11/27/11
As you probably already know, winter at the bike shop is...slow. Though we have plenty to do to keep ourselves busy when the snow flies, we're taking on this project here:
This is a vintage cruiser from the '70's, made by Snapper. It has a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed internally geared hub with a twist shifter. The bell-crank assembly is cracked, and the cable housing is split, the barrel adjuster at the shifter is broken, and the cable is rusted solid. From what the original owner has told me, the bike hasn't been ridden in over 20 years, and it has been sitting in a shed, rusting and collecting dust...and leaves, apparently.
What attracted me to this project was the name "Snapper." My Dad and I are geeks for small engines and yard machinery, so when we saw it, we couldn't say no. While I was familiar with the lawnmowers, tillers, and mulchers that Snapper manufactured, I had never heard of a bicycle made by them. This was a fairly common thing in this time period - to have manufacturers of other products putting their name on bicycles. Some examples include Triumph, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Indian, Harley-Davidson, Singer, Mercury, Firestone, Bridgestone, BF Goodrich, Crescent, Eagle, Cadillac, and AMF. Perhaps the most famous crossover was the UK auto-maker Peugeot. Peugeot's appear to have become the gold-standard for modern "city-bikes." Just last night, in Boston, I saw two of them as I was walking from Tufts Medical Center to the Wilbur Theatre - about half a mile.
While we could restore a Peugeot and make a solid, high quality city ride with tons of street cred, the Snapper has the potential to be all of these things and be a very unique retro cruiser with personality.
While we could restore a Peugeot and make a solid, high quality city ride with tons of street cred, the Snapper has the potential to be all of these things and be a very unique retro cruiser with personality.
Another thing that drew me to this bike was the bicycle license for the town of Londonderry, NH. The last registration sticker on this bike was for the year of 1979, which is right around the time that bike licenses stopped being a requirement. Call me overly sentimental if you want, but I think there's something cool about bike licenses.
This brings up a special dilemma for me. The frame's paint job is scratched, scuffed, and has a few rust spots. I was thinking about media-blasting the frame and having it powder-coated. In so doing, the license would be destroyed. I'm leaning towards keeping the frame as-is, keeping its battle-scars as a sort of reminder of its history. That being said, The frame would look amazing powder-coated blue with newly chromed accents. Decisions, decisions...
What are your thoughts?
Weigh in! Let us know what you think. What would you do? Should we showcase the bike's history, or make it look brand-new?
Check back often - we'll be updating this page throughout the process. Be a part of it!
12/7/11
The Snapper bike continues to be a mystery...wrapped inside an enigma...and covered with rust...
Our research did turn out one piece of information - the "Snapper" moniker appears to have nothing to do with the manufacturer of yard machines with the same name. The yard machine company usually has their name in red letters, while the bike's lettering is green...bright, neon, radioactive, acid green.
We turned our attention to the red diamond with the letters "CI" next to the name. As it turns out, the bike is a product of C. Itoh, a Japanese manufacturer of bikes that can be linked to Kabuki and later, Bridgestone. Generally, the bikes that were coming out of Japan were very good quality, though the C. Itoh branch was generally on the lower-end of the spectrum, if Sheldon Brown is to be believed (and he usually is).
So we found these pictures, which helped us fill in the blanks on what was written on the seat tube decal under the "Snapper" logo. Here, we tried to recreate what the decal looked like.
In pencil...
In ink...
Finally, with the lettering.
Now, to solicit advice from you...
Should we re-create the bike license if we powdercoat the frame? At this point, it's not counterfeiting, as duplicating a bike license would be like duplicating the old tokens for New Hampshire's tollbooths.
Still, I pose it to you...
