The Mominator

Dubbed as such by popular opinion within City Bikes.

What I had was a situation on my hands whereby dear old Mum had talked to cycling friends and eventually they asked about her bike. Her bike was a mid-'80s vintage Fuji mountain bike, super light for that time as I remember, but now heavy as a tank. It was faded and dirty black with faded pink cables and rusty handlebars and cracking grips. That being said, I had kept it well lubed, inflated, and adjusted, and her friends couldn't seem to understand that her son worked in a bicycle shop and had her riding this oldfangled monstrosity no matter how good I insisted it was. So I was looking somewhat less than the caring son.

This was in the summer, and as the winter holiday approached, I called a debt and brought up the idea of restoring this bike beyond its past glory. Shawn at City Bikes was able to help, although he too offered up the prospect of buying her a new bike. This particular piece of chromoly had too much sentimental value to go on the scrapheap, so finally we agreed to restore it.

It had to be yellow, because it was Mum's favourite colour, and she had a 1968 Pontiac Catalina convertable that was yellow, so the bicycle got sent off to be repainted. Mr. Smith recommended white accents, and so there was the colour scheme. I gave him a dollar limit and said "do what you can" to make it stylish and lighter, and a few weeks later I got the call that it was ready. This bike is now the pride of that particular house in the retirement community, sporting Phil Wood hubs, lightweight hand built wheels, new paint, grips, bar, cables, tyres, saddle, and probably alot more that I don't know about.

Judge for yourself - it was a hit with everyone involved and you may even consider doing something like this for an old bike you know of that could use the attention.