Before
One of the great and terrible things about the Interwebs is that you get to meet people of like mind who you wouldn't have had a chance to meet otherwise, and then spend a whole lot of time online discussing the finer points of brake levers, chain guards, and fender stays.
After
Flickr user the-macnab has been working on this 1968 Robin Hood (a mid-level brand of Raleigh) for quite a while, and his friend williamhutchinson was also working to restore a Raleigh Sports, all about the same time I was working on the Huffeigh. The three of us exchanged comments, tips, and frustrations as we worked, and engaged in a sort of long-distance race to finish our respective projects. I believe I finished first, but my project was decidedly less ambitious than either of theirs, and I cut a lot of corners (like painting rusted chrome parts silver instead of replacing them). I'll do another post on William's amazing work on his Raleigh, but this long-promised post is all about the J.P.'s Robin Hood, and it is well-deserved.
Check out his full Flickr set on the restoration process.
Edit: Bernard of Cyclone Coaster has answered in the comments that this is a 1939 Roadmaster built by Cleveland Welding Co. (CWC), USA. Thanks Bernard!
Yeah, I'm still here. Just busy with non-blog and non-bike stuff lately and for the foreseeable future as well, but I'll try to get back to semi-regular blogging here. Thanks to my loyal readers and lurkers for being patient.
This first post after my hiatus is long overdue, I'm afraid. Thanks for your patience, Pete.
This bike was picked up at a garage sale, and could be a Dutch(?) version of a balloon tire cruiser. The tires, in fact, are of Dutch origin (Swift). Pete doesn't think the fenders, chainguard, or rear rim are original, and he knows the Schwinn saddle isn't, but otherwise, there's a lot of interesting stuff here that I don't know anything about. I'm posting most of the photos Pete sent me in the hope that someone out there will know what this is, where it came from, and roughly how old it is.
Remember
John's 1955 Huffy Sportsman that was a brother of a different color to mine? Well, by some strange twist of fate, John came upon two more Raleigh-made Huffys, an almost-identically matched pair, in fact, and decided to restore them as a wedding present for his nephew and bride (the men's is 1963, the women's 1964). The results are astonishing, and John did a fantastic job of
documenting his work. We hope the happy couple will spend many enjoyable hours awheel on these lovely bicycles.
Friend of the OBB, Guiseppe (whose 1973 Schwinn tandem was one of the first Reader Projects) recently sent me photos of his new project, a vendor's tricycle of unknown make and vintage.
"A few days ago I found, beside a dumpster headed for the trash, a fixed gear vendor tricycle. Looks like it was once used to sell ice cream. The vending box is completely rotten, but the frame and all the bike stuff are great. Dirty, a bit rusty and in need of paint, but nothing I can't manage. A good friend of mine is a carpenter, and we plan to build a whole new unit for the front."
It looks like an amazing project, and I hope we'll be seeing some after photos soon.
I'm a bit slow in getting this posted, but John and I have been exchanging emails as he has been busy resurrecting this lovely 1955 Huffy/Raleigh Sportsman he found on Craigslist-- just like mine, only red. Notice the Raleigh-style fork that has been added to replace the original. John finished his work very quickly, especially considering this was his first old bike project. He has lots more photos of his process
here.
After another evening of work on
Mauricio's 1969 Huffy/Raleigh Sportsman, I took the grip shifter home to try to figure it out. Turns out, it's pretty simple on the inside, but since I couldn't find any how-to guides on the interwebs about it, I thought I'd post one.
The whole works is basically held together by a little spring clip that fits just under the lip of the dial portion of the grip. I used a small screwdriver to pry the clip out of its channel. In the photo below, you see the clip after removal.
With that done, the housing for the shifter (at left above) just comes off (assuming you've already removed the screw that tightens the shifter to the handlebar), exposing the minimal inner workings of the mechanism. There are basically three parts: a small spring, a bearing, and the rotating mechanism to which the cable is attached. The spring sits in a little hole, and the bearing on top of the spring. When the grip is turned, the bearing slides into one of three holes in the rotating mechanism, either tightening or loosening the shifter cable, and thus shifting the hub.
In the photo above, you can see the rotating mechanism at right with the red indicator arrow on it. Below, you can see the spring in its hole, with the bearing resting on top.
That's about it. I haven't put the thing back together yet, but I'm guessing that making sure the cable and bearing stay in place while the spring clip is reattached is going to require at least one more hand than I currently have. I'll have to look into getting another one.
There's a fuzzy diagram
here of the whole works, and if you combine it with the photos above, you can get a pretty good idea of how it all works. Apparently, though, this was not a very successful design and seems to have only been on 1960s bikes.
Ah, the wonders of the interwebs and the machinations of fate. Mauricio happened to take a wrong turn the other day, and when he stopped to ask directions, noticed the white tail of this Raleigh-made Huffy Sportsman peeking out of a garage. He asked if the bike was for sale, and lo and behold, took this lovely specimen home for a mere $10. Pretty good haul for getting lost.
So then, whilst Googling "Huffy Sportsman" he found my blog, and (this is the best part) discovered that we live only about twenty minutes away from each other. Long story short, that's Yours Truly in some of the photos below.
I went over to Mauricio's last night and we got started taking things apart. This is Mauricio's first old bike project, and it's perfect for learning. The cables are all broken, the rust is pervasive, but not impossible, and much of the chrome appears to be nearly pristine under the thickest coat of road/storage grime I've ever seen. It took a fair amount of work to even find the date stamp on the hub. The really cool thing is that this bike is equipped with a Sturmey-Archer grip-shifter, which I've never worked on before, so I get to learn something new.
More photos to come as Mauricio and I get our hands dirty and get his bike ready to roll again.
Images: Except for the one at top, all photos by Mauricio.
Well, her daughter Úna's, actually. Adrienne is one of the principals at the new blog Change Your Life, Ride a Bike! She found this 1962 Columbia Roadster on Craigslist and overhauled it for her daughter to use. Check out the full photo set on Flickr. Says Adrienne:
"Blue is a 1960's Columbia Roadster. I bought her for $40 from a man named August after deciding it was time to learn how to take care of my own bike. There are 5 cyclists in my family, and with kids growing out of or breaking bikes on a daily basis, my husband is kept quite busy being the family pit crew. So, while James built up our Xtracycle, I took the bike stand next to him and learned how to take apart and rebuild Blue.
The bike Gods looked kindly upon me for this project. I have old and quite serious neck injuries that leave me with less than optimal hand strength. Every time I approached a bolt I did so with trepidation- would this be the frozen one? When I picked Blue up, she had been outside for a while and was very rusty and dirty, so I figured there would be a lot of frozen bolts. There was not a single one! At some point she had been completely serviced and put back together by a bike shop, so everything was done right, she had just been neglected.
The biggest job, by far, was dealing with the rust. The paint was very solid in some places, and pitted and corroded in others. I had originally thought I would repaint her, but there was no way to match the glorious blue, and after using some copper wool and penetrating oil on the whole frame, I found that the anomalies in the paint were beautiful in and of themselves. They gave Blue a patina that spoke of her past. A bike with history is a great bike, and after finding the original owner's name engraved on the underside of the bottom bracket (Caroline) by I assume her father, I decided to keep her as is. I smoothed her out and gave her 8 coats of polish. It was the right decision, she is lovely!
Blue now belongs to my daughter, Úna. She loves her new bike! Now I need to find one for me!"
Remember John's 1955 Huffy Sportsman that was a brother of a different color to mine? Well, by some strange twist of fate, John came upon two more Raleigh-made Huffys, an almost-identically matched pair, in fact, and decided to restore them as a wedding present for his nephew and bride (the men's is 1963, the women's 1964). The results are astonishing, and John did a fantastic job of documenting his work. We hope the happy couple will spend many enjoyable hours awheel on these lovely bicycles.
Well, her daughter Úna's, actually. Adrienne is one of the principals at the new blog Change Your Life, Ride a Bike! She found this 1962 Columbia Roadster on Craigslist and overhauled it for her daughter to use. Check out the full photo set on Flickr. Says Adrienne: