After over a decade away from riding due to health reasons I've been sat on my backside slowly wasting away and in Oct last year something finally snapped, "sod this I need to ride" was the general thought, so I started to look out for a cheap project bike I could work on over the winter. I'm on a pretty limited budget due to being on disability and had £150 to get started, but this would also include some basic tools etc.
After a week of searching and a lot of non replies from people whose hobbies appear to be listing stuff on marketplace that they don't want to sell, I found a Carrera in a sorry state of repair for £85. Traditionally I'd avoid the Halfords bikes and as I'm an old fart I initially wanted an older decent brand 26" wheel bike, but this bike looked like it wasn't that old, so I went to have a look and a couple of hours later found myself doing my first ride in over a decade to the station on a bike with no working brakes or gears, very crusty wheel and headset bearings and seized forks...which was interesting!
Here's what I got.
It's a 2023 Carrera Sulcata, 27.5 wheels, 16" frame (which on a 26" wheel bike would be a little too small for me, but for some reason isn't on this), a Deore 10speed drivetrain and Tektro hydraulic brakes, the rear brake was completely done with no pads, gunked pistons and no bleed screw, so that was the first thing to go in the old parts box along with that terrifying Temu looking adjustable headstem!
I stripped the bike down to the frame so I could clean everything and start repairing or replacing everything that needed it, I put new bearings in the wheels and dismantled/refurbished the heaviest forks known to mankind. I absolutely will be replacing both wheels and the forks eventually, they're now functional but just garbage.
When I first picked the bike up, the one thing I really wasn't a fan of was the colour, it was a very cheap looking metallic matt powdercoat with orange lettering, if it just had a few scratches I would've put up with it as it was, but it looked like it had been leant against a wall for at least a year, so one side was scratched to hell and the other side for some reason was covered in what turned out to be tar splatters and they're not coming out of powdercoat. So I decided to strip the whole frame and repaint it, fortunately I have some basic airbrush gear and paints that I use for canvas and model painting and I have a small area indoors set aside for using that setup, unfortunately it's not suitable for primers and topcoats, so I had to do those on my balcony, which isn't ideal but I got pretty lucky with it this time. I got the primer done on the last warm-ish weekend in Oct, did the main colour work of pearlised silver into pearlised black along with mirror polishing the rear brake mount and dropouts during the winter, and did the clearcoat this May during the mini warm spell. I purposely kept it with no decals as this is my general runabout bike and needs to be locked up outside occasionally so wanted to keep it a little low key.
While waiting for Spring to do the clear and start rebuilding the bike, I bought a few new bits, headset bearings, a stem, some 50mm riser bars, a Shimano MT200 rear brake, new pads for the front brake, a cheap IXF 1x crank and got rid of the old 2x setup, some pedals and a pair of Continental Double Fighter 2.0 tyres.
So far I'm into this by about £250, including paint, I'm not counting tools etc as I'm having to rebuild my toolset from scratch and they'll be more of a longterm thing separate from this build.
Here is how it looks now!
I'm quite pleased with it and after a few fitting rides, feels really nice to ride even though it is still quite heavy. The wheels and forks definitely need to go and I'm about to grab an MT200 for the front, it also does now have a rear rack installed for the trailer I'm building (that'll be another thread) but I don't think I'll be using this bike for that long term as it's not really suitable for that.
Next up on the project list, a 2016 Boardman Team FS frame and rear shock I bought for £50 because the shock was seized, except it wasn't and it was only the pivot bearings!
After a week of searching and a lot of non replies from people whose hobbies appear to be listing stuff on marketplace that they don't want to sell, I found a Carrera in a sorry state of repair for £85. Traditionally I'd avoid the Halfords bikes and as I'm an old fart I initially wanted an older decent brand 26" wheel bike, but this bike looked like it wasn't that old, so I went to have a look and a couple of hours later found myself doing my first ride in over a decade to the station on a bike with no working brakes or gears, very crusty wheel and headset bearings and seized forks...which was interesting!
Here's what I got.
It's a 2023 Carrera Sulcata, 27.5 wheels, 16" frame (which on a 26" wheel bike would be a little too small for me, but for some reason isn't on this), a Deore 10speed drivetrain and Tektro hydraulic brakes, the rear brake was completely done with no pads, gunked pistons and no bleed screw, so that was the first thing to go in the old parts box along with that terrifying Temu looking adjustable headstem!
I stripped the bike down to the frame so I could clean everything and start repairing or replacing everything that needed it, I put new bearings in the wheels and dismantled/refurbished the heaviest forks known to mankind. I absolutely will be replacing both wheels and the forks eventually, they're now functional but just garbage.
When I first picked the bike up, the one thing I really wasn't a fan of was the colour, it was a very cheap looking metallic matt powdercoat with orange lettering, if it just had a few scratches I would've put up with it as it was, but it looked like it had been leant against a wall for at least a year, so one side was scratched to hell and the other side for some reason was covered in what turned out to be tar splatters and they're not coming out of powdercoat. So I decided to strip the whole frame and repaint it, fortunately I have some basic airbrush gear and paints that I use for canvas and model painting and I have a small area indoors set aside for using that setup, unfortunately it's not suitable for primers and topcoats, so I had to do those on my balcony, which isn't ideal but I got pretty lucky with it this time. I got the primer done on the last warm-ish weekend in Oct, did the main colour work of pearlised silver into pearlised black along with mirror polishing the rear brake mount and dropouts during the winter, and did the clearcoat this May during the mini warm spell. I purposely kept it with no decals as this is my general runabout bike and needs to be locked up outside occasionally so wanted to keep it a little low key.
While waiting for Spring to do the clear and start rebuilding the bike, I bought a few new bits, headset bearings, a stem, some 50mm riser bars, a Shimano MT200 rear brake, new pads for the front brake, a cheap IXF 1x crank and got rid of the old 2x setup, some pedals and a pair of Continental Double Fighter 2.0 tyres.
So far I'm into this by about £250, including paint, I'm not counting tools etc as I'm having to rebuild my toolset from scratch and they'll be more of a longterm thing separate from this build.
Here is how it looks now!
I'm quite pleased with it and after a few fitting rides, feels really nice to ride even though it is still quite heavy. The wheels and forks definitely need to go and I'm about to grab an MT200 for the front, it also does now have a rear rack installed for the trailer I'm building (that'll be another thread) but I don't think I'll be using this bike for that long term as it's not really suitable for that.
Next up on the project list, a 2016 Boardman Team FS frame and rear shock I bought for £50 because the shock was seized, except it wasn't and it was only the pivot bearings!
