Tomm Willians

Tonight I picked this Dawes up for a price I couldn’t refuse. The previous owner made great effort cleaning off numerous gunk and rusted areas with before and after pics that showed a lot of hard work. He informed me that he received the bike repainted and it looks like it was painted (or should I say submerged?) with little to know prep, I’m pretty sure the original decals are under the paint.
Anyway, given the head badge design, is there any way of knowing a year range or model ? It has all chrome forks and I believe the chainstays might be as well (under the paint) my intention is to research factory paint schemes and return it to its glory ( or as close as I can get)

Cheers !

rustystrings61 

I'm saying you have a Dawes Galaxy from the late '60s or early '70s. It's roughly comparable to the Raleigh Super Course of the same time frame, Reynolds 531 plain gauge main tubes, some other decent but nameless tubing for forks and stays (possibly Truwel, but no guarantees!), Vagner fork crown, Bocama model 80 pattern II type A lugs, chromed socks for and aft, which makes for a fully-chromed fork under the paint. The derailleurs on yours are replacement SunTour units, which was the standard solution to the usual failure of Simplex Delrin Prestige units. The lugs on these varied through the years, as did some parts specs - some years they have Williams cranks, some years they have Stronglights, wouldn't be surprised to see some with Nervars, and does this one have Solida cranks? - but overall it was a good quality, solid, nice-riding bike.

The lack of fancy tubing shouldn't stop you. I used to have a '62 Dawes Realmrider, a step or two below this model, built of what was probably Truwel or comparable generic steel, with a 4-speed Sturmey Archer gearhub and 27-in wheels. It had an amazing ride, it just glided smoothly and beautifully with lovely road manners, and I did a bunch of rides on it, including a metric century.

The overwhelming majority of these I have seen were in the green pictured in the thread linked above. Apart from the brakes, the rest of the components were serviceable but better stuff is readily available and cheap. That process has already started with the SunTour derailleurs, though a V-GT Luxe or a VX of some sort would be nicer. These were sold with steel rims early on and later came with alloy, which is always a good upgrade.

Tomm Willians

The crank arms and chain rings are marked Milremo if you know anything about that brand ? What would you suggest for a wheelset that would look period appropriate?

rustystrings61 

Milremo (MILan-san REMO) was the house brand shared by Ron Kitching and Andre Bertin; they sold frame parts and components, usually re-branded parts made by other companies. My Dawes Realmrider had an alloy Milremo front hub that looked for all the world like a standard small-flange Atom unit, and it probably was one. See more here, here, and here about them.

Stock wheels would have been high/large-flange Normandy Sport hubs laced to Weinmann 27-in alloy rims, or comparable, with a rear spaced 120 mm for 5-speed. The hubs in the pictures look like Normandy Sports, actually - are they? If your spokes aren't all seized up, you could do what everyone did back in the day and get some alloy 27-in rims, tape them along side the existing ones, and then transfer one spoke at a time to the alloy, then tension and true. Or you could look around for a good used set of wheels - or you could remove the stock crankset and running gear and built this one up as a fixed-gear or single-speed, or even run it with an internal gearhub. It's very adaptable.

If you really wanted period correct, you could find some 27-in alloy Weinmanns and lace them up, or again, find a vintage used wheelset.

Tomm Willians

The rims are marked “Bernie Archer England” and the hubs are Milremo.
m
Correction. That is Sturmey Archer

rustystrings61 

Sure that's not Sturmey-Archer, England?

Tomm Willians

Yes, my mistake

rustystrings61 

Milremo hubs are actually stock, too and that points to late 60s, like the one in the review from '69. If you're not riding in the rain, the stock steel ones are fine, but alloy would be zippier and would stop better in wet weather.

rustystrings61 

Wait - here is the review from '69 and a thread on these bikes - I forgot to link it earlier!

Tomm Willians

It would appear I still have the factory brakes as well. I’m starting to think maybe just re-painting a factory color with decals and leaving the rest alone. I have quite a few other bikes, there’s really no need to start trying to “improve” this one when it seems it is still period correct.

rustystrings61 

Yeah, it pretty much is period correct, and a good cleaning and a nice dark green or bronze with the right decals and you're good to go. I would NOT restore it to Simplex derailleurs, though - I would suggest either keeping these SunTours or upgrading to the alloy body V-GT Luxe rear, and maybe scoring a set of SunTour's power ratchet downtube shifters to get rid of the flexy and fragile Simplex levers. The Weinmann Vainquer centerpulls, with good pads, lined housing and quality cables, works as well as anything out there - I just realized the other day that I have FOUR bikes equipped with those now and they all stop as well as any dual-pivot sidepull I've used.

It's a good example of the sort of bike people actually RODE back then. Some people like these as the basis for a touring bike, it's not as flexy as a lighter, full 531 double-butted frame, and lots of people rode a lot of miles on these. It was certainly a cut above the majority of bike boom 10-speeds. I can tell you I really liked the ride quality of my old Realmrider, which had similar geometry.

Mr. 66

Its about 1968, the trapezoid straddle clamp was not used for long. Does still have the saddle, that may have a date stamped.

Tomm Willians

No the original saddle is missing unfortunately, I’ll likely put a B17 on it.