Raleigh Twenty - COMPLETE

Well, it's finally done.  The original stock air pump arrived from England in a tight little round tube, well packed in foam and packing tape.  It took me a little while to get it out, it was so well packed.  I finally liberated it, gave it a couple pumps and instantly thought that something was missing - the little dongle that connects the pump to the valve.  It was in the picture on eBay, but I couldn't find it in the tube.

After a little poking around, I figured out the clever storage mechanism in the handle.  It works like a charm.

The pump is made of white plastic with a dark grey end cap, also of plastic.  The dongle screws into this plastic end.  I wouldn't want to do this too much and risk the plastic threads stripping out.  The handle pulls out to expose a silver metal plunger.  Again, it doesn't look too strong and it had a bit of rust on it.  I very lightly steel wooled the rust off with extra fine wool and applied a fine layer of machine oil.

I was a bit worried installing it on the bike.  The pressure from the spring in the handle holds it on the prongs on the back of the seat tube.  The pressure is strong and the prongs seem small and narrow.  Would the pressure eventually crack the plastic?  I placed a couple small washers over the prongs to distribute the pressure across a broader area.  Worked like a charm.

So here are some final images with the Brooks B-66 and Challenge saddle bag.  I mounted a brass bell on it, the original headlight and a trunk that I had kicking around.  Looks pretty sharp!

The last image is of the crazy dude who chases down old bits o' bike stuff from around the globe just to have a bike in complete stock condition!

charles

Raleigh Twenty pump- on the way

I found one! Just scouting around on eBay and came across a vintage air pump for the Raleigh Twenty. Not cheap and it's being shipped from England, so it will be a week or so.

 

In case anyone is wondering, the seller of this pump went to the length of measuring each of the dimensions.  from the eBay post:

"HERE WE HAVE A VINTAGE OLD RALEIGH  20  HAND PUMP OFF THE FRAME NICE AND WORKING OK   THE BOTTOM TUBE IS 26 CM   AND THE MIDDLE PULLED UP IS 12 CM  AND THE TOP IS 8 CM  , THE PUMP END BIT IS 14 CM"

I also splurged on a black Brooks Challenge saddle bag... This bike will be something to see..

I also spent a couple hours replacing the rear cog back to the original 15-T sprocket over the weekend. The hard part was adjusting the chain. It seems like it is either too short, barely catching the dropouts or, adding in the extra link, it's too long, hanging even with the wheel all the way back. I opted to keep it tight. But it made a huge difference to the ride- much faster on the top end.

Charles


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Riding the Twenty - First Impressions

I rode the Raleigh Twenty into work yesterday - first time doing a significant ride.  I received the Brooks B-66 on Saturday last week and in a couple minutes had it mounted to the seatpost.  I'm hanging on to the original so I have a complete original stock bike, despite the rip in the saddle.

Anyway, I was up and out the door at 6AM yesterday, no rain, broken clouds.  The Twenty travels at its own pace, for sure.  The previous owner had the rear chain cog replaced with a bigger one which effectively lowers all the gears.  This was an attempt to have it do better on hills.  It does that.  With the bike in first gear, you really get spinning.  The problem though is that when you are going on flats or downhill, you have no upper end.  Since most of the hills between here and work are not that significant, I'm really tempted to reverse it back to the stock cog in the back. 

There is a bit of a shudder to the brakes in the rear.  This is due to some oil that has gotten onto the rim from the Sturmey-Archer hub.  They are a bit like fountain pens - they work great, but are a bit messy.  You've got to be willing to deal with the mess.

The bike is pretty heavy.  And you feel it in the hills, unless you drop the gear down and plod along.  I was in no rush and it was a fun ride to enjoy.

On the way home, I stopped off at the Bellevue I-90 map kiosk for a breather.  A younger couple from Beacon Hill stopped and asked me which was the best route into Bellevue.  We talked for a bit about the "vintage bike."  I got a few looks from drivers.

Many years ago, I drove a Volkswagen Thing (Type 181 to those of us who actually owned one).  Riding the Twenty is like driving the VW Thing.  It's not a car that you'd use everyday or do cross country drives in... but it sure was fun and got lots of looks.

charles

Raleigh Twenty Elite "Torch" - WORKING

Great news!  I got the original Elite headlamp for the Raleigh Twenty working without major surgery.  It was really difficult to tell whether it was a broken switch, the lamp, batteries...  After doing quite a bit of testing, I eliminated the bulb and battery issues.  I felt sure it was the switch.  Bad news because the switch box was a enclosed unit with fancy spring mounted brass contacts.  It was afixed to the casing by pop-rivets, which meant to get it apart would require basically breaking it beyond what I could repair again.

But after a bit of fiddling this morning with some heavy duty aluminum foil, it turned out NOT to be the switch, but the fact that there was quite a bit of corrosion at one of the contact points.  I thought I'd cleaned it enough to allow electricity to flow, but I guess not.  I bypassed the corrosion with a strip of foil taped to the outer casing and - presto - lights on and the switch works fine.

Now, let me say, the torch uses "D" batteries (which I've pretty much tried to eliminate from the house in favor of "AA" and "AAA" wherever possible) and they are HEAVY.  The output of the lamp is not very good compared to modern LED systems.  But, DAMN, does it look sweet up there!

Pictures soon...

UPDATE 1/17/2010

Here are some closer pictures

Here is a head on view.  Note the face of the lamp is glass in a chrome ring.  There is an "eyeshade" over the top.  This ring/glass assembly is held onto the body of the lamp by two flip clamps on the right and left side.








 Here are side and back views.  Note again, the back cover is held in place by another larger flip clamp.  The square thing on the back is a slider space that goes over the bracket on the head tube of the Twenty.  It just slides on and off using the little handle!

From the top down, you can see the "big red switch."  It takes a bit of force to move it, but there is a satisfying click when it goes into place.

OK... now with the back door open.  Notice the corrosion on the door.  Someone left the batteries in too long!  The bottom panel where the batteries sit is also corroded - right side worse than left.  This is where I took a strip of heavy duty aluminum foil and connected the base of the right battery up the right wall of the box and taped it down.  Worked great!  Notice also the connectors on the top.  They are brass and spring loaded to hold the batteries in.  Also pretty slick - an extra lamp compartment on the bottom!! And the bulb works!  All of the fasteners in the lamp are either rivets or fold over tabs.  You can see the piece on the back door that holds the lamp to the bike is held on with four fold-over tabs.  This thing is HEAVY with the "D" cells in it.

charles

Rain, Rain, Rain

We've been having some really wet days around here and it has kept me from riding in to work. There are a few brave souls out riding, but I have spent my ride time working out on an exercise bike and doing core exercises. Current mood: Upbeat about the summer!


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Mercier Bordeaux-Paris Road Bicycle

This is a Mercier Bordeaux-Paris from probably around 1984 or so.  I came across this bike at a local thrift store.  I was shocked that anyone would even donate such a bike and grabbed it immediately.  I love finding stuff at thrift stores... they are like never ending garage sales - and the proceed usually go to benefit some cause.

The graphic to the left gives the dimensions of the bike and angles.  It is a pretty tight geometry designed for road speed.  The front of the pedal toe clip will catch with the tire if you are not careful.

When I got the bike, it was absolutely filthy, flat tires and the bar tape was cotton and basically just a mass of glue with threads stuck in it.  It took forever and a ton of Goof-Off to get the bars clean.  The decals on the bike were pretty rough and shredded (I guess this is common with Merciers).  There was enough decal when you looked at both sides to make out what they said though. There is a pretty large scratch in the right side of the seat tube (as you are sitting on it).  But I left the paint original.  It is a stunning royal blue - I've never seen another bike like it.  I took pictures of all the decals and sent them to Michael Swantak who ran a company called Velographics.  He replicated the entire set including the decals on the stem.  The only decal I did not have was the one  on the head tube.  We decided to make a generic Mercier logo label.  It is probably not what was there originally, but there as no way of knowing for sure.

I replaced the brake and shifter cable housing with snow white ones.  The gum brake hoods were shot.  I found a set of white Campy hoods from a place in England.  Took about a month to get them in.  I put new tires and tubes on it and spent a lot of time cleaning and waxing it up.  Once I got the gunk off the handlebars, I wrapped them in a nice cushy white cork wrap.

The bike has an almost full Campy gruppo - brake levers, brake blocks (including shoes), shifter levers, front and rear dérailleurs. I've never had Campy before, so I'm not sure what level it is. I had a person at Recycled Cycles in Seattle take a look at it and he told me that Campy does lower end stuff as well as the high end stuff its known for.  I think this is comparable to the Shimano 600 gruppo I'm familiar with.  It has Nervar cranks.  I tacked on some no-name pedals with Christophe toe clips and white leather straps.  I prefer toe clips to the newer clip in pedals

It has a Campy front hub laced to a Mavic 27 x 1.25 rim.  In the back, it has a Helicomatic hub laced to the same rim as the front.  It has a Helicomatic 6-ring cluster that ranges from 24-14 teeth.  The front chain rings are 52 and 42.

The front fork is the same color as the body of the bicycle.  I have an Italian bike of the same vintage (more on her later) that has chrome forks and seat stays and it looks fabulous.  This one looks good too, but I wonder what it would look like with chrome.  The top of the fork head has a Mercier logo embossed in the metal - nice touch.

Sheldon Brown's site has a nice write up on French bikes.  You can read more about the uniqueness of the French velocipedes there.  In particular, he has a whole section on the Helicomatic hub.  Doesn't sound too good, but I've never had problems with it.

I'm going to keep this bike as kind of a museum piece. Once, I thought of donating it to a local bike shop to help a school fund drive.  That didn't work out, so I decided to ride it for a while (that is why it looks so dirty right now).  It rides great!  But, alas, it is just too small for me.  This is a 56cm bicycle and I ride a 59cm for the most part.  I just found myself too hunched over and it was painful  on longer rides.  I have a dream of someday opening a cycle shop and if I do, this will be one of the wall decorations!

charles

Double South

It was a spectacular weekend here in the Pacific Northwest.  The temperatures were a balmy mid 50s during the day and the sun was out for good portions of the days.

I was up at 6:30 this morning for a loop ride around the island.  It was dark when I started, but grew light enough by the time I finished that I could turn off the NightRider.  I did a loop of Mercer Island and added on another round of the south end for a ride I'm calling "Double South."  Unforunately, I do not know how far it really was because my cyclometer was belly up when I started.  I hit a huge bump on the north end of the island by the Lid Park and it started working, but I didn't get a final mileage.  I'm going to guess around 18 miles overall.

I felt great finishing up and the knee held together fine for the rest of the day.  I need to build my commitment to riding on these nice days.

Highlight of the morning:  Mount Ranier standing tall and white with snow in a bright salmon and coral morning light.  Absolutely spectacular!  I must start to bring a camera on these rides.

charles