1986 Savage Freestyle

This is a 1986 Savage Freestyle. Back in 86 I was riding with my friends in a small town in Colombia named Pereira.

I had my 86 Dyno compe and my friend had some sort of Hutch among other kids with their bikes.  That night a kid came out with this very same bike in a color close to GT blue. It had white tires and my Dyno had GT blue tires. I wanted to trade my tires for his white tires, but he said he had just gotten the bike from the US and his Mom would not approve swapping parts on his brand new bike. I am glad we did not trade as I would have handed over my GT tires for some other brand.

So a year or two ago this beauty comes up for sale in the museum and the seller was asking $85 or so...shipped!  He thought the bike had a cracked frame around the head tube and it did look that way. The bike had lots of scrapes and scratches but was 100% complete and original. It sat for a long time in my storage shed until one day I was moving stuff around and saw it again. I decided to clean it up and see what came out. The crack around the head tube vanished as I was cleaning it with rubbing compound and a micro fiber towel. Turned out to be just rust along the weld edge, there was no crack.

About 90% of the scratches came off with the rubbing compound and the frame and fork looked really nice. I then cleaned the rest of the parts and they all came out great. The only part that needed some restoration was the bars. I took the bars and had the paint color matched at an auto paint store. Painted the bars and frame standers and that was all.  I replaced the tires with Kenda K55 since the original tires were completely worn down.

So aside from the paint in the bars and standers, plus new tires, here she is after 26 years.