Below are pix of the rear wheel in the midst of the same procedures. The front wheel has already been torn down, bad cones replaced, hub repacked, spokes unlaced and individually cleaned, re-laced, and trued. The current saddle is from my '60 Corvette ( the Corvette is graced by a proper Brooks B72)Īs is my habit with a new bike, I tear it completely apart to see what I have. I've substituted my favorite seatpost for cruisers: a Schwinn Exerciser seat post, extra long, extra thick. Someone in pre-history had taken the time to whittle a Huffy seatpost down to 13/16". The Wasp came with a black & white Mesinger, wrong for this bike tho, and a wrong seat post. After discovering that 26" S2 rims are extinct, and therefore worth many skins, I have greater incentive to straighten the rear wheel. Steel rims are fairly malleable, so I'm hoping I can coax it to at least not hit the chainstays. The rear wheel leaves tracks like a snake, which I strongly suspect may be from shipping damage. The front rim has several sharp indents on one sidewall, from who knows what, a warm-blooded Panther or Tiger, maybe? The spokes are straight 14 ga, so the wheel has been rebuilt at some point. The truss rods protrude from the stem like tusks, guarding the fender, ready for battle. It looks good in the pix, and it has the scars of survival. Middleweights were evolving in the new bike world, pushing the old heavyweights out, only to be parked in the garage in silence, while lightweights, millions of lightweights raced over the terra firma.
For no better reasons than I love the black & white paint job, the 'husky' look of a balloon tire bike, and that it was a hold-over from a dying breed. I've been wanting one of these for quite a while now.