Show your bicycles, sans engines!

[Ulu]

So how did your wife take to the tandem bike?

 

Mine hasn’t been back on a bike since she fell off 2 years ago. I have been considering a tandem bike since then.

 

We had a long wet spring, and almost zero riding time here. Lots of indoor shop time though….

[cheesy]

My wife sure talked as if she liked the idea of a tandem but it's racked up all of 2 miles. And half a mile of that was moving it out of the way in the garage.

 

We'll see what happens this year. She had a cancer scare that resulted in surgery and that has been a wake up call. She has 8 more radiation treatments after today and it's looking pretty good.

 

Me breaking my ankle in February and having it plated and screwed back together hasn't helped. I've been boot and crutch free for a week. And walking like my 90 year old Dad.

 

The weather hasn't been all that great this spring, either. It can't decide if it's going to be cold and blustery or hot and humid. Sometimes on the same day.

[cheesy]

Well, poop.

 

There was a malfunction with the ATV we have for the grandkids. Throttle stuck open. Our oldest grandson had to choose between a tree or the open garage door. He chose the open garage door. (We are working again on how to use the kill switch) The bike was leaning against the back of my Ural but took the brunt of the hit. The Ural got pushed into my Honda and knocked that over onto the lawnmower. Our grandson got some road rash and a couple of bruises but walked away.

 

The bike, a 1954 Robin Hood(Raleigh) 2 speed fixed gear, is totaled.

 

The head tube is the only straight tube on the frame. As luck would have it, I have another 1954 frame available. Not as nice looking as this one was, but not bent, either. I'll need to build another rear wheel and I hope there is no internal damage to the rear hub.

 

I found the cause of the throttle problem on the ATV and that's fixed now.

[Ulu]

Bummer about the Robin Hood.

 

I did one of those old cottered crank bikes, and everybody loves the thing.

Zero accessories.  Thin tires, very light, and with new aluminum hoops.

 

It’s my second favorite of the dozen or so bikes I have had.

 

That is my number three granddaughter, Simone. She’s selling cars in Idaho now.

 

 

Edited August 12, 2024 by Ulu

[cheesy]

Thanks.

It's not on the top of the list to be repaired. There are other fish to fry before that happens. I am half hunting a different Raleigh frame as I had other plans for the possible candidate. I have a gorgeous Guerciotti frame but it's both larger and Italian, so a parts swap won't be easy.

We'll see.

[Ulu]

There’s a difference. I think the brits had 26 tpi BB cones and the Italians were 24 tpi. I think French were 26 tpi but with no left hand threads.

 

Anyhow, either Italian or French, some important things won’t fit the Raleigh.

[cheesy]

Close. Raleigh was 26 tpi with a 70mm or 73mm BB shell, depending on the model.

The rest of the Brits were 24tpi and 68mm, which is BSC/ISO. Raleigh got their head out in the mid 80's and went with 24tp and 68mm. Italians are also ISO now but were 36mmx24tpi, and a 70mm BB shell, with both cups being RH thread. The French also got on the ISO bandwagon, maybe late 70s, early 80s. Prior to that, the French threading was 35mm x 1mm, again, with both cups being RH thread.

I have every variation in my herd. Thank God I don't have Swiss, which is French with a LH fixed cup.

 

I had to look the above up because I couldn't remember all of it. There was a time when I could.

[cheesy]

Well, 'eck. I had a mostly original 1974 Raleigh Grand Prix sitting for sale at my favorite bike shop for about 18 months. It sold yesterday for $175. I thought that was pretty good, seeing as I paid a hundred for it a few years back. The shop gets a 20% commission, so that leaves me with $140. I just had them set that up as a tab for parts instead of cutting me a check. That should be good for a rim, some good tires, and some tubes.

[Ulu]

I’ve never actually worked on any of those foreign bikes, except late 1960’s Raleigh, so I only know what I read in the funny papers, and on the bicycle club forum.

 

[cheesy]

10 hours ago, Ulu said:

I’ve never actually worked on any of those foreign bikes, except late 1960’s Raleigh, so I only know what I read in the funny papers, and on the bicycle club forum.

 

I found out the hard, and expensive, way.

I think Phil Wood makes 26tpi cups for Raleighs, but unless it's something like a 531 Lenton Sport, they are not worth the expense.

[Daniel Jones]

Here's a picture of my 1983 Fuji.  I've got it apart updating it with a 22 speed group set (50-34 compact double using the vintage Sugino AT crankset with 180mm arms, 11 speed Shimano 105rear cluster and brifters) and plan on repainting it in a dark blue.  In the picture, I'm mocking up a custom trailer hitch for a bike rack on my 1974 DeTomaso Pantera.  The car is low (roof is below my belt line) and I had to mount the bike rack high enough to clear the mufflers so the bike ends up towering over the car.     

[Ulu]

I’d maybe rack the bike horizontally, like a second wing. You’re going to have a wing, right?

[cheesy]

That is one tall bike on a short car.

I've seen some 911s with roof racks.

[Daniel Jones]

Bike is a 27" frame and 27" wheels.  I didn't want to do a roof rack which wouldn't clear the garage door nor some of the trees I need to prune over my driveway.  No Countach wannabe wing on this Pantera.  Those are cosmetic as the flow separates at the trailing edge of the roof and doesn't reattach before the wings location.

[Ulu]

The whole car is cosmetic if you’re not going racing. It’s like me owing a big chrome plated motorcycle:

 

Male jewelry.

That’s what our toys are.

 

The wings & vents and spoilers never matter at legal speeds anyhow. Until you race them it’s all about looks.

[cheesy]

New to me bike day.

It's 1970 or 71 Raleigh Sports with the not too common 23" frame. I paid the princely sum of $10 for it. I'd have given $50 just for the saddle, a Brooks B72. It still has the original Dunlop White Stripe tires on it. I'm just going to grease and clean this one up.

I scored a few other things, too. The wheel leaning against the garage is for the bent Robin Hood. I also got two 27" aluminum wheels for the just as old red and chrome bike in the background. 

[cheesy]

This got finished on Monday.

It's a Fuji Flair frame and fork I picked up where I got the 1970 Raleigh from. I paid a whopping five bucks for it. The parts from the bent Robin Hood went on here. I had to buy a seat post, crank set, and spokes for the rear wheel.

 

I built the rear wheel with 13ga spokes instead of the usual 14ga spoke.

The 13 ga spokes are very overkill for a wheel like this. It's been a while since I bought spokes and things have changed a bit. I used to be able to buy a box of 100 spokes and they came with the nipples. Now, a lot of places sell spokes in groups of ten and the nipples are extra. I found the 13ga spokes selling as a group of 36, with the nipples, for cheap and snagged them.

I had plenty of 14ga spokes on hand, but they were either too long or too short. I have the ability to cut and thread spokes but I'd rather slam my hand in a car door, repeatedly, than cut and thread 36 spokes again.

[Ulu]

Yeah don’t do that!

 

Since my days swapping wheels as a kid I have only built two wheels that required me to buy new sets of spokes. I got both from a place called TNT.

 

But I don’t know what they might have in non-standard gauges. You can probably even get 12s but then you probably have to drill everything out.

 

I don’t do the kind of riding where I have to worry about breaking my spokes. Strictly geezer peddling here.

Edited Saturday at 07:37 AM by Ulu

[cheesy]

The 13ga spokes MAY be a benefit with the bike being a fixed gear as resistance, aka backpedaling, is used to slow down and in some cases, stopping. That's a bit of torque applied to the hub flanges. I've not seen a spoke break with backpedaling but I have seen broken aluminum hub flanges. Those were either a poorly built wheel or a hub with a casting defect. Either way, scary to watch happen and must be terrifying to the rider.

 

I have at least a front brake on all my fixed gears because I had my first design multi speed fixed gear hub fail the first time I tried to slow down by back pedaling. The hub made a hell of noise. So did I as I lived at the top of a hill at the time. With no way to stop.😁

Edited Saturday at 02:11 PM by cheesy

[Ulu]

@cheesy

”multi speed fixed gear”

 

I never heard of such a thing!

 

[cheesy]

Sturmey Archer made several 2 and 3 speed fixed gear hubs in the late 40s to about 1960. The ASC was the 3 speed, AF(I think) and TF were 2 speed. Very rare now, which translates to very expensive.

 

Being a cheap Norwegian farmer, I built my own hubs by doing internal magic. I've converted several Sturmey Archer AW 3 speed hubs into fixed 2 speeds. One 4 speed FW became a 3 speed fixed gear. The overdrive, or high gear, is lost in the conversion. I also converted two Bendix manually shifted, not the kickbacks, to 2 speed fixed gear. Those are low and direct so there is no overdrive to lose. The Bendix hubs are really easy to do, but I won't convert one unless the plating is bad. Too rare. Where the British 2 speed TF is considered a jewel and does things with grace, the converted Bendix can be considered the 'Uncouth American Cousin' that does things with brute force.

 

After Sturmey Archers sale to SunRace several years ago, they came out with a new 3 speed fixed gear hub called the S3X. It didn't live up to the fanfare due to many failures. I have one, still in the box. One of these days...

 

As an aside, I was really into fixed gear bikes in my 50s. Everyone had a nickname and mine was 'Cheesy' because I hailed from Wisconsin and usually had double cheese on a burger. I did a lot of Alley Cat races and track races against kids half my age. Usually I had my ass handed to me but I had a blast. I built my first hub because I'm a lousy climber and I wanted a lower gear. As happened with the AW hub, there is a neutral position between low and direct. I use it for a long gentle downhill or setting my pedals at a stop sign. Some of my friends saw that and started calling it the "Cheesy Hub".