I remember long summer evenings cycling around the farm at Craigielaw and riding around the 3000 Acres of Gosford Estate where we grew up, not a care in the world and a free playground...
I will remember this summers long warm evening cycling for years to come too...
If your around my age and rode bicycles as a kid that you learned to fix yourself then you probably had a basic tool kit something like this. I have had all this for years and looked it all out yesterday evening..
Old bikes do not need many tools to service and repair unlike modern bikes. A bone spanner and some old flat spanners for axle cones and Bottom Bracket lock ring... tools that were always lying around in sheds, and could be found at jumble sales etc...
An adjustable of some sort for headsets and any large nuts...
A light, remember these Wonder Lights? -:)
and a pump - though in the 1980`s every village had a garage/petrol station with an air line...
An old spoon to remove tyres, most kids did not have a Nazi SS tyre lever though! ...
More specific tools were added as i got more into fixing up old bikes. A screw - on cassette remover tool, the BMX one i bought would also fit early MTBs and road bikes i bought when i got older.
A chain splitter, some allen keys and screwdrivers were about all you needed to keep bikes going and service them. 3 in 1 oil for the chain, and for all bearings a tube of grease `relieved` from the farm workshop -:)
We got so many punctures from the Hawthorn hedges here that dad showed us how to fix our own punctures so we did not have to wait till he got home from work, then get pounced on by 3 kids needing bikes sorted!. We got a large brown colour strip of patch you cut your patch from to size with scissors, then allowing the glue to dry, applied it over the hole then with it on your knee rolled the patch firm with a golf ball, then added some talc powder to finish it off. Some tubes used to have loads of patches, showing more patches than rubber! -:)
We did not have any of the UK 1970/80 crazes bikes like most friends that had Raleigh Grifters and Choppers, we had traditional roadsters first in 20" then 24" wheel sizes as we grew until we rode bikes like this 26" Raleigh...
Most friends were not interested in old 26" roadsters but we were as they were faster. There were always loads of these bikes lying about in friends garages or their grandads sheds or secondhand shops for little money, and many summer holiday afternoons were spent stripping down and rebuilding old bikes to keep one going out of several. Bikes like these are great as cup and cone hubs and ball race bottom brackets and loose bearing headsets meant that in theory as long as stripped and repacked with grease they would run and run - as Raleigh stated in many old adverts `Built to last a hundred years`...
We usually changed the bars to cow horns and stripped off every thing not needed - mud guards, chain guards etc.. i guess we were all Klunking...
Pocket money at high school and pheasant beating at Gosford Estate and Caddieing at Gullane lead to BMX as the craze swept through the UK in the mid 1980`s. My big brother was off to University and sold his 12 speed brown and tan Raleigh racer to buy one of these Peugeot Triathlon bikes in 1987 to race with...
I still have my brothers Peugeot hanging in the Man cave, in running order but not been ridden much...
By Autumn 1987 i was now mountain biking on a Raleigh Maverick, a few years earlier i had wanted one of these...
Then a few years later Cannonale's etc came along. I did pick up an old early Courier like above (made in Japan at the Tange Factory) which i ride regularly as a commuter hack, shop, pub bike...
An ace old bike...
These early MTBs were built with components that are maybe heavier than modern stuff but have less to go wrong, like the Suntour thumbies, not much to them, while trigger shifters are full of little plastic parts.
Adding a rear rack for a waterproof pannier doubles as a mudguard, also added my old Hope HID light. the light is about 7 years old and still going, the spot beam is ideal for the commuter.
Dutch horse shoe lock is handy...
Still on old skin wall tyres, original Dia Compe canti brakes, hubs and Suntour mechs...
BOB trailer axle nuts turn it into a shopping hauler...
A great old bike, cost me £65 on eBay, and fitted the extras i had already, and a new chain every 2 years.
And to add to this bike another hack, my brothers Peugeot which after a rake through the man cave for some parts have got it up and running last week. I added the wide Salsa drop bars that had been on the Fargo i briefly had last year and it rides nice on the road. It is heavier being Reynolds 501 steel but it still nips along...
So i decided to get it more ship shape for run around duties and after buying some 32mm cyclocross tyres for £23 the pair on eBay to replace the 23c slicks i added a rack and the TIME pedals, tools, lights, pump and bottle cages from the yellow and blue TEC road bike and have ended up with this:
A commuter/ shops /Rough stuff/ Railway walks tourer/ Pub bike/ Hack... -:)
A high angle MTB stem raises the bars for a more relaxed and comfortable ride than before. bar end side lights for commuting...
The steel tubes are heavier but it is a more forgiving ride than the alloy frame/carbon fork TEC road bike i have been riding this summer most days to work and onto North Berwick to visit dad...
Rear drop outs have adjuster screws allowing to change the chain stay lenght and to a small degree bottom bracket height and fork angle. I have removed them to slam the wheel right back to get the 32mm tyres in. BB height is 11 inches...
These tyres are a wee bit slower than the 23c slicks but give a more comfortable ride on our rippled and badly repaired country roads where this bike will mostly be used, and also ideal for the blaze surfaces of the Old Railway Line walks...
I changed the callipers to these Weinmann type 500`s for more tyre clearance. Brakes are better than on the TEC road bike!, note the old skool `Kool Stop` BMX brake pads... -:)
Sugino cranks still have original caged bearing BB, gearing is a nice range with a larger 7 speed cassette than the road bike. I can ride up all local hill roads ok seated...
Replaced the outer brake cables for some of the cheap orange BMX brake cable outer i bought at £7 for 10 meters on eBay. It was a bit spongy on the Surly KramPug so was swapped out for Jagwire. Then i remembered i had not filed the ends square, doh!, stuff works fine now. Down tube shifters, like thumb shifters less to go wrong...
Rear rack was originally bought for the Pugsley and swapped out and been hanging up since, takes the other Karrimor pannier i have for work and shopping stuff...
So 2 nice old bikes, from an era of 1980`s cycling, as it had been more or less unchanged in its basic form of easy to maintain bikes since Victorian times, to today in an age of bicycle disciplines requiring the latest and high tech cutting edge bicycle developments in materials pushing the possibilities of what a bicycle can do...
These 2 old bikes are not worth much in value, but they are as important now as when they were made and advertised in magazines etc.. as they will still do their job of taking someone from A - B...
But they are worth a lot more than their value for nostalgic reasons to the owner...
Oh wow, Wonder Lights! I hadn't thought about those in ages.
ReplyDeleteIt came on the Muddy Fox when i bought it Hjalti, a blast from the past... -:)
ReplyDeleteA nice bike. My daughter gave me a Raleigh Champion, 531 throughout, for Fathers Day. I think its a late 70's model but will have to research it. Its all original but needs some work. Its really too high geared for me now with 52/42 chainrings and a six speed 26 - 13 cassette, but in the right hands its a fast bike. I may convert it to a tri bike for my son and son in law to use. A lovely well made bike though.
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