A 1939 Schwinn and a Question

“Bikes” might be generous. It was really a pile of rusty metal—old frames, bent wheels, missing parts, and years of Washington weather doing what Washington weather does.

As I climbed through the somewhat organized stacks of bicycle parts, I noticed a bike I was pretty certain had been designed and built before World War II. It had faded orange paint that was clearly not its original color. It was missing most of what it would take to make it rideable again, but I just had a feeling this was what I had been looking for.

It wasn't beautiful, and I'm not sure anyone looking at it would have immediately called it valuable. But I remember looking at that old bike and wondering, What if? What if there was more here than what I could see right now? What if this wasn't the end of its story?

So I brought it home.

I quickly discovered that seeing what something could be and actually helping it become that thing are two very different experiences. Thankfully, I had some help. A neighbor of mine had become a friend, and he was handy with a wrench and happened to have a sandblasting table in his shop. He helped me loosen bolts that years of rust had basically welded into place and showed me how to use the sandblaster—with appropriate warnings about the pain it could cause if I wasn't careful.

Then I went to work.

Over the next several months, I took the entire bike apart, piece by piece and bolt by bolt. I spent hours standing over that sandblasting table, slowly stripping away decades of rust until what remained was mostly clean, original metal. When that work was finally finished, I found a place in town that would powder coat the frame for a reasonable price, and I started figuring out how to put everything back together.

That turned out to have its own challenges.

One of my favorite parts of the original bike was its period-specific sweetheart skip-tooth crank. I loved it and wanted to keep it, but I couldn't find a rear hub that would work with it. Eventually, with the help of a metal grinder and probably a little more confidence than expertise, I customized one that would.

That became part of what I loved about the project. Some of the bike hanging in my office today came directly from that 1939 Schwinn. I pulled other pieces from newer Schwinn cruisers. Some things could be restored. Some things had to be replaced. And a few things had to be adapted in ways they had never been before.

Eventually, I had all the pieces, but I still didn't have a bicycle.

For that, I found myself at a little bike shop called 2nd Cycle in the heart of Tacoma. It was a place where I could rent time at a bike stand, borrow the right tools, and, maybe most importantly, borrow some expertise from people who actually knew what they were doing. Once again, someone else put their fingerprints on this project, and slowly the bicycle came back together.

Nearly ten months after finding it in a pile of rusty metal behind an antique store in Chehalis, I climbed onto that 1939 Schwinn and rode it through the streets of Fircrest.

It was a joy to look at, but it was even better to ride. After months of work, the old bike was moving again, and there was something exhilarating about experiencing what had once existed only in my imagination.

Today, that bike hangs in my office. More than a decade later, I still love looking at it. I love the original pieces that survived and the newer pieces that gave it another life. I love the places where we had to improvise. I love that my fingerprints aren't the only ones on it.

But maybe most of all, I love remembering what it looked like the first time I saw it.

None of what I see today existed yet. There was just an old bicycle sitting in a pile of rusty metal behind an antique store.

And a question.