Update below at 2:23 PM EST…

A flock of parts came in yesterday and so I made some rapid progress. The replacement hose and nozzle for my floor pump came in and after some violence I was able to remove the old hose and using a hose clamp fashion a replacement fitting and now I have a nice floor pump with a gauge and both presta and schrader fittings on the nozzle. My new bike lock came in and I installed the holder on the frame and programmed the new combination on it. The new tires ( very nice road/trail combination tread ) and tubes ( heavy duty puncture resistant ) came in so I was able to assemble the front and rear wheels. I managed to remember all the steps without resorting to youtube. I even replaced the rim tapes with very nice new ones, the old ones were dried out, rotten and crumpled up.

The front and rear fenders came in and fortunately since it is an old steel frame it has mounting points already on the frame for fenders and racks so it was pretty easy to get them on. I only had to modify the front one a tiny bit to make it sit high enough and still fit between the front forks and clear the tire. I was a little worried that they weren’t going to clear the tires since these are slightly larger than the original tires on the bike, 2.25 as opposed to 2.0, but not to worry they fit just fine. I had to adjust the front brake calipers so that they would clear the front tires and seat on the rim, but that was pretty simple.

I have a rack for the back of the bike but I may not get to that until later in the day or tomorrow. I took the bike out for a test run after modifying my bike helmet’s straps to fit my apparently fatter head. Apparently it is true that you don’t forget how to ride a bike, after a bit of panic when I was up high zooming down the hill it all came back to me. I will say that I am horribly out of shape and I’ll be working my way up to hill climbing bit by bit… whew.

Oh, I also got a set of rubber block pedals which work great, they’re easy to get on and off and they don’t have spikes on them that will claw you in the leg if you accidentally let a pedal whip around.

The drive train needs a good cleaning and lubrication, I have a cleaning and lube kit coming Tuesday.

Here’s a picture of the current state:

Afternoon update 2:23 PM:

I got the rack installed on the back of the bike this afternoon. As with many things labeled as “universal” there was some bodging to make it fit and I had to substitute some alternate fasteners, but in the end it is on and secure. Picture below: