This bike was a basket case when it fell into my lap. I'm not sure how old it is, but based on the rear dropouts, and the 1" pitch chain, if I had to guess it's probably a D97XE from 1940-ish.

The original rims were rusty and bent beyond repair. The chrome on the truss rods, crank, sprocket, hubs, handlebars and stem was in very bad shape. The fenders, seat and tank were missing. The rusty frame had been painted with house paint.

Rather than shell out tons of cash to rechrome all the bright bits, and try and track down all the missing pieces, I decided to have some fun with it. The chromed bits were sanded, and painted them satin black. The stem bolt for the orginal stem broke, so it was replaced with an old Schwinn stem I had lying around. I kept the original hubs, but laced them to some new black anodized alloy rims with stainless steel spokes. I actually had a new replacement 1" inch pitch chain that I bought 20 years ago for another project back when they were still being made. Picked up some new balloon tires, a Brooks B135 saddle, a set of aftermarket black crusier handlebars, a set of aftermarket replacement Bow pedals, and installed a heavy duty seatpost off an old XR-7 exerciser (the Wald posts bend if you raise them too high). For paint I went with rattle can Forest Green.

The brakes leave a lot to be desired. I should probably overhaul the hub again, and make sure the brake disks in the New Departure hub aren't glazed. Although the brakes aren't the best, with the alloy rims, I can pump up the tires to 80 psi, and the bike isn't too bad to peddle around.