my sanford and son side

I'll admit it, when my neighbors stack up large piles of trash, and by large i mean larger than what will fit in our parish-supplied 250 gallon trash can/homeless shelters, i will usually give them a quick glance to make sure they're not tossing out something reusable. There have been times when i've thought of snatching up a discarded 20 inch bmx bike, to build some sort of strange grocery-getter/coffee shop cruiser, but i've never pulled the trigger, that was until a few weeks ago.

Behold the apple of my eye...

Yep, i found this one in front of a house recently sold. I guess the previous owner wanted to move out in a hurry and threw it on the road. Remember the Shogun Kaze? a super tricked out funny bike they sold way back in the day, well this one's not that cool, it's just a set of pipes by comparison, but ... it was free.

I took it home and whipped out the tape measure, 58 c-t, with a 57 top tube. It's not like finding a C-Record Colnago covered in rust or anything, but as a beater, it will more than do.
Immediately i thought about making it a cross bike, so i threw on some old campy tubular wheels that Brian gave me (Relax Taylor, this was merely a concept, they're still yours for the taking) with my old Vittoria Tigre tubulars. All was good on the workstand, but when i aired up the tires the clearance on the front fork was a no-go. So i can either go with a skinnier front tire, or try to find an old hybrid 700c fork with canti bosses if i want to go with these wheels. I'll probably just stick my fatboy training wheels (700x28) on and use her to get to work and back, a rainy day commuter. My cross days are LONG gone (so help me GOD)
Check out that pedigree on the seat tube, Gonzales? That's the land of cycling greats like the Doc, Ward Webb and the Robert clan. I'll have to ride it hard to do them proud.