I've been waiting a few weeks to hear from our beneficiary. They have a local bike shop that they work with to outfit disabled kids, and they thought that they could work a deal with the shop to outfit James' bike for our ride. So I took our "new" used bike into the shop recommended by our beneficiary today to see what they had to say.
The feedback was less than positive when I described what I wanted for teh bike. I thought it was all doable, but apparently not.
- Gravel tires
- Pannier Rack on the rear
- secondary brakes on the handlebars
- replace brake lever/shifter that's broken
- lights and bell, safety stuff
The bike mechanic who has been custom building therapy bikes for special needs kids just shook his head. Apparently the tires are a non-starter. Not enough frame clearance for a more rugged tread. And the frame has braze-ons for a rack at the top of the seatstays, but nothing down at the dropouts - they'd have to weld in brazeons and custom build a rack to fit the frame since the geometry is wrong for a standard rack (its a small frame with a 28" standover height). For the secondary brakes - they could be done, but we'd end up having to buy a whole new set of brake levers/shifters to replace what we've got. He could outfit it with lights and a bell though.
By the time he was done with his list, he was shaking his head and saying we'd probably come out further ahead selling this bike and just buying a new one. He walked me over to a wall rack and showed what he thought would be perfect... $1200.
But he said to hold tight. He's going to reach back to his corporate head office and see what is sitting in corners of warehouses, and whether the chain would be interested in sponsoring the ride. If that happens, I'll be as happy as a mouse in a cheese factory. At the very least he's going to look into a deal to bring the cost of a bike in line with repairing with this one. Fingers crossed.
I'd still prefer to go with a common "everyday" bike to bring home the message that this is do-able, but if its more expensive to fix up this old bike, well, I guess I'll settle for something fancy. ;)
Luckily we haven't shown James this bike, so whatever the outcome is will be just fine. Everyone cross your fingers that it's positive!!