If you follow my bike repair stories, you know that I am a sucker for bright shiny objects. Black is cool, but dayglow orange or any other bright color is more my thing.
I walked past this bike at the Bike Exchange for a couple of weeks. It was definitely my style, but a bit ragged-looking, and I was still working on the Electra Tattoo bike, so I let the Motiv sit.
When I dropped off the satin black cruiser/rat rod tattoo bike at the shop, I went looking for another project. There was the Motiv—still looking rough but with the potential to be a stunner if I could clean up the paint and give it a good wash and brush.
Once home, I stripped off the tires and hardware and began cleaning. Any bright work went into the vinegar bath while the greasy bits got a soak in mineral spirits.
I fitted a pair of Kenda 2.125 x 26 blackwall street tires, cleaned the rims, and sanded the braking surfaces to remove built-up rubber smudge. The axles spun nicely but were loose. I found one shattered bearing at the rear. I replaced the broken bearing and reassembled everything, and then the wheels spun beautifully.
After cleaning and rubbing compound, the frame looked much better, but there were a couple of large gouges on the rear stays and fork. Spot sanding, self-etching primer, and a mix of Rust-Oleum in varying amounts of sunrise yellow, cherry red, and safety orange allowed me to color-match well.
The original Diacomp brakes and Suntour indexing derailleurs were fine. The old school straddle cables were swapped for the newer, safer style, along with all new cables and covers.
The original yellow stem with flat bars may be ideal for off-roading, but this will undoubtedly be a street bike, so a shorter black stem by DV8 and a chrome-yellow bar with a slight rise and sweep should be more comfortable for the next owner.
Its twin is advertised on eBay for an insane amount of money. Hopefully, this bike, which is in much nicer shape, will fetch a good price when we sell it.
