This bike started out as a rusty old Royce Union 10-speed, a steel frame Japanese bike from the early 1970’s. I picked it up on Craigslist as a project to learn how to work on bikes.
I joined Time’s Up, an environmental action bike co-op in NYC, who offer free lessons and a workspace with tools and instructors. Over the course of 2 months, I put a lot of sweat and even some blood into this build. I learned a lot (thank you Mark, Luke, and Izumi) and now the finished product rides like a dream! The steel frame is pretty forgiving of the rough NYC streets, and the mountain-bike style handlebars give it great handling in traffic.
Full story and pics after the jump…