1940s Schwinn Spitfire
May 7, 2014
1940s Schwinn Spitfire
May 7, 2014

Tom received the Ross Apollo for his birthday in 1979. It was the best gift ever! He rode the bike everywhere throughout his childhood but as he grew up the bike eventually found itself left for storage in a shed. Tom held on to the bike even though he wasn’t riding it because it always reminded him of the fun times he had as a young boy. Over the years he thought about trying to have it restored. However, he wasn’t able to find someone who could restore it to its original condition. It wasn’t until 2018 that Tom found us at iride. He brought in the Apollo and told us there was no hurry in getting it restored but he wanted it to look as original as possible. It took more than a year to pull the project off. We had to source a vendor who could custom make the decals. We also had to find seat fabric that would look as close to the original covering as possible. It took many hours to perform the searches to find just the right vendors. All of the rusty parts were sent out to our chrome vendor. That process took eight weeks to get the chrome back. Once all the remaining parts were cleaned, sourced, or re-chromed Noel worked the rest of his magic inhouse. He rebuilt both wheels with new spokes, sandblasted, primed, and painted the frame, welded the seat pan, and professionally reassembled the bicycle. The most tedious part was installing the custom made decals, but Noel nailed it. The bicycle turned out to be absolutely beautiful and rode like a dream. Tom said it was well worth the wait and he was so glad that he had it done by iride Vintage Bicycles Restoration Repairs Resales.

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