This is the 5th installment of a 4 part series (if Murphy’s Law has anything to do with it) on upgrading an old Schwinn Collegiate to a practical and pleasing daily bicycle for transportation.

Now that we have introduced the project, taken in the Big Picture, guestimated the budget, and formulated some ideas for the intended result, now we get to go shopping. So here is the grocery list:

• Wheelset
• Drivetrain with multiple gears + cassette / cog
• Tires and tubes
• Fenders
• Saddle
• Chain
• Paint and decals
• Cables + housing, and other random little bits.

Wheels + Drivetrain = Upgrade

Knowing that the wheelset and drivetrain are the two most expensive elements in this build, it really makes sense to combine the two.  In other words, if we can get a new wheelset with an integrated multi-gear drivetrain … wait for it, wait for it … then an Internal Gear Hub makes perfect sense!  And fortunately for us, Soma has already produced the perfect specimen to fit the narrow 120mm rear spacing on the Collegiate:  The Soma Iggy Wheelset.  At around $250 for both wheels, a 3-speed hub, shifter, cog, and all in a classic silver finish, we just hit the jackpot!  (Well … maybe not the jackpot, but still a reasonable price to cover the two main upgrades for this project.)

Fenders + Tough Tires = Real World Commuting

Fenders and tires go together.  The general rule o’thumb is that the fender should be at least 12mm wider than the advertised width of the tire.  Apparently, our thumbs are a little more narrow than other people, because we sometimes try to squeeze 10mm wider fenders over tires.  While this usually give us the “look” we want, sometimes the annoyance of fender rub under acceleration or the sharp sound of a rock traveling through the inside of the fender is enough for us to second-guess our decision.

For tires, we want something in the realm of 700 x 32c to 700 x 35c for a daily rider.  The idea is to provide a comfortable yet reasonably low resistance ride.  Plus, most tires in this range are considerably more flat-resistant than their skinny tire cousins.  There are lots of good options …

• Panaracer Pasela w/ Tour Guard — $25 apiece
• or the Schwalbe Marathon — $30 apiece
• or the Continental Touring Plus — $35 apeace

… just to name three.

But as luck would have it, we have a used pair of 700 x 33.3 Jack Browns (the Blue edition) just laying around.  In the spirit of a budget build-up it simply makes more sense to use these homeless tires rather than buying new ones.  While this is a little bit of “cheating” on our part, it is hard to imagine that the average cyclist wouldn’t have a saddle, tires, or even whole wheelset that could be re-purposed for a build like this.  Likewise, we could debate the “somebody had to pay for it” line of thinking, but we like to think that good judgment in keeping useful parts is “priceless”. [Or, if you are keeping score at home, just add $60 to the total.]

While Honjo fenders are the indisputable champions of aluminum fenders, Velo Orange sells their own house brand for about 40% less than the cost of a Honjo set.  Alternatively, we could use some quality SKS Chromoplastic fenders for even a little bit less, but the metal fluted fenders just feel right for this bike.  For $48 we can use the 48mm polished and fluted VO fenders for plenty of tire clearance.  But low and behold, the ones that need a little polishing are actually on sale for $35.  Score!

Saddle

For a good city bike, we should get a proper city saddle.  In other words, I don’t envision too many out of the saddle town-line sprints on the Collegiate.  Basically, a sprung leather saddle would be ideal.  But at this point we haven’t left ourselves much room for ideal Brooks saddle.  Hmmm … maybe we just won’t sit down.  I wish we could have another “low and behold” moment …

And once again, our friends at Velo Orange come to the rescue.  As it happens, their Mod 8 saddle (which is both leather and sprung) is just within our grasp at $65.  The downside is this might stretch our budget just a little bit …

Everything Else

Basically, there are a couple of worn-out elements to the bike.  We need a new chain, new brake cables and housing, and new brake pads.  It breaks down like this:

• KMC singlespeed chain: $10
• Replacement brake cables and housing: $12
• New brake pads: $14

The Total

So far, we have racked up a grand total of $386.  That is a mere $11 (or 3%) over budget.  Not too bad … but I have a feeling that we may have overlooked something important like the paint scheme … but we’ll worry about that next time when we start to see how things take shape in The Murphy’s Law Project — Mock Build-up.  Once we have all the parts on-hand, we’ll see if this creature will go together as planned (cue maniacal laughter).

A Footnote

For quick pricing reference, we took the “average” price available online for the highlighted product.  Obviously, this overlooks sales tax and/or shipping.  But hopefully your local bike shop would be your first stop.  Even if they don’t have every item on-hand, they will probably make-up for it with backroom bargains like our used Jack Brown tires.