Ruggedising an old road type bike for rough stuff riding

[Carlton green]

Just seen a posting on another group wherein a chap describes his 99 mile gravel tour around and over the top of the White Horse, including nearly 5000ft of climbing, and an overnight camp, on an old Raleigh 3sp (looks c1940s) fitted with old-type drop handlebars, and traditional luggage, undertaken over the past two days. The pictures honestly look like a 1950s RSF expedition!

Pictures please and/or a link. The old Raleigh 3 speed might have been a Lenton model (four speed?) and they came with drop handlebars and (steel) 26 x 1&1/4 wheels. (For a Raleigh catalogue of the period see: https://threespeedhub.com/wp-content/up ... 940-UK.pdf ). (Edit. It wasn’t the Lenton model.) The standard Raleigh might have come with fatter wheels and tyres as referenced in my earlier posts. Whatever, it’d be interesting to see the machine and have more detail of his route. I think that the early RSF guys knew how to get the best out of what kit they had, they likely ensured that it was particularly well put together, and they did walk some stuff too.

https://thewhitehorseround.uk/

The riding is a 50/50 mix of byways and backroads, and along the way it’s possible to pass, or spot, up to six white horse hill figures, which are something of a Wiltshire speciality. There’s also stone circles, hill forts, long barrows, Roman roads, ancient fortifications, and many beautiful villages.

The White Horse Round is a 117 mile self-guided gravel cycling route for experienced cyclists, with about 5,500ft of climbing. An ideal start point is Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire, but as it’s a circular route you can start where you like on it – Devizes, Swindon, Bath and Kemble (near Cirencester) work particularly well, with most of those accessible by rail.

The route is mostly on quiet unclassified and B-roads, gravel and loose stone tracks, off-road doubletrack (from fast-flowing to rough), and a small amount of singletrack. It’s a ‘gravel’ route, well-suited to a rigid drop-bar cyclocross-style bike, but adventurous in nature, sometimes briefly straying into mountain bike territory. You will encounter boneshaking hardpack, steep gradients (both up and down), rutted sections, and some long ridge sections that are exposed to the elements.

Roads make up approximately 50% of the route and are nearly all quiet, remote, or pass through small towns and villages in 30mph limits. Main roads are crossed in a few places, but no time is actually spent on them.

[Nearholmer]

https://m.facebook.com/groups/144781773 ... 600253753/?

[Carlton green]

https://m.facebook.com/groups/144781773 ... 600253753/?

Thanks. I’m not sure about Facebook and dragging stuff across to here.

The vintage sports bike is possibly one of Raleigh’s relative lightweights and it was shod with 26 x 1&3/8” (one of the pictures gave me the tyre size details) - ? Maybe it’s a sports light roadster, model 35, from my earlier link. The gearing looks high to me, but it’s not easy to (find and then) change to a smaller chain wheel and on a hub of that age the owner might be limited to a threaded 22T sprocket - depends on what driver was used on that old hub and what’s available to suit. (The threaded type sprockets only went up to 22T and I suspect that that is what’s fitted).

In the words of the Facebook member:

This is my oily rag 1948 Raleigh Sport, I dismantled it and rebuilt it with plenty of grease and some lauterwasser bars I found in the local charity bike workshop. 3 speed hub gear

Finished my gravel tour of the white horses of Wiltshire using as little tarmac as possible. The old 3 speed wasn't really the best choice but I was pleasantly surprised by the way it handled the terrain. It's a little small for me but it was a pleasure to embrace the limits, walk the steepest and roughest parts and enjoy the scenery. It was a surprise how far up a hill I could get, luggage and all before dismounting.

^^ Which supports what I’ve said of the 650A wheel bikes being just over the line as sufficient for the job.

The Wiltshire Council walking route might be different to what I posted above.
https://ldwa.org.uk/ldp/members/show_pa ... orse+Trail
https://cms.wiltshire.gov.uk/documents/ ... 0PROOF.pdf

The guy on Facebook seems to have done some route adaptations (lifted sections? and starts and ends near to Highworth), there’s a screen shot of his particular route on Facebook.

[531colin]

Historical note from somebody old enough to have come across some pretty old Raleighs ,
(as a child of course !)
As a kid, I found a Raleigh Lenton sports bike with both tyres flat, abandoned in a hedge. It was 531 main tubes, with a double sided rear hub, fixed/free. Dad insisted I gave it to my big brother, and I was heartbroken; he was right, of course, it was much too big for me....anyway, I got it back when my brother got into motorbikes!
That one had 26 x 1 1/4 inch wheels, but the one on Facebook is older.
.....and you can't swap the tyres between 26 x 1 1/4 and 26 x 1 3/8 .....the bead diameter is different.....thanks, Dunlop!

[Carlton green]

That one had 26 x 1 1/4 inch wheels, but the one on Facebook is older.
.....and you can't swap the tyres between 26 x 1 1/4 and 26 x 1 3/8 .....the bead diameter is different.....thanks, Dunlop!

Yep, the bead diameter is different because the wheel outside diameter was meant to stay at 26”. I suspect that it might have been possible to change wheels and drop the brake shoes down a few millimetres to fit 650A rims.

If given 26 x 1&1/4” wheels and tyres then I’d want to check out moving from 650’s to 650x35A’s (26 x 1&3/8”), that’d be to get about 12% more cross-sectional height (to better absorb shocks) and about 10% more width (for further cushioning and potentially better grip). Of course, important though it is, it’s not all about rider ‘comfort’; reducing noticeable shock loading onto the bike parts can but help to make them less likely to: shake loose, suffer damage, or otherwise prematurely fail.

For skinny 650’s the circa 20% plus (cumulative) gain in ‘comfort’, etc., obtained by moving to taller and fatter 650x35A’s seems a particularly significant improvement - and certainly an enabling one.
https://bike.bikegremlin.com/285/bicycl ... imensions/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_5775

The more that I research the more that I’m led to think that the cross-sectional area of a 26 x 1&3/8”A tyre is very similar to that of a 700 x35C, that’s rather unexpected. The 700x35C serves me very well over rough tracks and trails and is a significant improvement over 27 x 1&1/4”. For me going from 27x1&1/4” to 700 x 35C was a fairly easy and simple change, and I seem to have retained at least as much mudguard clearance. I observe that there are lots of old, relatively inexpensive, and not particularly heavy 27” wheel bikes out there that just need a bit of love and further use; some of them - at least check the chainstay tyre clearance - will be ideal conversions for general and rough stuff use .