This is a whole new kind of video for me. It's inspired by Roadkill, a show by Motor Trend that I love watching. Finnegan and Frieburger are the bests hosts you can imagine and their love of old and beaten up machines is what really fascinates me. They take cars that most people wouldn't bother to fix and make them run for as little as possible. I wanted to do the same thing with bikes because I love old, used, or otherwise "cheap" bikes. See my video about "cheap" bikes if you can stand another 10+ minute rant from me. So like Roadkill, I don't intend for this video to be a how-to or an instructional video. I intend this to be entertaining and inspirational. If anyone wants to go build a bike just for fun after watching this, I've done what I wanted. If any of the tips I throw in or the products I recommend are helpful, that's icing on the cake. This is also kind of a review of Subrosa's complete bikes, Haro's aftermarket parts, and some cleaners and lubes I like. Spoiler alert, I think they're all pretty damn good.
I buy a lot of used bikes to fix and sell, usually between $100 and $300. I usually sell them for a little more than I spend on them but all I care about is breaking even so I can buy another project bike. When Jonathan brought me a project bike as my Xmas present, I was stoked. When I saw it was a Subrosa, I was even more stoked. The Salvador isn't super high end and it's a little older but it's in great shape and it only took a handful of used parts to get it running, albeit with some effort. I threw in some extra used parts that I had sitting around and the end result is a wicked complete BMX that looks unreal and cost me absolutely nothing. I don't usually keep project bikes very long but this one may be around for a long time.
I also have a similarly themed but slightly more broad video up now. It's an adaptation of one of my previous posts on this blog, scroll down a couple of posts to watch it and read the original.
