Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The $20 Bike Gets Coroplast Fenders and Baskets


A few folks expressed concern that my $20 dollar bike wasn't "Kented up" enough. I want to keep this project on a very low budget, and so far the main cost has been a couple of bucks worth of zip-ties. I scrounged the baskets and the coroplast campaign signs are free once the elections have passed. Adding the Princeton Tec EOS pretty much doubled the value of the bike but it's such a damn nice little light and I do a lot of night riding.


The coroplast strip under the basket doesn't keep the basket up, it keeps the front fender down! The front basket is great for holding snacks and a camera.


Please don't send in any "I can believe you are riding without a helmet!" comments. I took the wild risk of riding without my magical foam hat for this photo shoot but kids, don't try this at home!


The rear basket is extremely handy. For rainy weather, I'll wrap stuff up in a plastic bag to keep it dry back there.

I don't think I'll put a computer or Power Grips on this bike but it still seems zippy enough. Stay tuned for some ride reports.

Kent

6 comments:

gwadzilla said...

sweet ride!

love the pictures

and the headlamp!
a smart touch

phil varner said...

What's that green stuff on the bike where the stickers are supposed to go?

Tai-po said...

SWEET! That thing has got some serious street cred! btw...I always get my CHOROplast (Kent) mixed up with CHROMOplast (SKS).

Jill Homer said...

Great race report. That radonneur lifestyle sounds like a lot of fun, and I bet you meet a lot of great people doing it. I'd love to get into it, but I live in a place where there's not even 300K of roads total. Oh well. Maybe someday.

nollij said...

Dude, are you smiling or grimacing in the last photo? You look like you're in pain...

Kent Peterson said...

My neutral expression always looks like something of a scowl. And phil, I'll be working on stickering the bike up. My son commented that the bike "doesn't have all those damn hippie stickers on it" so I'll have to fix that ASAP.