Christmas Bikes For Parts

I wasn't expecting any presents this year, but I ended up with a few. Those NiMH packs in the previous post were a couple, and these two bikes as well. Pardon the stuff on the floor; Hachi was assimilating a bunch of junk mail just before I got home and I'd not had time to clean up the little tiny bits leftover. :-)

The first is a Huffy "Nevada". It's about the same as all the other Huffys I've had or seen, though at least this one has *indexed* lever shifters. Since they are for 3-ring and 6-ring, which I currently have on CrazyBike2, I'll probably move the shifters to CB2 in place of the ones I have (of which the rear one is an 8-speed so doesn't line up with the 6-ring cassette I have now).

It's a 26" wheel bike, with typical steel hubs but aluminum rims. Don't know what spoke type. Brakes are a center pull type I haven't seen before, but appear to work the same as some of the better OTS units I've got. Tires are knobby but not greatly so, and made more in a rounded fashion, so they ride a little better than most of the knobbys I have.

Cargo rack is cheap steel, and would not actually hold much in the way of cargo without wobbling or bending. Well, *relatively* much, given that I expect to be able to haul at least 40 pounds on any bike I ride, preferably up to 100 pounds.

One-piece cranks aren't useful, as I have lots of those. Overall this bike might just stay like it is as an emergency bike, for when experiments in progress on others aren't working or not completed enough to ride.

The other is more useful for parts, and is a Magna "Great Divide".

Like the Huffy it's a department-store 26" hardtail. But unlike the Huffy it has a front suspension fork. It also has square-taper cranks/BB, which is the type I need for jackshafts, and for the easily-changeable chainring sets I'd like to use.

It has grip-shifters, which I like on MTB style bars, but which don't work well for the downturned bars used on CB2, nor are they the safest thing to use with any ebike that has a twistgrip throttle (which I don't use now partly for that reason).

It also uses center-pull brakes, but a different style that is one I have seen, using the same mounting studs that linear side-pull brakes do. These are useful on any bike that has these studs, which many modern bikes, both cheap and high-end, do.

Has the same basic steel hubs and aluminum rims the Huffy does; tires are not as good though.


I have some ideas forming about using the above frame as part of a new version of CrazyBike2, but as a trike. One version of the idea is a tadpole, the other a delta. Since this is a 26" frame, I'm thinking of using a 26" rear wheel, and two 26" wheelchair wheels I currently have on that flatbed trailer right now. They have tubeless foam tires right now, but I'd change those to regular bike tires. Optionally, I could use a pair of 20" wheels meant for single-ended axle mounting. Either way, I'd make this into a full-suspension trike, if it's the tadpole version.

If I do it as a delta, I'd probably only have front suspension, unless I can figure out a way to make the rear wheels independently suspended. And independently driven, rather than a single axle.

It's much easier to build and drive the tadpole, especially as a full suspension. I just have to find all the right parts.