Now, friends get interested and start asking questions. One thing led to another and I had a first customer with special requests. She arrived on August as friend of a friend and fortunately I had an old frame from Raleigh just for her. Old school and extra small size. All the colors and add-ons are purely based on her wishes.
Everytime I see this bike on the streets of Tel-Aviv I have my heart skip a beat. BTW it all started as singlespeed but now she is fixed!
Later on, I have received a different Raliegh made in 90's in America. This one was in very bad condition, with sticky things all over with scratched tubes and seat tube full of garbage. I have decided to paint the frame by myself for the first (and the last) time to see if i'm capable of doing a decent job and whether it will save money and time. However even with 4 layers of paint it still looks amateur. Nothing compares to powder coating. The frame itself is huge more than 60cm. It's very beautiful bike and i made it for sell, but so far even with prices lower than cost, i cannot sell it. Two lessons learned: 1) don't paint yourself 2) don't make bikes when you have no customers waiting.
It was also the first bike i have installed threadless system and BMX pedals. And of course the colors finally make sense.
After a long searching i have finally found a second hand Raliegh Grand Prix for 300 nis on Yad2 board. The bike was unused and old, and the guy that sold it to me just wanted the picture after conversion. I did all by the book including cutting of the handlebar and making it as bullhorn. This is the bike i was officially riding for almost a year till the day i set up "Bucephalus". For the first time i have tried to paint the frame and the fork in different colors. Unfortunately i picked up similar colors so nobody noticed the difference. This frame is also a bit bigger for me so nowadays I’m planning to sell it.
