Klunker Project: Fun with Coaster Brakes

And a month after ordering parts, in my grubby mitts I finally possessed the spokes, nipples, and spoke washers I needed to kludge together my klunk wheel.

This is the first wheel I have assembled in a few years, and using junked together parts for wheel building is a new experience as well. Definitely some screw ups in here, but I'll ride it. The next one will be more better.

 

This picture shows the wheel mounted in the Schwinn frame with a nice view of the coaster brake cooler. This part was sourced from monebikes.com. I've read reports of these legitimately helping reduce coaster brake fade and grease burnoff. Also, look at that thing. If you look close you may see the brass spoke washers which help with spoke angle.

I engraved the coaster brake arm. It will be transferred to a non-cooled rear wheel at some point. It was a lot of work, and unfortunately not very visible right now.

I've had a lot of parts jammed up in the nightmare of the mail right now. This entire build should be finished by now, but so it goes.

Recently I found Diamond Head - Borrowed Time album on a trip to the record store, and it ended up being the find of the day for $3 on cassette. Look at that cover. Beautiful. I'm gonna have to find the original gatefold LP. Originators of the tune "Am I Evil?" popularized by none other than Metallica, I would refer to anything else they have ever done as a "deep cut." Seriously, have you ever listened to anything other than that tune?

Ol' Trouble

A few months of solid go hard and abuse took its toll, this old Azonic dirt jump machine was taken out of commission for a broken spoke mid summer. The rear wheel is definitely the weak link with this build, so I'm not suprised at this point. 

Healing a pulled muscle, along with a holiday vacation, and a weird world = turning wrenches and miniature painting. Replaced the spoke on the rear wheel, and trued both of them up.  My current obsession with moto bars and bmx grips continues to make its way onto all my builds.

I've always wanted to do a red, purple, and white build, so parts from like 4 spare bikes that have kicked around for years have come together in a cosmic clusterfuck of go hard. I think she shall be known as the Royale from here out. Consequently I would like to build a new rear wheel with a purple Hope Trials hub, but stuff. Things. Is it worth it? Thats a lot of bread.

Maxxis DTH skinwalls. 26x2.2 or something. We will see how long these tires last on this build, but I don't have much confidence. They were purchased for my classy Trek 800 (RIP), so they are light and so smooth, but I can see absolutely shredding the thin sidewalls while running high pressures and launching onto and off of things.

You may recognize these from my faithful Trek 800 (RIP).

Replaced bars with a spare set I had and flipped the stem. Don't wease my juice buddy. That's my style. Fresh cables. Trek 800 died so the Royale may be more rad. Old set of Paul levers. Classy. Yes, I have a spare purple ano stem laying around, but I didn't like the reach.

 

In the depths of my wintertime boredom I will switch out the chainring, I'm just not into all that nonsense right now.

A prior version of the build.

I am pretty certain this bike is the reason the cops around town try to discourage my riding in the local parks. Killed it! So Ive got that goin' for me. But seriously, I smashed this beast around town for months in the spring, and I'm still terrified at some of the lines I was hitting at that point.

I got these stickers in the mail the other day from S&M bikes. I've been eyeing them up for a while, and figured $15 for some stickers that could sell out at any time is worth it. One is on the 1x1, one is on the Lowside. The alien smoking a fattie is reserved for something special.

Before we go, here's a current jam for you. Some New Wave of British Heavy Metal, gentlepeople? Unironically, I'd recommend it for fans of Spinal Tap. Which means I still can't take it seriously. But its fuckin' wicked. I guess Manowar and Saxon may be somewhat fair comparisons, but again, I can't take that shit seriously. Also, in one Reincarnate tune they describe flying high as an albatross. The majestic... albatross. The Brits are a strange bunch.