DIY Bike Renovation

Serendipity is an amazing thing.. so is the law of attraction! For instance, on our Amazon Wishlist I had two stainless steel water canisters that were a total of $39.00 and I found two practically new ones at the Salvation Army for $0.49 a piece... what does this have to do with bikes??

Amazingly enough I put two bikes on our wishlist. I have two AWESOME cousins who were no longer using their bikes and gave them to us! <3 The only thing is we had to use a little elbow grease and TLC to get them working properly! This post is about that process! (We just had to give the law of attraction a shout out!)

First we had to assess the situation. The bike I (Kayla) would be using had a lot of rust, needed new tires, and brake work. So...

We took a visit to the local bike store and bought new tires, inter-tubes, pink handles =D, and got some free advice. We did not know that cooking grease works better on brake line rust than WD-40.. but we do now!

We bought hybrid tires. My bike is a 12 speed but I don't plan on riding it through the woods so we got tires that can handle asphalt and gravel, as well as some off-roading, but that were smooth enough to make the ride more pleasant.

Then we headed to the hardware store for sandpaper and paint. We chose Valspar Spray paint that was paint and primer in one in teal blue and candy pink (those are not the official names) and a can of cheap black spray paint for the handles, petals, and gears.

It took a lot of elbow grease to get the decals off and sand down the rust on the wheels and body, but we did it together and it went pretty quickly. Once the husband had the bike apart we got to work painting. In hind-sight I would have purchased a clear spray paint (or glitter paint) ;) for a top coat... but so far the paint has held up amazingly.

We got the rust on the brake to loosen up and were able to fix the brake issues.. the husband sorted out the gear problems with a few test drives and tightening of bolts (note photo at the top of the post with him riding the bike to check the gears).

Overall it was a fairly smooth process, and cost around $70.00 which is $190 less than the bike I had on our wishlist (which wasn't even the color of cotton candy). =D

The wide seat was around $30 and was not necessary, but something I prefer if I am going to be a bike person.. which I have been in the past and am eager to get back to! I love biking, and when I was a teenager I would bike any chance I got.. I hope that this bike project will be a fun hobby we can enjoy for years to come and another way to promote a healthy lifestyle!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more randomness!