Pre 1950s rides of LFGSS: old bikes, vintage rats, classic lightweights

That's amazing Sully, looks well nice. Are there matching forks?

Cheers, it's a lush frame. The stays, cluster and bridge are particularly cute, and the fillets on the head tube are really light and beautifully filed. Slightly worried about the tracking... got a bit rushed talking to Winstan (he had a journo there, the week after Bespoked), wanted to ask him to take a look. Going to let the paint harden up for a long time before I do anything with it, hopefully I can even the ends out a bit myself.

No fork but was given with it a well chromed, drilled track fork with suitable looking bends (i.e. quite low and sharp) and nice luggy bits. Pretty sure it's not original. But will be fine.

Have black ano'd rims (700 ma40s) for it which goes against my instincts but heyho, 40/32 is tough to get a nice pair of rims in, really want to lace some Airlites I have, and clearances are too close on the back end for 27s. Think it must have been made to be tight with sprints.

Will look something like an old TT bike as it's dead small but with a longish top tube - going to have lots of seat pin and not much stem showing, got a lovely pair of really old track/crit type handlebar bend in steel.

Got to get round to collecting a nice stem from @moserism, find a good seat pin, and I think I'm pretty much there.

very nice

Picked up a mystery 50's track frame of ebay a few weeks back, with an old repaint-job. Came with a period Stronglight crankset on TA track adaptor ring that was impossible to remove from the frame (the drive side crank had had the crank removal threads stripped and re-cut at a larger diameter so wouldn't fit any of my crank-pullers, not even a Stronglight one)

It turned out to be a JA Holland road/track from 1950's with very tight clearances for the period (at least on 27 1 1/4 wheels).
Have decaled it with some reproduction decals posted to me by a very nice chap in the US from Retrobike who sent them to me for free, redone the lug-lining in red and built it up for now with some spares from the Viking I sold a while ago.

Not sure I'm really happy with the lug-lining so may rub it back and try again.

1 Attachment

1

1 Attachment

2

1 Attachment

4

1 Attachment

5

1 Attachment

Love that chainset , I've been admiring the track adaptors Hilary Stone has for sale.
Currently I'm getting my 1954 world championship sprint to a more period correct state, the rims have to change and I have a nice 49d stronglight chainset all I need is a strong light bb axle about 113/14 mm anyone got one going spare?

Helpful forum lightweight lovers,
I'm in desperate need of a Sturmey Archer fulcrum clip for the downtube. An older style with the metal insert. Pref with some patina. Anyone got one one that they could post to me and arrive in time for this weekend?

Anyone have a Merkens stem that they'd like to sell me?

Funny this thread should pop back up. I've stripped the paint off my Parkes frame today.

Naked! I thought the blue was the original colour, but under the blue there was clearly a gloss black layer. I had actually matched up some paint quite closely to the blues, both Rover colours: Henley Blue for the light and Tahiti Blue for the dark. I did quite fancy changing it to black, though, and since I now know it was originally black, it's going to go black. I'll pick out the ends by hand in gold pinstripe.

I've also given the saddle a good going over. Reshaped it, lots of Dubbin underneath, a light coat of Dubbin on top and then two coats of beeswax. It's come up quite nicely but I'd probably give it a coat of shoe dye on the bare leather if I did it again. A job for next time, when my bum has rubbed all the wax off...

how did you reshape it?

Soaked it in hot water so the leather went soft. I gave it a good scrub clean at the same time. Then I set it up to dry out with a soft faced clamp to press the high spot out the leather and just a cable tie round the skirt to hold both sides in the same place. When it dries, the leather hardens again, holds its shape and you can work wax and dubbin into it to make it flexible.

Nice...read about around, I think it's called Blocking. Will give it a try. Thanks!

It is problematic to use hot water ie over 60C. Unless you want to change the structure of the leather to make it harder and brittle. The effect is Cuir Bouilli.
Those characteristics are not normally desired for a bike saddle.

See #7 of my New cover for an old saddle

And before soaking it is best to de-tension the tension bolt, and only re-tension as necessary after the leather has fully dried (think days), and no elevated temperatures for the drying process.

Without trying to inflame the ever present debate on Proofide and other leather conditioners, I only use Proofide. It is my understanding that the vegetable tanned leather (which is used in tensioned saddles) is used as it stays relatively stiff (except when wet). It will gradually mould to your shape from the pressure exerted by your 'sit bones'. It is not ever meant to be flexible. Flexibility will very quickly shorten the life of the saddle.
Many leather treatments are designed to increase suppleness of chrome tanned leather (an altogether different process and used in distinctly different applications (gloves, leather shoes, leather furniture).
These applications are quite different to the leather held under tension taking a major part of your body weight during a ride.

Didn't know that about the temperature, well worth knowing. Probably good to clarify that when I said hot, I meant like bath water!

Looking good and a fine job on the saddle. What are your plans for building it up?

Interesting stuff.

This is the rough plan. The frame is 1938/1939 according to the Sun numbering system, which I'm told is the same on the Parkes branded frames. It's got a clip headset. I'm building it up with mostly 50s components or at least 50s-looking. I've built some wheels up with early 50s Fiamme sprint rims and round hole Normandy hubs, 32/40 spokes front/rear. I think it's a Philips 48T chainset. The saddle is a 60s Wrights W3ST. Got some French bars which I'll wrap in black cloth tape. Got a selection of Villiers fixed gears. I haven't decided on brakes yet, but I've got some Mafac drop levers and Weinman 730 callipers to get me going. I'd prefer one brake but I'm not sure how it'll look with those levers.

I'm thinking it needs either 25mm or 27mm tubs, but I can't find any information on what these earlier bikes used - either what size or whether they were black, tanwall or white. Any ideas?

Question for you knowledgable people: If I've got a 531 curved seat tube, fillet brazed (no external sleeve), what diameter seatpin am I likely to need? It's smaller than 27.2 for definite.

Looking for a nice pair of 27" x 1 1/4" Constrictor Asp rims or complete wheels.
Can anyone help. Keen price for nice parts
Colin

Not conloy but Dunlop, seems like a good price
http://Look at this on eBay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131870094533

have a look through the 1939 Brown Bros catalogue. Start from this page
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22983673@N02/14656343932/in/album-72157645280907377/
and page 72 of the 1939 Aids
http://veterancycleclublibrary.org.uk/ncl/pics/Holdsworth%20Aids%20catalogue%201939%20(V-CC%20Library).pdf
and the 1938 Constrictor catalogue
http://veterancycleclublibrary.org.uk/ncl/pics/Constrictor%20catalogue%201938%20(V-CC%20Library).pdf