Hello fellow BMX'ers here at the other side of the fence. This is my new build and i believe it is a 1982 C.T.S. However, i have no idea what the heck is "CTS" or where it comes from, who made it or, what do the initials stand for anyway?
With this posting i am hoping someone here can fill me in with some/any background info about the bike or the brand while i am writing about it. Surely someone from the thousands of registered members here must know atleast something? There is one other C.T.S. at bmxmuseum.com but not much info there other than "this is an oldschool CTS. it was found at a flea market for a couple bucks. it is a great rider, very smooth.." ..well, good for you man.
The frame and parts were found from Hilden, Germany for about $70. It came with a scarred Akisu fork, short 1pc cranks, destroyed pedals, completely disintegrated bottom bracket, steel sprocket, steel wheels with coaster brake, rusty no name bars, scarred stem, headset, some horrible mid 90's mountain bike seat, a short piece of some mangled steel tube acting as a "seatpost", generic and beat up anodized blue seatpost clamp and a mismatch set of comp III type tires. They were all part of the deal so i couldn't say "hey i need just the frame and fork thanks". Ultimately, the only parts i found uselful were the frame and stem.
Then the box arrived. A BIG box. And the first thing i notice is the rear drop outs sticking out of the box. hmmm... The frame was in ok condition though, no damage. Not much rust apart from the usual areas and the drop outs only had mild chewing marks and were true. One thing that got me slightly worried was when i saw the seatpost had been cracked and re-welded, right under the seatpost clamp where the top tube and seat stays meet. Ofcourse. It would have been too perfect unless something like that hadn't come up. However i was reliefed to find out the repair weld was executed well and it felt solid. The seam came out nice after polish so.. No problemo.
The Akisu forks were abused beyond help so i decided i wasn't going to bother restoring them as it would be too much work and too expensive for my current budget. They had been treated very bad and had several scars and dings allover and on top of that the threads were chewed up. I just cleaned them and threw them in my ever-expanding archive of "parts i want to keep, but don't have any actual use for" and began searching for some decent, era and style correct forks and eventually came up with a nice set of TX-1200's, beautifully re-chromed and cheap, for once.
The bottom bracket cups and cones seemed like original stock for sure. It takes years and years of abuse for a bb to get in such bad condition with pieces of bearing cages falling off and cones completely destroyed. The cranks were likely taken from some child's bike because they were very short. Same with the steel sprocket and plastic pedals.
Oh yeah.. The pedals...
The left side pedal was unlike anything i had ever seen. I mean i have seen all kinds of broken and deliberately destroyed parts but this.. this, was beyond them all. It looked like one of the previous owner had had hard time getting the left side pedal off the cranks. So what do you normally do when you have a stuck pedal? Try turning the wrench "the other way" and some lubricant? No. Instead this guy had completely hacked off the pedal cage thinking it will "slide thru" the bb once it is slim fitted. Clever thinking but not working. I solved this by simply turning the wrench "the right way" with only little force and off it came. "Lefty tightey, rightey loosey goosey" ..or was it the other way around?
Bars were some knock offs from some dept. store bike aswell, not much use for them but since i had the OA dip going i did them too for fun. The grips were just pieces of hard plastic tubes abandoned on the end of the bars. You can't really call them grips. And, there was the caliper brake axle left of the forks which came in handy and some no name mountain bike lever etc. etc. Long story short, looks like the bike had been assembled with whatever parts the previous owner could catch. It was truly a mix of all styles and eras and did no justice for the otherwise cool looking and obviously good quality chromoly frame. It is light weight so i am assuming it is chromoly.
Assembly.
I already had the mags, cranks, spider, chain ring bolts, bottom bracket, seatpost, seatpost clamp, front brake, cable and lever so there wasn't soo much stuff left to be acquired from elsewhere because like i sais, i couldn't spend too much money. I have a soft spot for those gnarly looking late 70's BMX bikes so you will see influences of those in this bike. The project was a quick one, it was completed in about a month and it went thru the usual oxalic acid dip and polishing. I have no idea what the original frame decals might have once looked like but i kinda like the frame in bare blingin' chrome. Besides, there is so much going on with all the red pads and checker details anyway.
The first ride.
I was surprised on how small the bike feels. I mean the frame seems pro size so i guess it's the combination of sloppy steering angle (guesstimate 72) and the narrower-than-what-i'm-normally-used-to Nitto bars. I refused to put on a layback post because it wouldn't have fitted with the style i had in mind for this build and like we all know, "style is everything", "fashion before function" and so forth.
Getting used to the coaster brake takes a while. That's why i assembled the front caliper to act as a lifesaver in case i don't have the time to react or my cranks aren't in the "right" position for quick braking. And with the Bendix being practically unused there is only so much slack so the the brake engages from the slightest back pedal movement including accidental, so therefore it is now a bit pain to use but i will get used to it.
The 45/16 gearing is heavier than what i normally have on my bikes but i noticed the avergae cruise speed increased because i simply can't pedal slow if i know i can go faster. The last time i had rat-trap pedals was on my Carraro years ago. I am not a big fan of them but they are the correct style so here we go again, style. However they feel surprisingly good under my feet, no complains. The steering response is sluggish as expected and the narrow bars and fat tires is not making it quicker, either. The bike as a whole feels very solid, in fact bomb proof. The fat knobby tires are slow but man i dig how they look combined with mags and that was just what i wanted!
It's funny, no matter how carefully you think you have everything adjusted there is always something coming loose during first ride. I thought i adjusted the bottom bracket properly only to find out the cranks make noise from beign so loose. Same with pedals with factory adjustments, can't trust that. Everything else held fine and i was really surprised about the O.G.K. grips and how nice they felt in the end, especially since every grip i've have ever ridden has been either A'me or ODI. Little did i know these funky pentagon shaped grips would be so comfortable.
Here's what i started with. The auction images and one taken from straight out the box ready for disassembly and good clean up:
And here's the outcome:
Parts and specifics:
- Frame: 1982 (?) C.T.S. chromoly
- Serial#: A25078 ..would that be january 1982?
- Fork: Tange TX-1200 beautifully polished and re-chromed by the previous owner in the UK. Stamped Tange "2L" for dec 1982?
- Headset: mixed, mostly Tioga i think
- Stem: HL (Hsin Lung) w/reversible California Lite stem pad (solid red or red/white checker pattern)
- Bars: chromoly Nitto V-bar w/Norco snap-on vinyl pad
- Grips: O.G.K. Motocross has stamping 77-17A
- Number plate: O.G.K. "made in japan"
- Seat: Centurion "Aero" with vinyl checker padding
- Seatpost: generic 22.2mm, knurled for seatguts
- Seatpost clamp: DK noncon
- Cranks: Sugino 175mm Cro-Mo stamped '83
- Bottom bracket: generic USABB 24T
- Pedals: "Warrior BMX" steel rat-trap by Wellgo ½" spindle
- Spider: SR Sakae BMX
- Chain: KMC 410
- Chain ring: 45T SR Sakae 341
- Chain ring bolts: unbranded aluminum
- Wheels: Troxel TrakMaster mags w/Bendix 76 coaster brake
- Tires: "Motocross Grip" knobbies by Duro 20x2.125
- Frame pad: "CK" snap-on vinyl pad
- Front brake/pads: MX1000 copy w/Weinmann Semi Automatic adjuster, generic red rubber pads
- Front cable: teflon coated cable, generic housing
- Lever: MX copy
- Tubes: 20x2.0 w/schrader valve
DW, humble thanks! 
