Last year I was forced to get a new bicycle as my adored old one of 20 yrs was stolen, which made me very sad. I liked it very much though it was nothing special and was a cheap bike to start with. It was a girls coaster bike (no gears, no hand brakes) with regular handle bars and a rusty carrier but I loved it anyway.
After it was stolen I began shopping for a replacement and it was difficult to find a regular girls coaster bike that wasn’t all, well, retro styled, sigh.
Finally I found one I could live with and purchased it, but in the year since then I realize there are a couple of things that I’d like to change. Providing it doesn’t cost much and is easy to do.
For one thing it’s got white wall tires. I know, how foolish is that? I don’t like it one little bit and would really prefer the tires were regular black ones. But I can’t bring myself to wastefully replace perfectly good tires just because I don’t really care for how they look. (They make my bike look kind of like a Barbie Bike to me!) Yesterday it occurred to me that I might just paint over the white in black.
I mean the white is only paint anyway. And the white paint they put on will act as primer to the black I’d prefer wouldn’t it? What do you think? Any paint suggestions for me?
The other thing is the handle bars. I hate those straight line handle bars, but the best I could find, on this bike were only slightly bent in toward the rider. Whereas my old bike they were actually parallel to the wheels, which is what I really like. Again I can’t justify replacing a perfectly good set of handlebars because of this. (It’s very annoying if I have to go into any tight spot like down a driveway between a car and the house!) So I was wondering if it’s possible to just have them bent into a better angle for me?
I’m not sure what they’re made of, it wasn’t an expensive bike, so probably just standard stuff. If they can be bent to a shape I like, where would I go to get it done?
A garage? A bodyshop?
Neither of these things will keep me from riding and enjoying my new bike, but I’m sure I’d be warming up to it a little faster if I could fix these two issues. And maybe I’d stop missing my old bike so much.
Paint will probably not work well on the tires. Tires tend to be dirty and oily, and they flex. There are tire dyes, like this for example, that would probably work better.
As for the bars, if it is a very slight bend you want to change you might be able to do it, but if they are chrome, the plating will probably crack. I would recommend just finding new bars.
I agree with RedSwinglineOne about the bars; they’re probably mild steel with a stainless plating, which won’t hold up to well with bending. If you go to a local bike shop, they’re usually pretty good about trading old parts in return for a discount on new ones. Or check out Craigslist.
As for the tires, there’s probably not a paint that’ll really work, either, but have you considered plain ol’ Magic Marker? It might look a little tacky, but, hey, that’s part of the charm, right?
Get yourself to a thrift store (Goodwill, Salvation Army, Oxfam, whatever they have there in the Great White North)*. You should be able to find, cheap, any number of bikes that are not rideable, and are really only useful for spare parts. That’s probably the most economical way of getting the handlebars.
Why don’t you just go to a local bike shop. They should have all that you want or need to fix your bike. They might even do the work for a little price.
Dunno about the tires, but please replace the bars. Bending your existing bars is highly likely to weaken them, with a good possibility of very nasty results. I’d give you a set if you weren’t several thousand miles away.
A set of brand-new, low-end bars runs about $15-$20 here. (Low-end means they’re not ultra-light for racing, nothing to worry you.) You may be able to swap your current bars for a small discount.
Thrift stores, pawn shops, garage sales - get a cheap bike with bars you like and swap them out. Then sell or give away the other bike. Bonus, you could swap tires while you’re at it.
We pick up bikes out of the trash during the city’s bi-annual cleanup days. Terrific source of cheap spare parts for our various junkers.
ebay is great for second hand bike stuff, full of handlebars and tires. You just need to make sure that you know exactly what you want - there are so many sizes and dimensions in bike parts.
You’d need to know the width of your wheels in order to buy some tires, and the measurements / type of stem you have in order to buy some new handlebars.
I’d probably hang in there with the tyres you’ve got. The handlebars are worth looking into though, they can totally change your ride position and posture.