Restoring My Bike

What does everyone that has a bike & fulltimes do with their bikes?

Do you cover them? That's what I do.

Do you have a place to store it? I wish I did.

Do you have a real bike cover?  I use a tarp.

But when I travel, I have a bike carrier that hangs off my ladder. It can be a challenge to use as I have to lift the bike & carefully place it over the carrier. That requires upper body strength. I can still do it, but it becomes more difficult each time.

I use a cargo carrier, but it has other items on it, so placing the bike on it isn't really possible. I could take the risk of looking like the Beverly Hillbillies truck/car thing. Jalopy. Yes, jalopy fits.  I'm sure most people would really want to be away from traveling behind me then! They already don't want my big box blocking their views at it is....but then, it would give them something to look at, no?

Sooo because I live in a humid climate, my poor bike suffers the wrath of the rusties!

Bad rusties - BAD!

I'm one to restore things if possible. Plus a new bike isn't in the budget right now. What is a budget? Isn't that some small bird one keeps in a cage? I dunno, I don't have either right now ;-)

So I got this stuff to remove the rust-o-la-la-la-la

Click on images for larger images - I've made the label big enough to read if you care to click on it.

This is part of the rust. I don't know most bike parts, so bear with me. No, don't be a bear about it, just bare with me. Bear/bare? Oh have a beer, then it won't matter.

 This part, I treated twice, but this was with the first application & I shot it before I let it set. It is not cleaning up the chrome part well though. But I will also sand that down & repaint. I bought some silver spray paint for this job.

 This is some kind of chain guard thing. It was really rusted. The stuff helped & I will also spray paint it as well.

It did a great job on this metal bolt! I applied the stuff to all the screws & bolts. Most of them were rusting. They all look good now.

My bike chain & gears were covered in rust. I didn't think to take a before pic, but it really cleaned them up well too!

My poor weathered bike. I've put many, many miles on this bike. Before my injury, I used to ride it around 13-16 miles a day! I'd love to be able to do that again. I also bought new brake pads & a new tube. Because I changed out the old tube, but uh...should I be admitting this? Oh well, yes, I might as well. I forgot to inspect the tire for anything that would pierce the tube. So yep, the new tube deflated too! And it was one of those slime tubes that don't go flat! Ha! Don't believe them. It's as flat as an old vinyl record. Pancakes are not as flat...

I have therapy today, so won't be able to finish up on the bike. I'll take shots at it ...or um...of it once done. Wish me luck!

Then I might use this stuff on the RV too! I think maybe some of the lug nuts could use a little dose of this stuff.

~As always, be kind to your pets, clean up after them on your travels & respect your neighbor~