Here are some pictures of the 1969 Aristocrat travel trailer and 1979 Ford F250. Just some retro fall camping in Montana. Sometimes I wish things weren't changing all of the time. I don't want to sound "old" but some things were better back when. Now it seems if you want a travel trailer it has to be huge. WTH? (what the heck?) I pulled into Cascaed Campground along the Clark Fork River in western Montana late Saturday night and had a hard enough time backing the little Aristocrat travel trailer into this spot in the dark. (and I can really back up a trailer,..)
Anyway I wish they'd stop changing blogger too. This is my first post since they changed the editor so we will see. I have no idea what this post is going to look like.
There is of course a lot of forest fire smoke in the air throughout the west. It made for some very warm lighting. It's also been sort of hard to put up with all of this smoke as i have a very hard time breathing in it. None the less I had a nice time camping. Played guitar a little and got to read a little too.
Here's a picture of my vintage Schwinn Varsity. I found this bike at the dump in Montana a few years ago and had to make a dumpster dive to get it. It's an early Varsity as it has the drop tube shifters, and had a 1963 if I remember Bozeman bike license on it, which was actually like a small metal license plate. I've modified it so I could ride it but I did keep all of the original parts.
Like any bike, wheels and tires make all of the difference. These wheels which were off of a newer Schwinn Continental and are like new, and the tires are new 27 inch Continentals. That makes this old dumpster find ride like new. It's going to be a great town bike, and the cockpit is now comfortable enough for me to go on distance rides with. Other changes I made were; saddle, bars stem and brake levers and pads, pedals, clips, chain and cables. Lastly I found some NOS Varsity fenders on Craigslist. It sounds like a lot but I had most of the parts I needed on hand. Oh,. and I put some white Benotto cello tape on the bars. It's hard to find cello tape nowdays. Never thought I'd see that day...
Varsities aren't that bad. They got a bad reputation when lighter more high tech bikes came to the states in the bicycle boom of the 70s but I think they make great casual retro rides. I've always wanted one and after I get the rack on it, I'll be riding this bike to and from work the rest of this year. It really has a nice feel, and was far too nice to just throw away. It just needed some attention..
And now I have two red bikes. My Gitane Tour de France is below.
Here's a picture of Big Arm Bay on Flathead Lake from out on the kayak this morning. There was a lot of forest fire smoke in the air, but it's always nice out on Flathead in the mornings. You can see Melita Island just above that bird on the horizon.
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Here's a picture of my vintage Schwinn Varsity. I found this bike at the dump in Montana a few years ago and had to make a dumpster dive to get it. It's an early Varsity as it has the drop tube shifters, and had a 1963 if I remember Bozeman bike license on it, which was actually like a small metal license plate. I've modified it so I could ride it but I did keep all of the original parts.
Here's a picture of Big Arm Bay on Flathead Lake from out on the kayak this morning. There was a lot of forest fire smoke in the air, but it's always nice out on Flathead in the mornings. You can see Melita Island just above that bird on the horizon.