The VanSickle Chronicles

March 26, 2013 · 1:12 pm

1969 Huffy Sportsman

In September of 2011 we moved into our new House.

By that December, encouraged by the spacious garage I now owned, I had already accumulated a number of bicycles in various states of entropy. The intent, as with all good things, was to obtain broke bikes for cheap, fix them and sell them. Riding them in the interim was the chief perk. This past weekend, (March 2013), I have completed the first full restoration.

I have been trading, buying, and selling bikes, but none that I parted with had been restored by any great deal. The Sportsman was different. I took every nut, bolt, and washer off this bike and thoroughly cleaned, greased and reassembled. This is a photographic account of that process:

Before

After First Rinse

Head Badge

June 2012

The Parts

Fenders

Brake

Rims

Dissembling the Wheels

The Sturmey Archer 3-speed Internal Gear Hub

Hub Dissembled

Hub Partially Reassembled

Hub Ball Ring Assembled

Hub Mechanism on Axel and Hub Housing

Clean Parts

March 2013

After

So Shiny

4 Comments

Filed under Bikes

Tagged as Bicycle, Bike, Huffy, Restoration, Restore, Sportsman, Sturmey Archer, Vintage

January 18, 2012 · 3:09 pm

Ryanverse News!

I am sure this will mean more to me than to the rest of you, and this may seem like a strange way to break a rather long silence, but I view it as a rather significant milestone:

I finally finished the Ryanverse series by Tom Clancy!………(with caveat)

As explained in previous posts, I have been making my way through the lengthy saga for several years now and since I began the series there had been no new novels, until 2010. In the past two years Clancy, with assistance from other writers, has published three additional novels, two of which extend the Ryanverse universe. I have made the decision that since these novels are not “pure” Clancy that I will consider my accomplishment complete.

Of course I plan to read the additional novels, but with the vast myriad of books and genres available I find it more difficult to restrict myself to this narrow focus.

The Ryanverse Novels, by Tom Clancy

Thank you Tom Clancy, it was a memorable experience!

Before Photos

By popular demand, I present to you the “Before” photos of our new home!

The wife and I have many, MANY, great projects planned for this house and property. Most of which we plan to endure ourselves. We have been in the process of attempting to begin a joint blogging project in which we document and share our progress as we tackle the challenges of moving into our first home and maintaining a nearly 100 year old structure. This, coupled with the enormous amount of work involved in moving into a house and settling all our belongings has been a major cause for delay with updates. Hopefully, this new model of progress updates will encourage us to post much more frequently with greater content!

The front door.