dirtman

As I posted about in For the love of English three speeds (https://www.bikeforums.net/21488046-post22660.html), I've been slowly reviving what I believe is a 1959 Burgers three speed. The bike is very much similar to an early 50's Norman but with a Thompson bottom bracket and Spanner wrench style headset.
The rear hub is dated 3/59. Unlike an English bike, Both wheels are 36 spoke rather than the usually 32/40h configuration.
The bike had at some point had a crash, the frame was fine but the fork was bent in several directions. With lots of careful bending and prying I have the fork back to 100% again.
It needed some touch up work were the paint was gone and it had rusted a bit and with some old black lacquer and some detailing I repaired the worst of the rusty bits. I mainly painted a section of the top tube and part of the chain guard.
The wheels are the biggest issue right now, the original rims were badly pitted on one side, they likely sat flat on a garage floor for decades. I was able to clean off the rust but the result is two shiny but badly speckled rims with the rear rim having a larger bits of chrome missing.
The rims are sort of an oddball, they resemble the common Endrick rims found on many English bikes but are as wide as a Raleigh pattern Westrick rim but with tapered sidewalls. They most closely resemble older Rigida steel wheels found on many French bikes back in the day.
The original rims do not have any markings as to who made them.
The question is whether to just leave the original rims and keep the 60 year old patina intact or do I lace up something more modern, or maybe a period correct rim like a Rigida?
I'm also haveing trouble finding suitable tires for this. The newer Kenda tires are a full 1/2" narrower than what the bike has on it from what I gather was likely the 1960's. They're still usable but the rear tire is a made in Japan gumwall and the front a made in USA Carlisle blackwall.
When going though my old tire stash, I found several good used Raleigh Record tires from the 80's or early 90's, a few Cheng Shin tires from the late 70's and some newer Cheng Shin branded tires made in Taiwan.. The original tires on the bike measure just slightly short of 1 1/2" wide, the 1977 Chen Shin tires are just slightly larger than 1 3/8" wide, and the Raleigh Record scripted tires measure just a fraction over 1 1/4" with the newer Kenda tires being under 1 1/4" and those don't seat well on the rim, they don't want to pop up evenly all around.
The narrower tires don't look right at all, and likely are dangerous to the rim. The 1977 dated Chen Shin has the same type of tread as the Carlisle on the original front rim now but its also narrower.
The fact that this has a rim that's a bit wider than most isn't helping much either.
All of the pictures below are tires mounted and inflated on rims.

I've known the newer tires are smaller than the old tires but this is the first time I've compared a good original size tire to something newer. All tires are marked 65spi max.


Raleigh Record tire (L) compared to Carlisle Tire (R) (New Kenda K35 is even narrower than the Raleigh tire)

'77 Cheng Shin tire (C-92A-27) vs. 1960's Carlisle (26x1 3/8", 37X590)

Original rim on right, unknown replacement rim marked Made in Italy on left. The two rims are nearly identical except for the stamping on the replacement rim.

oldlugs

26x1 3/8" is the worst size for 'shrinkage' over the years. What they sell us these days are 1 1/4" wide at best. They're hard on vintage rims too.

There's likely little value in an old Burgers bicycle but they are every bit as well built as anything from England.
There was just one on eBay, a coaster brake ladies model.
Burgers ENR on eBay

That brand is obscure at best in the states, I'm not sure if the few models that appear here were imported by a distributor or just the result of someone moving here and bringing their bike with them. Since I've only run across or seen less than a half dozen of those in my 40+ years around bicycles, my guess is the latter.

The two I've worked on here were sort of odd ducks, they're a Dutch bike, built like an early English bike, but often used a mix of metric and USS hardware and threads.
Both had the rims like on yours. The front hubs all looked like older chrome plated Bendix hubs, the rear hubs were Bendix on one, Sturmey Archer on the other.

randyjawa 

Carefully look at and take good clear pictures of all of the documentation on the original tire. I have run into your problem before and learned something, best explained with pics from your tire. Make sure you get all documentation. Even the fine print. I will look back to see if I can be of more specific help. In closing...

The tires are out there. You just have to figure out which ones you actually need for proper fit.

oldlugs

I found this online about Dutch bikes of that era, it may shed some light on how yours was built.

https://translate.googleusercontent....65YA_B5YIN4x2A

dirtman

There's not much written on the Carlisle tire, just a big 37-590, and 26x1 3/8" in four places around the sidewall on each side, then Maximum Recommended Pressure 65 PSI up buy the band of thin tread on the edge.
The whole tire is larger than the newer Cheng Shin, every band of tread is proportionally larger than the older tire. No doubt they did that to cut costs and rubber usage.
I've got a vintage set of Uniroyal tires from the early 50's that are new old stock here, those are even wider than the Carlisle or that gumwall I took off.
I also thought it was odd that the old gumwall tire wasn't melting like most do, it was slightly cracked on the sides but very sound yet. It read made in Japan and Chang Yung on the sidewall. That tire is wider than all the rest of them.
I've got a couple of bike boxes put away in the attic with some new old stock tires from the 50's and 60's that were vacuum sealed in plastic when they were new. The oldest are some from Western Flyer, which I think are just Uniroyal tires rebadged. I've got a case of Uniroyal chain tread Schwinn S5/S6 tires but they don't do me any good on this thing.
I really didn't want to dig into my stash for a bike that was pretty much going to be a daily beater. I'd rather just buy a set of new cheap blackwall tires for it but not if they're going to look lost on the rims.
The rims on this thing are close in width to some middleweight bikes, and the older tires are as wide as the new middle weight (26x1 3/4" ) tires you get today.
I just put a set of new Kenda tires on a Schwinn Typhoon, they fit and work but they're WAY narrower than what was on it when it got here. I think the tires I took off were Western Auto branded and both had basically rotted off the rims.

I put the older Cheng Shin on the bike for now, I wanted to get it on the ground to see what it looked like. Its still on the original rims with all the chrome loss. From 10ft away it looks decent and they are straight.
I still have to figure out which brakes this is supposed to have on it. The rear was an alloy Altenburger with a cast aluminum adapter to fit the oddball brake bridge. After looking at the link oldlugs posted above it looks like maybe the newer bikes, after 1957 may have come with aluminum calipers, so I may have the correct rear caliper, and just need the right front and two matching brake levers.

Its no creampuff but its a far cry from where it was two weeks ago. What's on the bike now is all good, the bearings are all done, I banged the dents out of the fenders and chainguard, and gave each rim a good going over on the truing stand. So far its coming together far nicer than I ever figured it would considering how banged up and rusty it was.
The only reason I started working on it was simply because I had never seen one before. I took the thing for a short ride with no brakes and no shifter, with the hub in high gear just to see if it handled ok and it rides great, its far more stable or self centering down the road than a Raleigh Sports, likely due to fork and head tube angle. Its about 6" or so longer than a Raleigh Sports, but surprisingly not nearly as heavy. The bare frame on this is a good bit lighter than a similar sized Raleigh and the rims also likely make a fair amount of difference being a simple design than the Raleigh Westrick rims. If its suppose to have Altenburger alloy calipers, then its also lighter there as well. If it were my size, maybe I'd build it a fresh set of aluminum rims. (Surprisingly, for a smaller frame though it sits pretty tall due to the tall stem and long seat post. (The stem is all the way down and likely could be raised up about three inches).
I also couldn't believe it had so many American threaded bolts. The stem and BB are normal, the seat and bar clamp bolts are 9/16" wrench size and 3/8" USS threaded. The pedals are 1/2" threaded like a one piece American crank, and the front hub looks to be either Bendix or a Chrome plated Wald model. The front axle is identical to a common Wald axle but is marked BWA on it and the cones are much nicer machined. The front axle nuts are 9/16", (14mm is too tight, 15mm is too loose). The headset and BB use spanner wrenches much like a German bike. The Thompson BB axle also is marked BWA on it. I got lucky in that the BB was in perfect shape, the cups are larger than most Thompson BB's by about 5mm or so. Its somewhere between the diameter of a normal Thompson BB shell and an American shell for a one piece crank.
Its biggest issue when its all back together is the pitted chrome. If it weren't an odd ball brand and if it didn't look like a pretty solid bike I'd likely have just scrapped it for the rear hub and any other small parts it could give up but its turning into a decent bike, although a bit cosmetically challenged. I guess for being 61 years old, that's to be expected though.

randyjawa 

I wish that I still had my website. If so, I am pretty sure that I could find a picture showing what to look for. The information you are looking for might be really hard to see. The print will be small and, perhaps even destroyed with the ravages of passing time and negative environmental issues.

In lieu of what I had, have a look at what Sheldon Brown has on the subject of Tire Sizing Systems. Hope it proves helpful.

JaccoW

That's all you need to know because that's the ETRTO size.

Schwalbe makes a few different models in that size, most notably the Marathon Plus, Marathon, Delta Cruiser Plus and regular Delta cruiser.
The latter being offered in both a Blackwall as well as a Whitewall version. Available for about €11 each. Maybe even available in cream.

The Marathon Plus is also available in a fatter 42-590 size.

dirtman

Some of these tires read 590mm some have just 26x1 3/8", a few say Fits EA-3 Rim
They're the right tire by application, they just aren't true to size like the original tires were. The widest 26x1 3/8" tires in recent years was the Michelin World Tour or a few from Schwalbe but the better tires are big money. It don't make sense to put $65 worth of tires on a $100 used bike. The bottom line is that as the years progressed, the tires got smaller regardless of the size they're marked on the sidewall.

non-fixie 

Mebbe not, but I do it all the time.

Seriously, if this were about money this forum wouldn't exist, now would it?

dirtman

Your missing my point, There's no good reason any bicycle tire should cost as much as a car tire.
I just put four new tires on my car for $199 shipped to the door, and they carry nearly 4,000 lbs and can travel at highway speeds, for 60,0000 miles.
These tires aren't that expensive elsewhere, only here. I've got friends on the UK and in various parts of Asia and tires are still cheap. Its the taxes, tariffs and mark up we're paying for.
A tire that sells for $22 here likely costs $5 in other parts of the world.

This bike isn't going to be my main ride, its just a curiosity at best. Its not my size, although I suppose it can be adjusted to be ridden if I wished to. Along with it I bought 7 others, all larger frame English bikes with a couple of Schwinns. thrown in for free. The guy who had them does clean outs, they were collecting dust in his attic after he wasn't able to sell them online due to them all needed work. This was by far the worst of the lot, the rest are at least ridable with some air in the tires and some lube.
I hadn't even noticed this wasn't English till I unloaded the trailer the next day.