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• #4
Exactly this. :)
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Fitted a brand new chain today. The old one was slipping every now and again and was past 0.75% wear. This coincided with the emergence of an annoying rattling noise. What could it be? A loose bolt? A slack spoke? The chain too tight or loose? Eventually traced the source to my Kryptonite lock, which hangs on the bike. Irritating. Solved with a few scraps of inner tube to damp the rattle.
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Still going strong. Steers like an aircraft carrier, so it's not so nifty for dodging around barriers or taking sharp turns (or maybe that's just my weak bike handling skills).
Some cretin nicked the handlebar grips over the weekend (why???) so I had to splash out £2.50 at Wilko for some new ones. They're actually nicer than the ones I had before.
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Fitted a set of Humpert Ergotec handlebars, on the recommendation of those in the retro mountain bikes thread.
I discovered in this process that the Raleigh Ascender (or my one, at least) has a 21.1mm-diameter quill stem, rather than a standard 22.2mm (1"), so standard quill stems and Ahead adapter do not fit. This is an old BMX and early MTB standard, apparently. So I could not swap out the stem.
Instead of sensibly abandoning my plan to fit the new handlebar, I bent the original 1-bolt stem clamp open, shoved the new handlebar in and bent it closed again. Do not try this at home. The clamping area on the Humpert Ergotec is 25.4mm so it fits. Sensible people would get a handlebar without a closed loop and just slide it in.
It is amazing how much lighter an aluminium handlebar is than a steel one.
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Yes, I was kind of counting on that.
The hardest bit was bending it closed again, without owning any kind of clamping device. I was pretty pleased with my solution: using the quill stem adapter I had bought, as the long bolt in it is the same threading as the handlebar clamp. Effectively acting as a giant handlebar bolt and wedge-shaped washer.
Sensible people would simply own a vice, of course.
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Unsurprisingly, my earlier bodge was less than ideal and the handlebar had a tendency to loosen over time. I found an extremely satisfying solution however that should be known to all owners of bikes with 21.1mm steerers. It's this 20.8 to 28.6mm quill adapter from Muqzi on eBay, designed for kids' bikes. The 20.8mm diameter is close enough to 21.1mm (especially with the expanding quill) that it fits the Raleigh steerer just fine.
So out came the crowbar, prised off the old single-bolt steel stem and stuck a modern one on. No more loose handlebar.
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About
Raleigh Ascender singlespeed conversion
Posted by
@AntSel
Bought this 1990s mountain bike for the princely sum of £10 on Facebook Marketplace. It's a Raleigh Ascender (15-speed), made in Nottingham. Nothing remotely high end, but I wanted something with horizontal dropouts for a single speed project.
The front cantilever brake was missing and the rear tyre had a slow puncture. Got it home without dying too many times. It has a lovely reflective paint. The bike came with a lock, and as a sweet bonus: the key to that lock.
Installed a new set of cheap V-brakes, swapped the tyres from cheap 1.9" knobbies to 1.5" slicks, removed both derailleurs, chainset and freewheel. Removed shifters and worn out grips and replaced them with some (admittedly quite hard) cheap plastic ones.
Wanted to respace the rear axle using ultra precise measurements for optimal chainline, but the drive side cone and lock nut have seized. Didn't fancy getting a new wheel or axle so I just reinserted the axle backwards and redished the wheel the opposite way. By some fluke this results in a pretty good chainline at first glance.
Works well so far. The wheel hasn't collapsed from my amateur dishing efforts and the chain hasn't come off yet. The new chainset is a Sturmey Archer 42T and the freewheel (I didn't have the stomach for a fixed "suicide hub") is a 16T Diamondback effort. The chainring has a guard on both sides so am not too worried about dropping chains. I am using the old chain for now (on the verge of .75% wear) but will get a new one eventually. Pedals are the ones that came with my road bike.
Most important addition was a blue anodised bell. I also got a bargain on a rack, though it may be a challenge to get it to attach to the reflector bridge without interfering with the rear V-brake calipers.