First and foremost I feel it is important to note that this is my first attempt at assembling all the notes from a restoration and documenting the process of rebuilding a bicycle. This is, however, far from my first time working on such a bike. In the normal course of things I get too excited and absorbed into my project that I forge ahead and the only notes I keep are in my head. This time I plan to detail the process, the purchases and events that led me to the completion of this bike.
My inspiration for this blog is the fact that I was able to find a bike, THE bike, that I have been dreaming of getting my hands on for the past 2 1/2 years, which is when I really started working on bikes on a serious basis. THE bike I was hoping for was the CCM Mustang Marauder, a fairly sought-out vintage Canadian muscle bike. The one that I purchased is not the first one that has come up in that time, but the most accessible. About a year ago I found one on Ebay located in Nova Scotia, but the price tag for an unrestored bike was around $600 plus shipping. I decided to wait with the idea that if I were meant to have one, it would find me. And it did.
You know how they say you always find what you want when you are not looking for it? Well it is the same with the Marauder. In the summer of 2010 I had spent all my bike money (and then some) with a major haul from Albany, New York. I had spent $1500 in that deal, plus several hundred on parts for other bikes, and some other cool projects (maybe the subject of a new blog one day). I was not looking... but still lurking on Craigslist (I admit I check it almost daily).
The date was November 21, 2010. I was in the middle of some home renovations, and as I recall it was an ugly rainy week. Having a little break I look around on Craigslist and then I see it... Well I knew what I thought was it, but the photo was fairly poor. Here is the entire content of the advertisement:
So I studied this photo and was fairly confident that it is what I have been looking for. The frame style is fairly unique, the chain guard is a definite tip-off, but the rest is out of place, grips, seat, sissy bar. I decide to take a chance and contacted the seller. Once I did so it was quite obvious that the owner had no idea really what they had. All he could tell me is it is an old CCM. That was the final nudge I needed, and with very little back and forth we set a meeting time for the next day, November 22, 8pm.
The 22nd was a cold, rainy, ugly November day. After what seemed like a really long day of work I head home with the knowledge that I was off to get that bike in the evening. I was still unsure about the purchase. After many useless searches on the internet, I determined that information on this bike was very hard to come by. I also was not really sure about the color. I had never in my reading through vintage bike sites, photos, blogs, forums, etc... that the CCM Marauder was ever offered in brown. Oddly I had been in contact with another person the year prior for parts, and this bike appeared in his photo album, in brown, with all the same parts, and he had more information about the history of this bicycle. More on that a bit later though...
So I finally determine I am going to go out to see the bike, take the chance and if it is nice, I am gonna buy it. I get all geared up to go and consult my wallet. I discover that I have exactly $90, but I will have to at least take the metro there, and probably back, unless I want to cycle home on an unfamiliar bike, in the dark and ice cold rain. I decide again to take my chances and leave with the cash on hand and hope for the best.
Fast forward a boring Metro ride, and a short walk to the owner’s apartment. As soon as I stepped in to this really cool loft, I felt like this was someone with very similar interests as me. Everything was done up in vintage style, all the décor was artsy and vintage. It turns out this person is a local artist who works from home and was really down to earth. So as soon as I see the bike my heart thumps. There it was, a CCM Mustang Marauder, in slight disguise, and just begging to be put back into its former glory. I really had to mask my excitement, which is not easy. I tell the seller that I love the bike, and I only have $80 on hand, well $82.75, but I would much rather take the metro home, as the tires are soft and it was really evil outside. We settle on $80 and I have to wrestle this thing down an insanely narrow staircase (I have no idea how he moved into there!) and get her outside, down the street and back to the Metro. As soon as I get to the metro people are complimenting the bike and saying how they never see these anymore. I was thinking to myself “if only you knew what this is worth and how amazing it is going to be once completed.”
So at this point in the story I get the bike home, and tuck it away in my back room, as I neither have the time or space to do anything with it. I thought I had some of the missing parts stored away, but could not even check that as my storage room was full and inaccessible.
The following are the before pictures of the bike. I also want to give photo credits here to Julie from Visual Inspiration, who is responsible for all the photography for my website, this blog, all of my graphic designs, advertisements, business cards. She is very talented and if you need any design or photography please visit: http://www.visualinspiration.ca
Before pic of the whole bike:
Chainguard and CCM crankset
Evidence of original color hiding behind a coat of brown:
Flash forward just a bit over a month. December 27th and the renovations have been completed and my workshop has been cleaned out, at least enough to navigate through and dig through some boxes for the precious missing parts. Some I was sure that I had, others I thought I might but was not sure, and as always there were some good surprises.
As I already knew, I had the proper seat for this bike in mint condition. I had 2 from a previous deal, and had sold the less nice (also mint) for $100 in the fall of 2009. I had that seat stored in my “awesome parts” box, and found it easily. Below are pics of the original seat I have, in mint condition:
This seat came as part of a large package deal of parts which I purchased in the summer of 2009 for $400. From that package I sold the same seat, some handle bars and a few other parts were used on some builds. All told I made my $400 back and still have a huge supply of parts from the deal. So for me, the cost of this seat is $0, and I am sure a few readers out there are going to weep a little over that... These cannot be found for love or money lately, and if you do find one, buy it. Needless to say this part was simple and will not require any cleaning. All that seems to be missing is the gigantic reflector for the back, which I am sure I have somewhere in the workshop.
Next was to see if I had the shifter, as this would influence the whole project. Without it I might have opted to keep the bike as a single speed, which is the way I bought it. After many hours of searching for pics of this bike, and finally landing on a really cool site which I believe is also authored by a fellow Montrealer: www.howtofixbikes.ca . What struck me first was the photo of the Marauder, in decent original condition, unrestored. The photo was large, clear, and of the original bike. The blog on this site is really amazing as well and I urge any bike enthusiasts and blog lovers to check this site out! On the internet many other images were small, blurry, no information and no help at all. What hit me most was the photo of the shifter, a Sturmey Archer “Sportshift”. I was almost certain that I had that shifter or at least some parts of it in my box of shifters. Pulling out the box was strange. Almost as if the Bike Gods knew I would be looking for it, that shifter was sitting on top of everything. This was really strange as I had stored many shifters that I had purchased that summer, mostly American muscle bike parts in the box, which should have been on top. Anyhow there it was, with the original cables, the shifter looking amazing, though slightly dirty, and most of all it had the knob on the shift arm, which is notorious for getting lost. Many of the pictures I see online, the shifter arm is missing, so I really felt fortunate for this part. The original cable housing is also in really good condition, and all I really need to change is the shifter cable. Even better for me the shifter came to me from the same place the seats came from, so once again, my cost for the shifter is $0. Wow!
The first photo is before cleaning, the shifter looks great and works like a charm!
The next issue for me is the handle bars. The ones that came equipped on the bike look really good, despite sporting the wrong (bmx) grips for the bike. The problem is in my search for cool parts I found a proper set of the famous “butterfly” handle bars. My concern is for the condition of the bars, at present they look really tarnished and rusting. I have cleaned worse before and I am really optimistic that I can clean these up. The handle bars were found in a barn in Albany, New York, and travelled back to Canada during a road trip July 6, 2010. The handle bars came back in a van full of other bikes and parts. Originally I thought they belonged to a Schwinn Fastback, but they were not the right shape and size. I will have to clean these up and then make the decision based on how nice they turn out. I am still not 100% certain they are the right ones but I think they will look amazing on this bike. Here are the before cleaning pics:
Here are the after-cleaning pics. I am amazed at how well these turned out!
Life has been busy lately but the project will be continuing shortly. Stay tuned for the next installment where I will look at more of the parts for the bike, the cleaning process, and the hunt for the missing bits. Painting may be a little way off but who knows, I may paint it by brush indoors, as I wont be able to hold off until the spring!
