iab

So that rim joint not the opposite of the valve hole thread got me to thinking.

Some years ago, I bought several low flange FB hubs from a friend. Condition didn't matter, I mostly wanted them for the internals - axles, cones, etc. One of them, the last one, has been sitting in the bin for 5-6 years, Another friend proposed a trade, and I was game to get it out of the bin so it would see the light of day. I thought it was an orphan rear, 36 holes and the condition was quite good. It had never been laced. I was wrong about the hole count, it is actually a 32.

Well you say, what makes that odd? It's 18 holes on the drive side, 14 holes on the non drive side.

thumpism 

Speaking of hubs, I've seen plenty of Sturmey rear hubs and have several, but this is the first Sturmey front I've ever seen and it was in the co-op's dumpster a few weeks ago.

DiegoFrogs

I'm pretty sure that's the first I've ever seen where the outer shield is a part of the hub shell... normally I've seen ones mounted to the hub shell or to the cones. Are my eyes playing a trick on me, or is there a hole in the shield on the drive-side?

clubman 

Staying with the steel hub theme, these 30's - 50's BH Solite hubs have floating alloy dust caps on the front hub, as well as the outer shield as part of the dust cover on the rear. I suspect they machined the front openings too wide and threw a bodged quickie dustcap on it. The fit is less than first class or whatever the right phrase is.

oneclick 

Here's a pair - haven't got around to lacing the rear yet. If those SA rears you have seen were internal-gear mechs then that will be new to you as well.

I quite like them, they have a BIG HOLE look to them, like the Lambert crank.

thumpism 

Cool!

iab

All my FB hubs have the same ends, nothing unusual there. But the non drive side of the weird hub has that cylinder instead of a disc like the picture below.

FB low flange hubs 2 by iabisdb, on Flickr

oneclick 

It would make sense from a manufacturing perspective, the the flanges are pressed on so why lose strength and time turning the outer end for a removable dustcap.
You can still get the balls in and cleaning's a bit more, but the only other reason to have removable dustcaps is to replace races - and they are ground into the shell
so you'd be taking the flange off anyway.

oneclick 

A delrin rear mech with no top pivot spring: This came on a mid-70's Peugeot UG45 -ish, a child's drop-bar bike with 24" wheels - and a five-speed rear, it was listed as a "Prestige Mini":

sd5782 

Maybe not strange to others, but strange to me. This Sakae stem is on a 1986 Schwinn Mirada that I was recently working on for my sister. A lot going on with this stem.



Sakae from 1986 Mirada ATB


Steel stem transitioning to aluminum upper with brake cable hole and removable clamp. Looks like a lot of engineering for a lower end bike.

pastorbobnlnh 

thumpism and oneclick I also have one of the Sturmey Archer front hubs. I actually had cudak888 lace it for me for a '39 Schwinn New World project I completed many years ago.

Hproduguidon

sd5782 on my Peugeot 1987/88 also the brake cable goes through the stem

Hproduguidon

extension for suicide derailleur

oneclick 

tiger1964 

"WOW" doesn't even begin to describe it.

norskagent

this '71 raleigh competition I picked up at an estate sale had "custom" cable routing. No need for saddle height adjustment for a one owner bike!

Hproduguidon

What do you mean

tiger1964 

While familiar, at a distance, with cable-less FD's -- my brother raced on one, and still has the bike -- I have never seen a set-up like this one. Seems like an extreme end-result of a "pre-cable" era, even though RD's had cables at this point. Was this an off-the-shelf option, or a one-off fabrication. At the very least, someone had to make that clevis for this application, I might presume.

Hproduguidon

tiger1964 a collector friend who owns 200 bikes has already seen this system but could not confirm that it was an option or an ingenious homemade system

obrentharris 

Cinelli aluminum bars with bulge instead of shim.






Brent

iab

^^^^^^^^^^^

I have seen that in one or two places. Certainly an odd duck.

iab

Tolerances, who needs them?

John E

A British gent who had retired to Fallbrook (San Diego County) CA after a career with Hetchins, had a beautiful collection of 24 Hetchins road bikes spanning 24 model years. One of them had a reversed bottom bracket, with the fixed cup on the left and the adjustable cup on the right. One could easily enough do that with Italian or French threading (I have also seen the use of two adjustable cups a few times to allow chainline finetuning), but this was English(!) threading. Someone at the factory presumably left-threaded the left side of the BB shell and right-threaded the drive side.

tiger1964 

If that's homemade -- I am impressed. The aluminum rod could be easily sourced and bent to shape, and topped with a shift knob from a Renault 4CV. But looking at the stabilizing clamp at the top, was that made or possibly repurposed? And, again, that clevis -- looking online at photos, the FD's lever ends in a ball, and the clevis has to fit that (unless cut off?) and the securing bolt looks offset to make room for it; does not look like a common hardware-store item to me.

Regardless, I think this part is winning the Bike Oddities Sweepstakes so far.

thumpism 

Designed to be used on a bike with out-of-phase cranks.