Should You Restore Your Bicycle?

It can be a great undertaking to restore or customize a vintage bicycle and a lot of it comes down to the time and money you’re willing to commit to the project. Just like the restoration of a car it can be a long and intense process to restore a vintage bicycle back to it’s former glory. A lot of investments both in time and money as well as other resources can be eaten up when you begin to restore a bicycle and sometimes the process can be so drawn out and complex that it may not even be worth to restore the bicycle as much as you may want to.

What it really comes down to is a weighing of the balance between how much you want to restore your bicycle, what your aims are for it’s restoration, and how much time and money you are willing to dedicate to the project. If you’re simply restoring your bicycle so that you can sell it in the long run and make a profit on it then it’s important to make sure that the costs that come with the restoration process don’t exceed what you can make from selling it once it’s finished. If you’re bicycle is only worth $100 dollars when fully restored but you’re putting a couple hundred into then you’re definitely not coming out on top. The same applies for your time. If restoring your bicycle is cutting into work time, hue amounts of time with family or friends then it may be wise to consider having some of the work outsourced or doing it over a long span of time so that you aren’t completely putting your life on hold for your bicycle.

However on the other hand if your bicycle is a cherished collectible or something that you really want to restore to keep around then it’s not a matter of whether or not you can make a profit but more of how much you can afford to put into it. This is best done over a span of time which can help reduce the impact of the cost it might take to buy parts and tools to restore your bicycle or the cost of the labor required to have a professional do it. It’s best if you can manage to do some of the work yourself as this will make it much easier to afford the cost of restoring your bicycle and it gives you the opportunity to become more familiar with how your bicycle works which makes it less expensive for you to repair in the long run.

The sad part to this is that sometimes there are bicycles that we desperately want to restore but simply can’t afford to maintain because of the cost or the inconvenience or any number of other reasons. Sometimes a bicycle is just too well worn for it to be worth the cost of investing the time and effort and money into it that would be required to restore it. Decide what your priorities are for the restoration of your vintage bicycle and then determine if it’s the right thing for you to do. Sometimes you're better of not restoring a bicycle simply because of the time that's required and that can mean that you're better off just letting the bike remain as it is.