Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Q&A: Mead bicycle restoration help

Q: Jim - Been doing some searching for bicycle parts for a Mead bicycle and
stumbled onto you. May I ask a question? I'm trying to begin the process of
restoring my dad's Mead Crusader that originally had a spring fork, I think
Mead called it a knee-action fork. To my dad's recollection, it was built
around 1940, and as a kid my dad thought it was too slow with that spring,
so he removed it and put another generic fork on it. I would like to find
that fork. Any ideas as to where I could begin my search? There are a number
of things that will need help to get it restored, but this fork is the first
item I would like to tackle.

Many thanks for your assistance,
Scott

A: Hi Scott,
I'd look for the fork on www.ebay.com. You may need to buy a whole bike to
get the fork but if you check ebay enough, sooner or later almost everything
under the sun turns up for sale on there and then you just have to win the
auction. You could also contact the folks at www.thecabe.com which is a
website of folks interested in balloon tire bicycles like your Mead. Here's
an ad for a 1936 model http://www.jimlangley.net/brake/rangerace.html. It's
possible that one of these collectors has a fork for sale. Just do your
homework and don't pay too much. There are nice collector types and there
are those that are in it for the money. You want to do business with the
former whenever possible. Another possibility is a bicycle auction like the
Copake Auction, which takes place in New York every April. They see a lot of
bikes and you might get lucky and find one there.
http://www.copakeauction.com/ One more resource is a museum in New York that
might be able to offer suggestions on other sources to find the fork/info
about your bike: http://www.pedalinghistory.com/default.html


I hope these links help you get that classic back on the road!
Jim

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