How a bicycle is made

[ukdodger]

That is awesome alan what is it like to pedal. i bet the bike weighs a ton. Have you restored it yourself?

thanks
opinion seems divided on this, it is certainly an interesting bike I have ended up with
It has been a right pain "restoring" it, but I am finally getting somewhere

Surprisingly, I am finding this bike no slower or difficult to pedal than my modern bike
I tend not to do more than 18mph anyway


It seems that you can not get decent cotters pin any more, so I had to give up on them
apart from that - steel cranks always seem to just bend (may be because I ride fixed?)

I still have a cotter pin bike. Two years ago knowing they were kaputt I went to an old bike shop in Dorking and bought every Cotter pin they had. I have enough to see me out! If you're careful you can remove them without damage. You can tell the quality cotters. A file will skid on them.

[alanesq]

I bought cotter pins from 3 different suppliers but they all might as well have been made from plasticine

As it happens I now have 4 good cotter pins as my dad had some given to him many years ago by someone who worked at Raleigh, but this was too late as I had already given up and converted it to square taper.
btw - it is reasonably easy to fit a modern sealed bottom bracket to these bikes - info here - http://houseofyes.wordpress.com/phil-wood-y-bottom-bracket/

It was a very steep learning curve finding out that modern cotter pins tend to be useless, and I have had the same experience with modern replacement brake blocks (the most recent ones I bought just threw them selves down the road when I tried to brake hard)

I will stop now though as I don't want to hijack this thread...........

[ukdodger]

I bought cotter pins from 3 different suppliers but they all might as well have been made from plasticine

As it happens I now have 4 good cotter pins as my dad had some given to him many years ago by someone who worked at Raleigh, but this was too late as I had already given up and converted it to square taper.
btw - it is reasonably easy to fit a modern sealed bottom bracket to these bikes - info here - http://houseofyes.wordpress.com/phil-wood-y-bottom-bracket/

It was a very steep learning curve finding out that modern cotter pins tend to be useless, and I have had the same experience with modern replacement brake blocks (the most recent ones I bought just threw them selves down the road when I tried to brake hard)

I will stop now though as I don't want to hijack this thread...........

It's forgiven here dont worry. Today's cotters are made from Chinese reclaimed steel like a lot of dud stuff. Anything that's made today for old bikes tends to be rubbish including brake blocks.

[alanesq]

Anything that's made today for old bikes tends to be rubbish including brake blocks.

Tell me about it !
here is what my brakes looked like after trying an emergency stop
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.blackham/cycles/blocks.jpg

[ukdodger]

Anything that's made today for old bikes tends to be rubbish including brake blocks.

Tell me about it !
here is what my brakes looked like after trying an emergency stop
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.blackham/cycles/blocks.jpg

Jesus. That's bloody dangerous.

[tyred]

rod brakes though - WHY???

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with rod brakes apart from the weight and it makes it tricky to get the wheel off. Set up properly and using a "true" wheel with the braking surface in good condition, they work just as well as any other braking system using chrome rims (i.e, pretty decent in the dry, hopeless in the wet). They have the advantage of tough, durable and largely maintenance free apart form a drop of oil on the pivots every now and again.

The trouble with them today (like much older tech) is that the skills to set them up are dead along with the people who knew such things combined with the fact that many people are trying to use them with knackered 60 year old rims. I've a roadster build with NOS rims and the brakes were set up properly with the aid of an old Elswick service guide and they work very well indeed, probably better than typical long reach Weinmann calipers on steel rims found on cheap 70s road bikes.

A well set up roadster with revised gearing is a joy to ride on country lanes away from the rush of the modern world. They're not fast but were never supposed to be. They were the daily transport of the working class, designed to give many years of service with minimal maintenance and many of them have covered the sort of mileage that the modern weekend warrior on super light but super fragile carbon bikes could only dream about.

[[XAP]Bob]

Anything that's made today for old bikes tends to be rubbish including brake blocks.

Tell me about it !
here is what my brakes looked like after trying an emergency stop
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.blackham/cycles/blocks.jpg

I can't even work out what's happened there!

[ukdodger]

rod brakes though - WHY???

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with rod brakes apart from the weight and it makes it tricky to get the wheel off. Set up properly and using a "true" wheel with the braking surface in good condition, they work just as well as any other braking system using chrome rims (i.e, pretty decent in the dry, hopeless in the wet). They have the advantage of tough, durable and largely maintenance free apart form a drop of oil on the pivots every now and again.

The trouble with them today (like much older tech) is that the skills to set them up are dead along with the people who knew such things combined with the fact that many people are trying to use them with knackered 60 year old rims. I've a roadster build with NOS rims and the brakes were set up properly with the aid of an old Elswick service guide and they work very well indeed, probably better than typical long reach Weinmann calipers on steel rims found on cheap 70s road bikes.

A well set up roadster with revised gearing is a joy to ride on country lanes away from the rush of the modern world. They're not fast but were never supposed to be. They were the daily transport of the working class, designed to give many years of service with minimal maintenance and many of them have covered the sort of mileage that the modern weekend warrior on super light but super fragile carbon bikes could only dream about.

Well said. I've got a PUCH roadster built in the seventies, not with those type brakes, but is a sturdy workhorse and a joy to ride.