The backstory to the crappiest bike I've ever bought

Right. The 2006 Raleigh Meathead backstory.

Late one night a few weeks ago, I found myself on a Japanese blog about custom bikes. No idea how I got there, but I was on it for HOURS. It's called No Future Tokyo and it is deeeeeeeelightful. It seems to centre around a skate shop, and a group of people who look like they're having so much bloody fun.
A lot of the posts boil down to pictures of bikes rigged up with banana seats. It's much more than that, but that's the general jist of most of the bikes pictured. 

Then I saw this post, and my mind flipped. My mind still flips. It's flipping right now. Just digging that link out of my bookmarks made me pause for a good minute. The shape of it is fan-bloody-tastic.

And thus, I ended up on eBay, looking for a Mama-Chari bike to mess with. 

Turns out they're just normal granny bikes (and dead hard to get hold of outside of Japan, not that you'd really want one - they're just normal granny bikes). The reason I love this bike is the angle of the headset and seat tube, and how low it all is because it's a ladies frame (aside from the stonking great handlebars and banana seat hanging over the back wheel, obviously).

And thus, I ended up on eBay, looking for ladies bikes to mess with. 

Somehow, I tripped up over the listing for the Raleigh Meathead I now own. It had everything I wanted in angles, and 'lowness', and the frame was chunky as balls.  That whole square tubing thing got me going a little bit. 

So, after a week of watching it, I finally won it for the outrageous sum of £6 (this is where I need to do a "shout out" to my mate Paddy, who slipped in a last minute bid for me as I was in a welding class). Granted, it cost me about 3 times that in public transport costs to go pick it up, but 600 pence is nothing to scoff at. 

26" wheel, 3 x 7sp "Jump Bike", with a disc brake on the front and a v-brake on the rear. Suspension forks and a threadless headset (which is fancy for a boy with two 20th century bikes).

Picked it up yesterday. As the seller said, the seatpost was stuck (how stuck, I'll get round to later).
Both wheels are buckled (or out of true by a mile), and the front was flat when I went to pick it up. The front cable disc-brake doesn't seem to work. The forks are crap. The pedals are plastic and crap. The chainring's so small compared to what I'm used to (why have a triple chainring if they're all dinky?!).

But it doesn't matter, it's all about the frame. The chunky-ass frame. So chunky I couldn't help but slap the flat box sides on the train home.

Maybe keep the forks and disc brake (providing I can fix them), but I've got high hopes for this bike. An internal gear hub with a great big oversized shifter, sweeping handlebars, and a banana seat are definites. We'll see how it goes.

Hello Hello

So in the past year, I realised I really, really enjoy messing about with bikes. It's something to do with the mechanical stuff, mixed in with the fact that everything's not hidden away; it's just there, ready to be messed with. Messin' and making something my own. I bloody love it.

I currently own 3 bikes: A '92 Marin Palisades Trail mountain bike; a '76 (or '77?) Viscount Indy 500 road bike; and an '06 Raleigh Meat Head (hunk of crap).
The Marin is my work bike and the reason I've become addicted to doing up bikes and messing about, whereas the road bike is for longer distances, and will always remain a traditional and classy machine. They're both works in progress but the final ideas are there now, and although I plan on keeping both for years, I know what they'll look like.

That's where the Raleigh's come in, and why this blog's getting started. I want to start doing up bikes and selling them, and this blog's my way of documenting the blimmin' anguish story of each bike before it goes back on eBay to fund the next project. A vicious circle covered in dirt and grime and grease and paint and lube, that you get to watch fall apart before your very monitor. 

Enjoy.