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

I don't have an ASC anymore and to be honest I wouldn't recommend one. They are novel for a but but I found mine finickity to set up and keep working. The feeling of immediacy you get from riding fixed is lost due to the noticeable lag when pedalling also. Much better to ride a genuine fixed gear or a time trial type sturmey if your after something unusual, such as an AC close ratio or AM medium ratio. The AM is meant to be a great hub. I have one but it is currently in bits....

Wait what, you found a complete René Herse at the tip? This is like the find of all finds, makes me happy!
Not only are those bikes really beautiful and my way less special french randonneur rides great, they are also really expensive!

Roadsters

I'm glad that Falcon Vitesse and Crossedthread like this bike.

Perhaps it's so long ago that these machines were current that most people are now hardly aware that they were so common in the past. They were cutting edge in the Edwardian period and continued to be a basic English bike well into the 1960's. I suspect they are still widely used in India, Africa and elsewhere. There was a time when they were used by enthusiastic cyclists, but I doubt whether any club cyclists were still using them in the 1930's (except perhaps the elderly), so to use one for touring we're looking back the best part of a century.

What could be the attraction now? Well, one reason is that conditions for cycling have got steadily worse in the past 100 years, so riding an ancient bike may be an aid to fantasising that one is still (a tiny bit) in that golden age.

The Handlebars

May look modern, but they are not. In fact these are an earlier style than this bike had when new - it's possible that the tape hides this - I've never seen bars of this type taped. I had to remove the brake levers to do it, but it was necessary because my natural riding position on this machine is to hold the bars near the middle.

I'm being called away - I'll deal with brakes in another post.
Two pics : the 'cockpit' and the chainset - the BSA sets were once very common for track use, although not with a 44 ring which I'm using.

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Great stuff Chris! I had a much later Triumph roadster a few years ago. I think it was actually a 60s or 70s bike but built identically to the earlier ones: with slack angles, Sturmey Archer and stirrup brakes. I figured there was still demand for that style bike even that late on.

I found it troublesome to commute on if I’m honest! The braking was very dependent on the condition of the rims and how true they were. The chrome on mine was a bit patchy and the joint in the rim wasn’t perfect, so the braking could be a bit grabby/snatchy as a result.

Wait what, you found a complete René Herse at the tip?

I did! I didn’t know it was a René Herse when I picked it up, I just saw the early alloy components and thought it looked interesting enough to bring home. It’s going to be a bit of a slow burner but I’ll keep putting updates here.

When I left the bike shop back in 1980ish we wew still selling the Raleigh with rod brakes, chain case, slack angles and a little lock in the fork crown. Not sure if they had the older TPI bottom bracket though?

I sem to recall they had an N frame number so made here and not brought in from a shadow factory somewhere.

Could even get mudguards drilled out to thread string through to stop skirts going into wheels lol.

I did! I didn’t know it was a René Herse when I picked it up,

You could recognise quality without branding!

I found it troublesome to commute on if I’m honest! The braking was very dependent on the condition of the rims and how true they were.

Yes, this is a big problem for these bikes. If there's anything wrong with the rims - dents, flats or just out of true, the braking will suffer. I started off with a pair of n.o.s. rims which I thought would make the project feasible. It is possible to repair some rim damage, but this requires skill and the right tools - I do know one person who has both these, but he is not young.

Chrome just compounds the problem - luckily my rims are (were) painted. There are a few little tricks to improve matters, but I can't claim the braking is better than 'adequate'. Part of the challenge of this project is to overcome the difficulty.

Photo of rear brake to follow.

When I left the bike shop back in 1980ish we wew still selling the Raleigh with rod brakes, chain case, slack angles and a little lock in the fork crown. Not sure if they had the older TPI bottom bracket

It would be interesting to know whether those Raleighs ever got much use - I doubt it!

Apart from the threading, the Raleigh BB was wider than standard so you have to use a Raleigh spindle, which is where the real problem starts.

Much better to ride a genuine fixed gear

Yes - a fixed Sturmey seems to miss the point of fixed - simplicity and lightness.

Also, the backlash in the hub makes the bike feel as though the chain is slack.

I find the AM to be a really good choice, but you need to be strong enough to climb with a rather high bottom gear (or stay on the flat!). The AM is roughly the same as having a 3 speed block with sprockets of (say) 16, 18, 20 teeth.

I once found a mit 30s Bianchi mens bike in the tip, but that was in the 90s.
Would have thought everyone checks what they have in the days of eBay before throwing out, but I guess you (we) were lucky this time!

This was Hull, still suffering the effects of the Icelandic cod wars and there were bikes everywhere........ As well as bombed out houses from WW 2.

The old Raleigh Superbe was a good at selling the Esquire :)

Thanks! Also for the input, thats really appreciated.

However, due to some storage problems and the to small size (for me) of the Bertrand, I sold it rather recently.

I keep yours and @clubman's advise regarding Sturmey hubs.

Two more Roadster pictures:

Westwood rim with presta valve. There's a home made plastic washer between the tube valve and the rim to prevent the tube getting damaged by the large hole intended for a Woods valve.

Back brake. More complicated than usual, but not really more efficient! The frame and brakes are Sunbeam - I'm not really a fan of this marque, but they just seem to turn up. Sunbeams were expensive, but it seems to me that they got away with this by heavy advertising rather than by offering a good product. They were originally made by John Marston Engineering, but when this firm went over to war production in the late thirties the bike making went first to AMC motorcycles and then to BSA, who made this frame. Eventually the brand went into the TI/Raleigh black hole.

Let's hope that any more photos will show that I've ridden it somewhere interesting.

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A pair of old handlebars I will never use now.

If anyone wants to collect them from NW 10 - a modest donation to the forum would be appreciated.

Note - they are steel and the outside diameter is 7/8", so you would need a suitable stem

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https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126270705225

might be of interest to some in here (not mine)

Feels like the presences of original paint has become more important to vintage enthusiasts even if the condition is poor which has made me question getting a vintage frame resprayed.

When I bought this frame someone had already done a restoration job on the downtube, original paint stripped and decal’s replaced but the placement was off and also the colour not a great match so I removed this paint hoping to uncover original paint and decals but sadly not.

I now have a partially striped frame with poor original paint.
The question is do I see this through and completely strip/ respray or try to salvage the situation?

Any thoughts much appreciated!

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If you can match it I would try and match the paint. That said, looks like it might have been flamboyant or some sort of metallic paint, in which case it'll be almost impossible to match I would imagine.

If you do manage to match it okay, you can always get waterslide decals from h Lloyd for a bit extra or try and find original decals. Seem to match in much better this way than using vinyl decals .

What frame is it?

I’ve looked at a few metallic spray paints and not confident any would be a particularly good match.
The original dark brown metallic finish seems to have fallen out of fashion but does have the benefit of making the rust look less prominent (which I am also a bit concerned about).

It’s an old Condor frame I’ve had for a while but only just getting round to sorting it out.

Rust looks fine, as long as you give it a bit of a wax shouldn't be a problem. Matching that paint may be tricky though. I think Argos Bikes do a brown (tobacco?) metallic finish? Maybe you could try and get some touch up paint from them if you don't want to respray fully

Thanks for the Argos tip will have a look on their website, any particular brand of wax you would recommend please?

Not really, but I know some say Renaissance wax is meant to be good and makes existing paint look a treat as well

Swissvax Carat :)

https://swissvax.co.uk/products/carat-81-vol-carnaubawachs-mit-ptfe

I've never seen a better-looking brown bike than this one:
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/333588/?offset=75