looking for witnesses from bike/SUv accident at Chicago and Halsted

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Permalink Reply by Leah Jone on June 30, 2011 at 2:23pm

It was a mid-60s Varsity, but the frame is bent, so I don't think it can be fixed. I replaced it with a Schwinn Sierra from Bobby's Bike Hike for a winter bike and then a Surly Long Haul Trucker this spring.

 

I'm going to put the fork into a shadowbox and throw it on the wall for safe keeping.

 

James Baum said:

I totally missed this the first time around.  That's what I get for being out of the country for a month.

 

Like Julie, I freaked out a little when I read this at first.   I"m glad you have healed up.  I shattered my Tib/fib from just below my knee all the way down to my ankle in '99 and it was pretty horrific as far as recovery was concerned.  I feel for anyone who suffers a lower leg injury in a motor-vehicle collision. Take care of that injury.  Hopefully you had good first-class PT/OT and were able to take advantage of the full program through the insurance payout.  I had to skimp :(

 

Sorry to hear about your bike.  Was it a classic Varsity or one of the modern ones?  If classic/vintage I'm sure someone over at bikeforums.net C&V, or even working bikes, could hook you up with a decent frameset in your size to put those parts on for low dollars.   

 

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on June 30, 2011 at 2:36pm

Steel can be bent back if it isn't that far out.  I'm willing to take on a project like that where many Brick & Mortar bike shops are not quite so willing due to the liability.    As long as none of the tubes are kinked or collapsed there is hope.  And forks are cheap although they can be straightened too if the bend is not in the steer tube.

 

But even so, older Varsity frames are not that rare or expensive.   They get crushed for scrap at an astounding rate even though they are mostly in perfectly good condition unfortunately.  

 

If you should ever want to rebuild that Varsity on a different fame you find using the components you stripped off the old one keep me in mind.  I do that sort of stuff.   When stripping make sure to get all the bottom bracket parts and the headset parts.  Missing some of those pieces makes a rebuild on a new frame a little more difficult and sometimes costly.  Some of those older Schwinns had weird BB shell widths and sourcing the correct BB width is harder to get the chainline correct.   

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