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Awesome, can’t wait to see how this turns out.
I’ve got a pimped out Raleigh Twenty and I have another similarly shaped thing (think it’s branded Mayfair?) with proper bb and headset to fuck about with.
I was thinking of brazings hanger on it and chucking some Campag gears on but maybe it wants something a bit more left field doing with it.
I think SBC or someone (who is it has the giant innertube ball?) posted a photo of a double stacked Raleigh Twenty tall bike at some point but I can’t find it now.
M_V
It's project time again. There's a local event coming up next weekend, the Salop Sludger, that I've done with a friend a few times. This year it's an alley cat around town and we fancied doing it on a daft bike (yes, bike singular). I spotted the Raleigh Twenty tandem someone was selling on here a while back and thought I'd have a go at doing something similar.
The local bike charity has a stack of old 20" shopper bikes which I had a pick through, initially selecting a couple of Raleighs Twenties. A bit of research showed that Dawes Kingpins would be a better choice though, they have a 68mm English threaded bb, better headsets, half decent Weimann brake calipers, and the frames are nicer quality. So two were purchased last weekend. Budget for the build is near zero and time is limited so this is going to be a ratty, cobbled together from the bottom of the parts bin special.
Both bikes have been almost fully stripped down. A huge amount of weight has been saved by ditching the kickstands, mudguards, racks, light brackets, seatclamps (most of which are made of steel!) etc. The actual frames are reasonably light and well made. The cottered cranks are gone too which will be another big weight saving. I'll be swapping out the original saddles, pedals, brake levers and grips to make some concession to comfort for the ~50km ride.
Next up was the chopping of the frames, everything behind the seatube is gone from the front frame and everything in front of it from the rear one. It'll then have two new tubes brazed in. I was going to keep the top tube of the rear bike (similar to the one for sold recently) but it would have been ridiculously short and upright for the stoker. Handily the seatposts are a close enough diameter (another win for Dawes!) that a 1 1/8" stem works for the stoker bars.
I've got one decent rear wheel with a working Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub which will stay and the drivetrain will be a pair of road square taper cranks. One chainring on the front set and two on the rear so all the chain business is on the drive side, a chain will run from front crank to rear crank on the inner rings, then a second chain from the big outer ring on the rear crank to the hub. I've got a few different BBs to mess with chainline. I'll cross the tensioning the front chain bridge when I get to it, thinking perhaps an sliding tensioner with a jockey wheel on the frame tube or a big chainring in the middle of the chain run. Front rider will do the braking and stoker the shifting to avoid having to buy long shifter cables (I did say this would be low budget!). The route is mostly flat so braking should hopefully get close to adequate with new cables, decent levers and the Weimann calipers.
That's as far as I've got and a big dump of what's in my brain. The event/deadline is Saturday 9th so for once it'll be a project that doesn't go on for months.