Just got the latest rider done.
It rides very big, like an old dirtbike. Gives a great oldschool vintage feel when rolling.

I kept a bit of survivor flavor by doing no cleanup on the frame or forks, left the rust and road grime from who knows how many years ago.

Had a ton of fun learning some Rampar history as I worked on this project.
Learned a bunch about stripping faded ano and using metalcast paint.

And now that it's all done, I realized it looks more like something an old friend of mine would ride rather than me. (can't seem to replace the love I have for the old Goose rider)
so it will be given away to an old friend in about an hour....so much for my ability to collect.

An oddity I noticed: although this bike feels spacious, it is technically a smaller frame than a midschool Elf Expert I have. Funny how frames have been evolving for many years now, yet the basic style remains the same.

cheers!

very nice love those old Raleigh's

Very Beautiful Bike Man.

This worked out well, I showed up at my buddies house with it and he exclaims, Hey that's a good lookin' bike!. I said, you better think so cause it's yours.

PS-thanks everyone who chipped in all the Raleigh info awhile back. and thanks mostly to Team Rob for the hook-up on the frameset. You are Dah Man!

Mark, sweet bike...whats the story? you gave it to him? it was his?,,claude

Real Nice JOB!!! I had an R 10 loop tail very similar to yours. It as well was great rider with a large feel about it. My first true BMX bike!!!
JONES

WOW - that is truly amazing! That frame is high end 531 (they did not make that long, mostly high end road bikes from France) and I cannot even see the rust and grime.

See, everytime I see one done, I am jealous. Great work!!!!

Please do not credit me too much. Greg St. Gelais was the man that really hooked you up. He is the Rampar connection and a really great guy.

Tru Nuff Rob.

Nah, Claude it wasn't his. well the hubs and spokes were once his a few trades ago.
We are just riding buddies from being kids and we still live a few blocks from each other..... the only 2 old fools still riding kids bikes around these parts. Kinda communal about the bike stuff.

Now if he wanted my Standard cruiser or team goose, I'd faulter.....

that is cool!....no one my age to ride with in the hood...all my "riding buddies" from bitd are far away....me and jr and the neighborhood kids go cruisin sometimes, but im the oldest, ALWAYS, LOL!! its cool though...every now and then during summer months, when jr n I go riding in the neighborhood after about 30 minutes or so, man we have a mob with us!!!...one time i remember we must've had 20 kids, it was strong...ages 6-12, +1 big kid!...its a blast, looking forward to this summer doing the same on sundays...plus now we have a bmx track 2 miles from my house so "local bmx'n" is popping up lately...kids on bikes everywhere i see....im gonna do some research where all the kids are trail n dirt jumping locally and go see if i can get half the air i used too, LOL...gotta get in a lil better shape first, i'll use the streets to do that....cant believe im gonna be riding a cook bros to do it on!!! gonna be a blast, even if im the oldest!!, claude

Wow that turned out beautiful. Nice work.

I agree. I've restored 3 bikes and all three have all the same parts that I remember from the old days, and yet none of them seem to have the same "feel". Weird. I still like having them, I wouldn't give them up for anything, but the magic of the old days is elusive. I still get the old school great feeling when looking at some of the pictures people post, but when it is in the same room it just isn' t quite there. Anyone else feel like that?

good post Claude it brings up a really neat point.

there is always talk on this site about the glory days of BMX and not ever being able to recreate the magic, yet what you just described is exactly the series of events and environment that instilled such a deep seated joy when we were 10 yr olds completely embracing the fun in life.

the kids in your posse will perceive this moment here and now with the exact same love we had back then. so the spirit of BMX is definitely still thriving, only our role switched from experiencer to experiencee. (No I didn't vote for Bush, but I like making up words all the same)

Mark, ya know, your right...its their turn....and at the same time, we get to sort of re-live it!

PS-Here's a recap of R11 info for anyone that missed the thread awhile back: