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Old 09-25-2018, 11:59 PM
Jon A.'s Avatar
Jon A. Jon A. is offline
Don't mess with Esther.
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,267
Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M View Post
Replica yes cheaply made not really. It has lasted the longest of all the bikes I've owned and is without doubt the fanciest (a Cadilac among the Chevys I've had). I've always been rough on my bikes.

I actually managed to destroy a coaster brake assembly on a $100 Walmart Schwinn that was a cheeper similar looking predecessor to my DelSol...The place I lived was a phosphate mine turned ungated gated community with a couple of sub-communities in it the bluffs and the woods which both had big manmade hills at their entrances. The Bluffs had a long straight road at the bottom and I liked to pedal into the downhill as hard as I could, lock up the brakes at the bottom and make a ~30'-50' skidmark...A few goes with the Schwinn and the rear end jumped and something was very wrong. I forget if it made me fall or if I coasted to a stop confused, but the bolts holding the rear wheel loosened or slipped from the torque and the brake bar going between the axle/hub of the rear wheel and the frame had been bent around like a pretzel. The rear end was scotched...The wheel wouldn't move and the bearings/hub were coming apart and puking grease. I could pedal up both those steep hills I'd get up as much speed as I could and pedal the whole way...I'd stand when I needed more power then if needed I'd pull up on the handlebars to exert even more force on the pedals...When it got to that point I was usually moving barely fast enough to stay up and swaying with each pedal but I'd make it over the top.

I used to drive my bikes off road in some pretty weird places, I liked do brake drifting locking brakes into a turn so the rear would slide in a circular motion relative to the front (I once learned the hard way to never try that on gravel, then learned that old asphalt hides it's gravel), riding no handed (I got REALLY good at that), and I even learned how to hold a wheely indefinitely and pedal*.

*I decided to try that after seeing the Aisian guy from Mythbusters (his name is escaping me right now) do that on a similar bike in an episode that premered around that time.
Oh yeah, I was rough on mine too, never did powerslides or wheelies though. I would go downhill fast and hit the rear brake hard. I don't recall if that's the only one I normally used, or the only one that worked.

Scotched, never heard that one before. Got to add that one to my lexicon.

The bike I retrofitted with granny low was one of those crappy ones with large diameter wheels and skinny tires, that that did me no favors in regards to torque. After the retrofit the front derailleur, or auxiliary shifter I like to call it, was useless so I just used the 6-speed main. I didn't want to bother splitting gears, not on a bike anyway.

I also over-inflated an inner tube which exploded in the middle of the night. It wasn't a shock to me though, I could tell something was giving way a few seconds beforehand.

Last edited by Jon A.; 09-26-2018 at 12:02 AM.
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