buy a bike….READ MORE
Update 6/5/11: Just FYI “wheelsanddames” an ebay seller referred to in this post, has changed their name and location to “vintagemodernlovers” located in Australia
Delightful Details
Also Lardee update #3 (i still need to do #2)
Its clear from earlier posts that Lardee was quite an ordinary bike. Ordinary mild steel frame, it is a mixte frame though. Oridinary original paint in okay condition, still better than a powder coat in my mind. Lastly, very, very ordinary components. However the seemingly insignificant, yet excessively time consuming, hand-made touches, such as the twined thumb shifters, cup holder, kick stand and the shellaced grip tape, together with the beautiful leather saddle, ridiculously over priced combo of shifters, shifter pods and handlebars, and the Rivendell saddlesac soon to be united with this bike by its owner, has really transformed this ordinary bike into something a little bit spesh.
Another thing to notice is how much was spent on the bits of the bike which the owner would spend the most time touching: the pedals, the saddle and the handlebars. I think its important that if your going to enjoy riding your bike, mnoney needs to be invested in all of those points of contact. Would you really enjoy riding a bike with awful rubber grips and fake plastic leather saddle…probably not.
Finally, Id just like to reiterate, no other eBay seller, no matter how experienced they claim to be, or how popular they may be, offers this level of attention to detail as apart of their service. Enjoy the pics which will be up shortly.
Mel’s Malvern Star “Vogue” Custom Mixte
No fenders, racks, or any other non-sense to weigh this bike down. Click here for more.
Retro Custom Cyclops “Graduate”
This Cyclops Graduate is the only one exactly like it in the world
Probably my best work. This is restoration #3. Truely a retro rebuild with some modern touches. And by “retro” I mean “a fashion reminiscent of the past” rather than something categorised as vintage which is simplt “something actually from the past”.
I bought this as a whole bike in fair condition. The front fender was completely brown from rust and was no longer attached because the fender stays had rusted all the way through. The rims, spokes, handlebars, anything that should of shone was in a horrid state. But the frame itself was incredibly in immaculate condition. The stickers were all minty. There wasnt a single scratch in the classic, glossy, metallic and glittery burgandy. Gold lug lining was still clearly visible. So for the next 6 months or so this bike would sit around in various parts of my house until I could source enough parts to rebuild her.
I came across an old pair of alloy porteur handlebars at a bicycle auction, which are very different from the traditional north road bars found on most vintage bicycles these days. It was the inspiration to make this bike something unique, something a bit different, something that I would want all my bikes to be. Rivendell Bicycle Works in America says that “If you buy a stock bike, do something to it that makes it the only one exactly like it in the world”. There is definately no bike like this in the world. Pity i sold it off :(
So shes got porteur bars, but the cool thing was that these bars accepted bar end shifters/brakes. I went for brakes and got reverse or inverse brake levers made by Dia Compe. Inverse levers were apparently made famous by Lance Armstrong who but some $3 inverse levers on his Tour De France timetrial bike. The good thing about inverse levers is that because they are backwards versions of normal brake levers, when you squeeze them with your hand, the most force is being applied with your strongest finger, the index, where it matters, at the very tip of the brake lever. On normal levers, your pinky is doing all the work. Therefore inverse levers should be slightly more efficient.
Inverse levers meant different cable routing, which was overcome by using handlebar grip tape instead of the usual moulded rubber handlebar grips. Handlebar tape is way more cushy and therefore more comfortable on your hands, it soaks up sweat better than hard rubber, the grip area is much longer than with rubber grips and tape would also wrap securely around those brake cables.
Theres a horn instead of a bell. Its rad.
The wheels were taken from another bike. The rims and hubs are chrome and have a mirror finish. The rims and hubs were polished, as well as each individual spoke, which is why the wheels look so good.
To match the mirror finish of the rims and spokes, I got these very round, smooth stainless steel fenders. They were brand new, very obviously from Velo Orange, a wicked store in the States, (usually sold for $35 USD) but bought from Cheeky Transport for more than double that! But that price doesnt include shipping I guess.
Finally to compliment the burgandy paint I went for gumwalls instead of white wall tyres and this one in a million bicycle restoration was complete.
Vintage Ladies Apollo Capri
This delighful bicycle was sold to a uni student in Newcastle.
Here are the lovely details
- APOLLO vintage ladies curved step-through frame bicycle
- Lovely original blue paint with minor signs of age + original foil stickers
- 10 speed gears (Suntour)
- Full service of wheel hubs, bottom bracket bearings and headset bearings, but not pedals
- Brakes and gears serviced and fully adjusted
- New full length aluminium fenders (mudguards)
- New handlebars
- New black handlebar grips
- New brake levers
- New brake blocks
- New brake and gear cables
- New 27 x 1 1/4 inch cream-walled tyres
- New rear basket (optional, looks less feminine without it)
- And its ready for you to ride!
Lovely blue metallic/glittery paint
Brand new alloy fenders shipped from SA to complete the vintage look.
Brand new chrome “North Road” style handlebars.
