Here's what I'm doing this holiday weekend:

The Batavus Course Project


This is not a recumbent, but we have so many roll-your-own-ride bike mechanic geeks in the forum I thought y'all might be interested.








The bike was a gift from my brother-in-law about 15 years ago. The original drivetrain and brakes were trashed, but a buddy of mine gave me a complete Shimano 105 drivetrain and brake set a few years ago; he also gave me the wheels from the same bike the 105's were on. Since the 105's are late 80's vintage and the bike itself is probably older than 1983 (considering it is made of Reynolds 501 steel), the wheels, frame, brakes and drivetrain are probably all of the same period.

The only out-of-time things are the seat and the pedals. The original seat cracked down the middle, so when I bought a new seat for my Giant Yukon MTB I swapped the old seat onto the Batavus. The black-with-blue-accents color scheme of the Giant seat kinda goes well with the white-with-blue-accents and black bar tape of the Batavus, don't you think? The platform pedals are from my EZ Sport, the original pedals are these horrible toe-clip things which I cannot get used to.

I cannot find a frame number on this bike, and the frame number records from Batavus are awful anyway so the best dating comment I can make is "Mid to late 80s vintage."

Except for two items in this weekend's project, the bike is perfectly ridable:
1. It is missing the bottom rivet on the Batavus logo on the head. (You can see that in the closeup; I want to get that replaced before I ride it around and risk losing that nifty name plate.)
2. The front wheel is woefully out of true, I'm going to try my hand --- once again --- at truing it myself this weekend.

Pretty bike

[Sarcasm]What a funny looking bike. How would you ride such a thing. Looks like it would be painful.[/Sarcasm]

Looks like the badge is held on with pop rivets, if you don't have a pop rivet gun someone in the neighborhood should.

As for wheel truing, first you need some chicken bones, if it's really bad you might have to sacrifice a virgin. Then tighten the spokes on the side you want to pull towards and loosen the spokes on the other side. Sounds simple enough. My LBS only charges $10 to true a wheel, money well spent in my opinion.

Very pretty - bike porn takes all comers!

Although, in this forum, I don't think *I* could say "perfectly rideable diamond bike" with a straight face.

If it were a little less pretty, (and even as it is *I* can help but think) it a perfect donor/front end for a Mach 2. A head badge I'd love to add to the collection!

ADC
The right bike is the one you will ride!

BluesCat,

Wow, gorgeous! Add some Nitto Moustache bars, and an Antique brown Brooks with a Gilles Berthound Saddle bag and you have a wonderful "go to Starbucks" bike.

Right now I'm trying to find a decent older Raleigh or similar 3 speed to restore. I'm looking to add http://www.3speedtour.com/ to my itinerary one of these days.

Good luck with the project. Please post some pic's when you're finished.

Walt

That bike would be set up as a fixed gear at my house!

I'll never understand why they thought the brake cable housing had to be routed along the topside of the top tube in those days. Of course, on that bike, the housing was probably white, originally.

Nice bike... Looks like somebody tried their hand at pinstriping, once upon a time.

Mark

rydabyk:

I had never heard of Nitto Mustache handlebars until your post. Now that I've seen them, I'm thinking I gotta have 'em. Thinking hard about a Brooks saddle, too.

Yeah, the original color of the Batavus is kind of a pearl white. I'm going to touch up the current paint, but then contact Batavus about the possibility of replacement decals. If they're available, I may think repaint. I'm pretty good at pinstriping, too (it's the ink-on-linen draftsman I was in an earlier life).