Ged117 

I run the Kenda tires on Mrs. Ged's bike (above) I think the black looks good with the frame and mud guard colours. On my Superbe I run the Panaracer Col de la Vie. I never get tired of the ride they give, and the tread is great for dirt and gravel country paths too. Global demand for rubber continues to increase, even with the slight decline associated with the pandemic disruption.

arty dave

I found the part I need for the chaincase from my DL-1. Here it is:



The catch? Seller wants US$220!!! I think this finally resigns me to running a regular chainguard, or to just keep the bike in scorcher mode. Which I do like a lot.

Ballenxj

He's priced it to insure he's the last owner.

dirtman

Dutch Burgers ENR

I picked this up a few weeks ago, the bike is a mess but its a brand I've never heard of.
In someways its similar to the more common British three speeds but with a lot more fork angle and 36/36 spoked wheels.
The SA AW rear hub is dated 3/59
The bad, its got a bent left crank arm, (I can straighten that pretty easy), and a bent front fork.
The fork is bent in two places, the right blade is bent rearward about 1/2" and the steer tube is curved about 1/3 of the way up from the crown race.
It was a real bear to remove the tight fitting stem but I managed to get it out with some heat and a lot of oil.
The fork has a cast crown and closely resembles a fork from many other English bikes.
The frame as a lot of surface rust on the top tube, enough so it will need some touch up. The rest of the patina is about what I'd expect for a bike this age.
I plan to try to straighten the steer tube but it don't look promising.
The fork is very similar to what is on most Hercules, BSA, Norman, or non-Raleigh bikes.
The steer tube is 6" long.

The rims are rusty, pretty well pitted all over. I think the best course of action here is a soaking in some Evapo Rust or similar, or a few shots of wire wheel cleaner.

The bike uses an odd variation of a Thompson BB, the crank axle is marked BVA and looks like most other Thompson axles, but the cups are machined not stamped and the BB is slightly larger in diameter by about 4mm. Standard Thompson cups fall right through. Luckily, the BB is in good shape.

The rims are wider than most British Endrick style rims. They most closely resemble Rigida steel rims from the 60's.
The saddle is unbranded and just vinyl over linear mattress type springs. The bike is also a mix of metric and SAE hardware with a lot of square headed nuts on SAE threaded screws, but with odd wrench sizes, not metric, not SAE.
The lugs are also sort of chunky looking, each lug is sort of rounded on the surface, not flat and the seams where the lugs meet the tubes are not filled very well, I can see a gap in most of the joints as if they were just stuck together. Its a heavy bike, a lot heavier than say a Raleigh Sports of the same size. The weight is in the frame, because the fenders are super thin and sort of flimsy, they're more 'flat' than those on a Raleigh or most English bikes.

JIMBO53

I’m new to collecting British rod brake roadsters, having acquired my 1st on on 1/1/20. Now I’ve got 6, with 4 cleaned and refurbished to riding condition. The 56 Gazelle isn’t a rod brake bike, but the 1971 DL-1 Tourist with Prestube rack and the two 1974 matched Jack and Jill DL-1 Tourist bikes are. These have been gone through, cleaned/lubed the bearings, new tires and tubes and are road ready. The two Hercules Churchill Deluxe (black boys is a 53 and silver girls is a 55) 28” roadsters are waiting for some attention. It quit raining long enough to get a group shot of my Roadster stable.

gster

That is an expensive piece...
I think you'll find that fitting/running a full chaincase really is a pain.
Good for a historic restoration but not so much for regular riding.
Your bike looks great as is.

gster

That is an expensive piece...
I think you'll find that fitting/running a full chaincase really is a pain.
Good for a historic restoration but not so much for regular riding.
Your bike looks great as is.

gster

That's quite a fleet.

capnjonny 

As soon as I got home with the old Rudge (see above post) I started getting E mails from the Bike Exchange freaking out about it being missing. Turns out it was not a donation. It belonged to one of our volunteers who was in the middle of a restoration. That explains some of the new looking parts I saw on it. It apparently is a 1930 model. I wish the guy luck with the resto. I noticed that the brake pads were fosilized and looked and felt like rocks. They had a special long threaded stem. The brakes were situated so close to the fork that nothing longer than a standard length would work. Hopefully the owner can remove the rubber and replace it with something newer. I can see this bike as a rider. Everything except the brakes is servicable. Fix them and you would have a very unique bike to tool around in.

julius rensch

Wow Jimbo53 is a serious kind of enthusiast...what a nice ensemble of all my favs...these are becoming more and more rare, each day.
great job...the luggage carriers are very hard to find.....I have not had one since the 1950's
my Indian Scout had one and I installed it on my New Hudson...that was back in 1954.

Curious, where did you find those wonderful bikes...perhaps a story would be appreciated.

Julius in Ohio
"Live simply, so that others may merely live"

dirtman

This was part of the deal for several bikes including the Burgers ENR I posted about above. A 5 speed Sprite ladies model.
I took this bike as part of the lot not realizing it was a 5 speed, I never looked at it close enough to see its a Sprite not a Sports model.
I was after a clean set of rims for Raleigh Sports I've got, and this was going to give me a better wheelset and mainly the rear rack.
The problem is that after pumping up the tires if find it rides perfect. It needs a good cleaning but I'm guessing that under all that dust and grease
is a pretty clean old bike Its hard to tell in the pic but under the 50 or so years of dirt and dust it don't look bad.
Someone replaced the levers for a pair of trigger shifters and its got a really old set of Schwinn grips on it but otherwise it looks pretty much all original.
The oversized seat will also have to go. Its too wide and hard as a rock. It has no padding, just vinyl over a steel pan with two springs in the rear, my guess is that whatever padding it used to have dry rotted and either turned to dust or fell out.
The bike rides extremely tall, I'm 6ft 3in tall and the way its pictured, it fits me well. My Sports, a 24in model, doesn't sit nearly as high as this bike.
After riding it, ladies model or not, I'm having second thoughts about parting it out. The old black rubber John Bull brakes though leave a lot to be desired. It stops, but only with a ton of hand pressure on both brakes. I cannot lock up either wheel. Although I was a lot lighter back in the day, my old BSA that I rode in high school never seemed a problem when it came to stopping, but then again it wasn't 50+ years old back then.

JIMBO53

Thanks for the kind words, Julius,
In the US these bikes are not sought after very much and many [people just don't take the time to understand how to work on them. I've found all of these locally on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and swap meets. I'm rather relentless in looking for British Roadster bikes so check these sources often. I'm also willing to travel; being retired, so that helps, too. The 56 Gazelle was 3 hours away and needed a bit of work; missing a brake caliper and lever, corroded cables and notably a bent fork and an overall refurbishment. The women's and men's matching 75 Tourists were bought together from the original owner and had been stored for decades in a partially open barn so they needed quite a bit of work, esp the rims that were badly corroded. The like new 71 DL-1 with Prestube rack I found at a local swap meet. No one was interested in it and the seller was ready to put it back on his truck and take home, so I was able to offer a very reasonable price and add it to my collection. All it needed was new tubes and a wipe down. Everything else was as new, even the Dunlop Roadster tires. I had to drive 4 hours one way to get the silver 56 Hercules Churchill DeLuxe, but it was being sold for only $30 so how could I not fill the tank and hit the road? The black mens Hercules I got from a friend in GA that was helping an elderly friend liquidate a bike collection, so got that at a very fair $125. We were both going to attend a swap meet in GA about 4 hours away, so I was able to pick it up without having to deal with expensive shipping. All in all, I have about $420 in these 6 bikes, plus the cost of new tires and tubes, cables, Brooks saddles and odd parts. We have many parks and green ways in Charlotte NC so I enjoy taking these out for a ride often. The ride quality as well as build quality is amazing so I will continue to search out the neglected and forgotten bikes and bring them back to life. I never repaint these bikes, but carefully try to restore the finish as best I can. I enjoy sharing them with friends and take people out for their first introduction to these bikes. My bike hobby also extends to american prewar bikes, which I started collecting back in the 80's so I'm rather hopeless when it comes to old bikes. My wife is supportive of my obsession, which helps a lot. Hope you're enjoying your bikes during this pandemic. Along with my wife's excellent cooking, these old bikes are all that is keeping me sane during this pandemic. They are also one of the few approved methods of exercise, so I'm quite happy wrenching and riding to my hearts content.

oldspokes

I was paying $8 a piece for Kenda or IRC tires just a few years ago, and less for off brand tires from China, India, or Singapore.
The Singapore and India made tires were actually pretty decent too. I bought a pair of India made 28x1 1/2 inch tires made in India about 8 years ago and paid only $34 with shipping for 6 of them. The shipping from the UK was more than the tires were.

Last summer I bought four K103 tires in 26x1 3/8" from a bike shop here for $7 each. That shop closed up right before Christmas The new owner, who bought the shop and contents is now selling those tires for $22.99 each. The last owner was there for 50 years and retired due to sudden health issues. The new owner doesn't build wheels, doesn't stock or sell parts, and doesn't do repairs. The few real shops are 40min to an hour away and don't do anything but road bikes.

I've got a buddy in the UK who has sent me tires in the past, I suppose that's going to be my only option since he says he hasn't seen any serious increase in bike tire prices like we have.
He just shipped me a box of 700C tires he bought at his LBS there, the same tires here are three times more even with the shipping from the UK.
Someone is price gouging here, the prices of rubber or tires didn't jump anywhere but here and it happened just recently. Its kind of messed up that I can buy the same tires from overseas for less with shipping than I can buy them here for. I keep hearing its import tariffs but from what I see in the wholesale catalogs I've looked at, the price increase isn't at the distributor level, its at the shops. Tires went up a bit, but not double or more.
The local Walmart used to sell a 26x1 3/8" kevlar bead tire for $8.99 in a red and black box from Bell, They weren't great but they were decent tires in a pinch. They closed out those tires and replaced them with the same tires in a new box for $18.99 each, and they never stock more than one tire and the two local Walmarts always stock different tread patterns so you can't buy one from each store and have a matched pair. Those even disappeared now. The newest tires are in a silver and black box and are $24.99 to $29.99 each and they don't stock anything but 20" and mtb sizes.
This all happened within the last year and a half. I did get lucky and got a deal on a dozen 27x 1 3/8" Kevlar black wall tires with the thin white reflective strip for $2 each on blow out last fall. I bought every one they had. I even checked the other stores in the area but didn't find any more. I was told they all ship their closeouts to the one store now.

I was buying some tires from Niagara cycles till they closed up and sold out to The Bike Shop, after that the prices went sky high. I usually ordered enough from Niagara to hit the free shipping mark.
Three's no reason a tiny bike tire should cost nearly the same as some car and truck tires. The cost of parts is making bicycles prohibitive to many folks at these rates and driving people to cheaper bikes at Walmart.

I grew up in a world where a new set of tires meant a ride down to the LBS or Two Guys or Kings with $10 for two tires and two tubes, and that was a lot of money back then. If I didn't mess with bikes on the side like I do, and have a ton of accumulated parts I don't think I'd fork over the cash for a set of $30 tires for any bike. A set of tires and tubes today costs more than the whole bike cost back when I was a kid. There's just something wrong with that.

As to the Kenda tires, or any of the look alikes out there, they're smaller than the older tires from back in the day. I've got several pair of older Raleigh Record and Dunlop tires from the 60's here and those are more the size of modern middle weight tires. I found the same thing with middle weight tires, I had to put a new set of tires on a set of S7 Schwinn rims and the replacement tires were a good 1/4" narrower than the originals of the same size.
New tires also don't fit the same. I fought with a set of reproduction chain treaded tires on an old BF Goodrich bike the other day, it took me a hour to get them to finally pop up and fit right on the rim. The tire was just slightly smaller than the original around the bead, so much so that it didn't want to seat properly, and even after the first ride, the tire slipped back down off the bead area. I ended up having to sand the bead rubber a bit and lube up the bead area to get the tire to finally seat right. I never had a set of tires fight me like that before.
The same for the repro S7 Westwind tires they sell now. I have some repro tires from years ago and they fit fine, the later ones are too small, they don't even look right on the bike let alone don't fit the rims right. I've do have several pair of India made tires on a few rod brake models here that are well over 10 years old and they still look like new. Yet a pair of three year old china tires I just took off are headed for the trash can.


I've got a set of old Uniroyal 26x1 3/8" tires that are on an early 50's Sunbeam which are wider than the most recent 26 1 3/4" middle weight tires.

I find the same issues with tires on old tractors and vintage cars, it seems the old size standards got thrown out the window a long time ago. I find myself going up a size or two just to get the same actual size rubber on old tractors and some old car and truck tires. I ordered a set of small tractor tires last month, and the new China made tires, (same brand on the sidewall), were almost a full 2" smaller in overall OD than the original US made tires, I ended up sending them back in favor of a tire four sizes larger in size just to get close to the original tire size. Then on top of all that, these new tires don't last as long. Dry rot is a major issue.
I've got tires on bikes from the 50's that are still looking good and ridable. Yet tires I bought three years ago are cracked and split open or have bits of rubber falling off.

Sorry if this turned into a bit of rant but there has to be some point where we just say enough is enough with all the junk they sell today, especially since the junk costs so much more than the good stuff did.

julius rensch

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What a great story JIMBO53...your passion is right up my alley!
My DL tourist was purchaed new (my wife gifted it to me as a Christmas present) in 1972. We had matching ones.
Since then, there is approx 60,000 miles on mine, most of those miles were in S. Florida with flat land riding. Moving to the Caribbean where there were no roads, I did not ride it for 16 yrs...
I resumed riding the DL in 2003 while living in SW Ontario (yes, more flatlands) Now I'm in Ohio and riding on the good days only. I'm working on the DL now, having found parts at Yellow Jersey in Madison Wisconsin.
As my 80th birthday is coming up soon...had to drop the rear cog down to 22 tooth...much easier for this oldtimer!
All the best, keep up the great effort, preserving history.
Julius in N W Ohio (flatlands)

"Live simply, so that others may simply live"



Love your postings.
Julius in Ohio
"Live simply so that others...

oldspokes

I just picked up one just like it sans the headlight and cruiser saddle. I agree, for a frame that measures something like 19", it sits like a 24" mans frame when riding it. The ladies frames gave such a different feel when riding than do the men's models. I'm not sure if that's a carry over from old school bike design in that a ladies model was meant for a woman to be able to ride while wearing a dress or if its by chance but it does make for a good riding around town bike. I also had intended to use the one I got for parts but I've been using it to run errands around here now for the past few days and its likely a keeper. Mine came with two saddle baskets and a tubular front tray that had a doggie carrier zip tied to it. I suppose some old woman was using it a poodle taxi and grocery getter. Mine also has a pair of blue Schwinn grips but with one original tire and one sticky rotten Taiwan gumwall. Both of mine hold air but they;re both showing a lot of age and have to go. I'll likely dig into my stash of good used tires for it for now, maybe I can match up another original Raleigh Record tire for the time being.
Once I get a chance to really go over the bike, I'll give it a fresh set of black tires.

gster

1973 Raleigh Sports
Here's a nice one on Kijiji, Toronto today.

Seller is asking $300.00 but the detailed photos reveal a very clean low mileage example.

Salubrious

No worries! If you have a source for a nice 26 x 1 3/8 tire, post it here!

JJScaliger

short ride pic Scituate/Cranston RI

BigChief 

Wow! This is a pre-Raleigh Rudge. Late 30s I figure. I'll poke through some catalogs and post what I can find. Great find!!!

BigChief 

From the 1939 catalog... Looks like original pedals. Incredibly rare.

BigChief 

And a brake. Rod actuated here, but it seems like the original Rudge factory was experimenting with different types of calipers. All that ended after Raleigh bought out Rudge during the war years.

rustymetal

A cruiser saddle and Schwinn grips seems to be a think with those bikes, I picked up one about 7 years ago at a local flea market with almost the same seat and a pair of 50's style Schwinn grips, then I picked up another one with an Anniversary head badge on it, again with the black reupholstered cruiser saddle and Schwinn grips down in Delaware at a yard sale. Both got parted out and sold since I needed the rims and rear rack for other bikes. Both were pretty clean old bikes. the S5 speed hubs do well on eBay. One of mine had a front Dynohub and Miller headlight, both of which got used on a 24" men's model I had.

Both of mine sat very tall, even though the frame measured out at only 19", but they also rode very 'short' in that there was little knee clearance between you and the bars considering the distance you sat from the ground. The seating position made it feel like your pedals were almost under or behind you a bit compared to the men's model.
I never did measure or compare them side by side but I only noticed this on these Sprint models, I don't think I've ever ridden a regular ladies model Sports. Although I think I've got a few in my parts shed outback. I don't think any of them were ridable 'as found' so they just got hung up and kept for parts.

gster

I was waiting for our house detective, BC, to weigh in this one.

billnuke1 

I’ve had this Superbe in the bike vault for years...actually rode it quite a bit, some impromptu Raleigh rides on the Cape...we stopped very soon after instigation...these beautiful riders are heavy!
23” frame...100% original, 1973...headlamp works...futzing with the mechanicals, getting ready to move it on to someone else who has the time and skills to appreciate it.
The seat is in great shape, too...prospective new owner may get a short, but informative ride with the original rubber...love these old motorcycle type stands...


Bluemel pump still works...

Paint and most of the chrome will clean up nicely...

It works! Original bulb!

Not gonna this with your PCS-10...well, not for very long...

Got to use the new ratcheting wrench on one side...great addition to the shop...

Not gonna fall over with this stand...

Rails are like new...

Hmmmm...probably won’t get what I want for it, don’t know what I want for it... I may just hang on to it!
Whoa! That’s never happened before...Wink! Wink!

ascherer 

The torch being my 1966 Raleigh Sports, mostly stock. I bought it about 10 years ago and have been commuting on it for the past 5. Over the winter I built a lightweight version on my 1971 International with an 8-speed Sturmey hub, North Road bars, fenders and racks. I’ve given the Sports to my son who lives in Brooklyn. He enjoys the vintage aesthetic and I hope he discovers the joy of cycling through it.