The Leopard Den

Found this bad boy a couple days ago. No chain, components are pretty much garbage, but it’s a large men’s frame which means I can rebuild it into a single speed with this wheel I found a couple months back.

Waited 24 hours or so and made another attempt to get the handle bars/quill off. Since the bike has no wheels, and I didn’t have any spare ones laying around that would fit, I used a piece of wood and jammed it between the forks to keep them stable while I tried to work on it.

SUCCESS! After about 2 minutes of shimmying the handle bars back and forth, they popped right out. PB blaster is 3 for 3 in dealing with really stubborn situations. Love that stuff! I wasn’t planning on salvaging the forks and headset assembly, but they seemed to be in pretty good shape so I gave them a quick cleaning with some degreaser.

They cleaned up pretty nice!

I’ve become pretty obsessed with finding and fixing up bikes over the last year or so. Fortunately, there seems to be pretty reliable stream of old, usually neglected bikes, that people in my neighbourhood keep tossing out. Here’s the latest find. 

It’s an old CCM Caprice. Here’s a shot of the logo. 

 It seems almost identical to this one I found on this awesome page doing research on the origins of this bike. According to my man Stephane Lapointe, this bike is from around 1980.

 Clearly this one has seen better days! What’s been done to it is actually sort of bizzaro. Some things make perfect sense: like no wheels, no seat. Those are usually prime gear for any amateur bike repair fiend to take off as they can be removed pretty easily with just run of the mill wrenches. 

Someone has also cut part of the frame off, which sort of creates a nice little floating in mid air optical illusion. I imagine it was probably locked up somewhere for too long and someone decided to chop the frame rather then try to cut the bike lock off. Again, this makes sense. Where it get’s bizzaro is with the missing crank set and the still present quill, handle bars and brakes. Removing a crankset is no small task and usually requires a specialized tool on most bikes, a crank puller. Now old bikes like this don’t usually require a crank puller, but they have this really finicky cottered crank system that requires hammering out bolts. Here’s a video of my favorite online bike repair guru removing a set. It’s a major pain. 

What I find odd and puzzling is that someone would have the know-how and dedication to remove the cottered cranks, but not be bothered enough to remove the quill and handle bars. Personally, I’d much rather have the handle bars then the cranks, but to each their own!

Here’s a close up of the quill and handle bars. (You can also see where the frame has been cut away).

Old quills like this are often difficult to remove as they tend to get fused in the head tube over time. I’m willing to bet that this one won’t be easy to get out.

Yep, I was right! I loosened the bolt and hammered down the fork wedge, but no luck. Next I got out my trusty can of penetrating oil.

PB Blaster! I bought this stuff a few a weeks ago when I was doing battle with a crank side pedal that just would not come off. The label says to wait 15 minutes for the stuff to work, but in my experience with it, it’s best to wait 24 hours and let the oil really saturate the area that you’re working on. And holy crap, this stuff really works! Here’s a shot of the loosened lock nut.  I used the hammer and wood block in the background to try and get the quill loose, to no avail.

I also flipped the bike upside down and sprayed some PB Blaster down the opening in the bottom of the fork. Before I could do that though, I had to remove the front fender.

Old fenders like this are usually attached on the brake bolt, so I took the whole assembly off.

10. Peace Trail, Neil Young

9. Love Streams,  Tim Hecker

8.  Awaken, My Love,  Childish Gambino

7. Give and Glimpse of What Yer Missing,  Dinosaur Jr.

6. Tuns, Tuns

5. Never Enough,  Public Access T.V

4.  I Had A Dream That You Were Mine, Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam

3. My Woman, Angel Olson

2. ST, Case/Lang/Weirs

1. Blonde, Frank Ocean

5. Fugitive Air from the new Of Montreal record, lousy with sylvianbriar.

4. Drinks with school chums on Friday night

3. Jack Reacher. Not a great movie but sometimes that’s exactly what you need. I heart Tom Cruise in every movie.

2. Penultimate evaluation. The end is nigh

5. Revenge of the Holocaust, Ari Shaffir

4. Before I Turned the Gun on Myself, Doug Stanhope

3. Mr. P, Patrice O'Neal

2. No Can Defend,Gary Gulman

1. You People Are All the Same, Bill Burr (technically not a record, but who cares)

20. Vodka & Ayahuasca, Gangrene

19. Walking in the Green Corn, Grant-Lee Phillips

18. Shut Down the Streets, A.C. Newman

17. Agnostic, Hymns & Stoner Fables, Todd Snider

16.  Heady Fwends, The Flaming Lips & friends

15.  Yellow and Green, Barones  Habits and Contradictions, schoolboy Q

14. II, Nude Beach

13. Son of Yvonne, Masta Ace & MF DOOM

12. So Many Days, Julie Doiron

11. Take the Kids of Broadway, Foxygen

10. R.A.P. Music, Killer Mike

9. Channel ORANGE, Frank Ocean

8.  No Can Do, Ladyhawk

7.  The idler wheel..., Fiona Apple

6. Dice Game, Guilty Simpson & Apollo Brown

5. good kid, m.A.A.d city, Kendrick Lamar

4.  Kaleidoscope Dream, Miguel

3.  Celebration Rock, Japandroids

2.  Blue Chips (mix tape), Action Bronson

Mike Love not War #11