Wednesday, June 8, 2022

This year we worked on this 1960s Peugeot bicycle donated by Will S., which came to us in really rough shape: lots of rust on a bike that clearly spent several years outside, all cables stuck in their housing, grease all dried up, many parts stuck to each-other with rust. We took it completely apart, cleaned and polished each part with steel wool, repacked the ball bearings with fresh grease, changed the chain, brake pads, cables and housings, and decided to replace the non-standard steel rims with more modern alloy Mavic rims in a 700 23C standard size. We put some cool thread-less Thickslick tires on it.

This project gave a chance to a group of very clever and motivated 7th grade girls and boys to learn and manage the rebuilding of the wheels, from taking them apart, to sizing spokes, cutting and threading them, weaving the them through hubs and rims, and finally truing the wheels. All this was possible thanks to the excellent mentoring of veteran club members: Alexis, Arabella, Nathan, Silas, and Jeffrey.