thumpism 

If they were mine I'd reuse them but I'm no Sturmey expert. I'd think a good cleaning and reassembly per season would get you by until you absolutely had to find new parts.

Speaking of new parts, found these pieces for cudak888 . PM on the way.

vintagebicycle

Vintage three speeds don't sell well here at all, If I list one I can expect it to sit for a year on CL or FB and then if I'm lucky I may get half of what a Walmart bike would cost.

Bikes have been absent from the roads here for a long time. Between there being no real places to ride, and the few 'bike routes' they marked out being along four lane busy highways not many feel safe riding a bike.

Walmart here seems to have dropped bikes as well, nothing but plastic tire kids bikes and scooters.

Bikes haven't really been selling any better here then before last year. The prices went up on CL but the same bikes are still listed a year later.

I just bought a very clean 23" Raleigh Sports that's been listed for at least the better part of last year. It started out at $200, the guy slowly dropped the price to $75 over the past few months. I had actually offered him $100 cash when he first listed it but he ignored my email. I emailed him last week and said I wanted to look at the bike. It had new tires, new cables, and nearly perfect chrome. I wasn't fond of the cheap Kenda tires or the bugle horn on the bars but it was clean and all there, plus the guy said he had relubed the whole bike, which I was skeptical whether he did or not. I looked it over, spun both wheels, which are dead true, ran it through all three gears and asked what his best price was. I asked how many other people had emailed about it and he said I was the only one. He didn't seem to remember I was the guy who offered $100 last year. I told him to give me a really good price and it'll be out of your hair. He came back with $50, I said I'll do $40, and he took it, and I added a late model Sports to the fleet. To my surprise, all the bearings had clean fresh looking grease. I did swap the tires out for some blackwall Michelin World Tours but otherwise it was good to go as found. The bike has the bottom part of an old dealer sticker from somewhere in Ocean City, NJ. I bought it not more than 20 0r 30 minutes from NYC in NJ. The guy had about a dozen bikes. I likely wouldn't have made the drive up that way for a bike I didn't really need but I had to go up that way for work so I figured I'd take a look.

After all I've been reading in the past year about bikes being scarce, I was sort of expecting it to have some fatal flaw or reason why it wasn't selling but its one of the few bikes I've ever bought that was really ready to ride as found. I also bought two ladies Sports models off another seller up in that area for $20 each, which I promptly stripped for parts. One donating its wheels to a clean '72 men's frame I've had for several years. One had brand new tires and all new cables with four brand new cool stop brake pads. Both of those were on FB for the last four or five weeks or maybe longer since I hadn't checked there in a while or likely excluded them from my search due to distance. The only bad part is that I had to take them apart to get all three in my company car, but I likely could have fit a fourth with some creative packing.

nlerner

It strikes me as odd how many posts here about the inability to sell old decent 3-speeds alongside the inability to find old decent 3-speeds.

gster

If only there was some way for people with similar interests to get together.......

cudak888 

If these were any other hubs, I'd reuse them - but, once again, trying to make these hubs nice. Pretty sure the raceways get fairly thrashed on these just because of the slight play required in these hubs coupled with the driver crashing against the ball ring whenever torque is applied. Doesn't make much of a difference, though I believe the smoother races are just a hair quieter.

And THANK YOU! PM replied.

-Kurt

Ghostknife

Dropped off the seat bag at the cobbler today and he’s going to fix it up nice. I’ll report back when it’s done with pictures. Is there a good way to keep the bag holding its shape? Like a small frame built inside?

oldspokes

I think there's a huge difference in the economy in and outside of the major metro areas. I keep reading over and over about this bike boom yet bikes go unsold.
I rarely list or sell any bikes, the only bikes I list are usually those which either came as part of a lot and don't suit me or don't interest me. Rarely are they English three speeds but I see several that have been listed within 50 miles of me for over a year, none are in mint condition, but none are in terrible condition, all priced around $200.

There's no shortage of bikes, just shortage of spenders regardless of condition.

I had a ladies model Schwinn three speed listed for four months for $150 ready to ride. I didn't get a single email and not a single offer. I got tired of moving it around so I took it apart, I sold the wheels for $100 over the weekend, and got $40 for the fenders, and $60 for the saddle and post all to the same buyer. I kept the tires for another project.

I hate parting out good bikes but its proven to be the only way here to get anything out of them here.

What boggles my mind is that most people will never reply to an ad if they don't like the price, Even more so, I've changed prices by only a few cents, $200 to $199. and suddenly gotten a list of emails. I've also increased the price by a few dollars and gotten sudden bursts of replies and often a sale. This holds true for many items, not just bicycles. I list more farm equipment than bikes or bike parts but find that CL, FB and several various phone based sites pretty much a waste of time here.

I got to talking to a buddy who was looking at a used pickup truck on CL, he actually said to me that if the price was lower, he'd go get it. I asked him how long the ad had been up, he said its been for sale for a year. It was listed for $2500. The guy lowered the price to $2450, and he called me up for help going to get it.
When we got there, I told him don't say a thing till we look the thing over. The truck was better than expected. I looked at the guy and asked if he'd take $1,100 He said if I had cash, its a deal. He said he was tired of dealing with tire kickers who just walk away. My buddy was in shock that I'd make a $1100 offer on a truck listed for $2450. I told him maybe I should have offered $800? Chances are he could have had that truck a year ago for the same money but never asked.

I think its a matter of people forgetting how to bargain these days. I see it at the flea markets all the time. Someone picks up an item on a table, the seller gives a price and the buyer just puts it down and walks away. No counter offer, nothing. On the flip side, I've seen sellers get belligerent when someone low balls them on an item. They don't know how to make the sale
I had a guy who had a box of new bicycle bearings on the table, most were Schwinn bb bearings with a few misc bb parts mixed in. I asks how much, he said $10, I said how about $5? He blew up and started cursing at me, going on about how he wished people like me would just stay home and not waste his time. .....I just stood there grinning and a bit entertained by his psychotic display. When he got done, I said "Well how about $6? (At that point I didn't care about the bearings, I was just having fun) but he replied that he'd take $6. When I handed him a $10 bill, he only had a $5 bill for change, so he gave them to me for $5.

cudak888 

No problem finding them on the local OfferUp - if you don't mind a constant stream of rusty, mid-1970's ladies' 19" frames for $175.

EDIT: Here's some of the finest from the local OfferUp. I will say the offerings are more plentiful than they were 10-15 years ago though.








Granted, the Rudge isn't entirely a bad snag for someone who really wants one, despite the outrageous seatpost and stem. About $70 off the current price would bring it somewhere acceptable.

The '69 Sports in the last listing is also interesting for other reasons. It has a Heron seattube decal and Raleigh headbadge, but carries Eaton's "Glider" downtube decals. Saw a '54 Raleigh Sports like this on eBay too - it carried Rudge Sports downtube decals.






-Kurt

thumpism 

Turistas!

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...78489985586831

cudak888 

Bye, hideous Rampar "R" logo:





Crooked for factory accuracy.

-Kurt

SirMike1983 

Finally, the riding season is starting here in western New England. We had a moderately snowy winter, then some wind storms and a couple cold snaps. But now with better weather, the season begins in full.

paulb_in_bkln

Or if it only didn't cost so much to ship a bicycle.

SirMike1983 

Interesting, I'll hold onto those imperfect drivers then. I can't say as I notice additional drag, but I'm usually busy trying to avoid potholes and crevices in the roads here.

Do you reckon it's the same with cones, or does the smaller circumference of the race make the pitting more of an issue? It sort of feels on the work bench, with just a hub outside of a wheel, that I can notice the difference with clean versus pitted cones. But with a wheel in a truing stand or on a bike, who knows. I guess it would matter if they were totally trashed, but I'm thinking more about the smooth cone versus the one with light pitting.

In the past year, maybe two years, I've stopped being able to locate truly "cheap" troves of cones and drivers. I was previously, on occasion, finding shop bags full of the parts. Sometimes these were in original bags or boxes from Sturmey. But for the past year or two, I've noticed that clean cones and drivers are being sold individually (or the cones in pairs) for quite a lot of money. It seems like the "back room shop supply" of finds is drying up a bit.

paulb_in_bkln

Exactly. If they were easier and less expensive to ship, the bikes could get where there's a demand for them. We have bike jumbles here where many older bikes change hands. I don't know if, through this link, it's possible to contact any of the vendors if you have bikes you'd like to move. Some of them may have the ability or a network to collect used bikes.New York Bike Jumble

gster

Mine has a stiff foam liner inside that holds the shape.

cudak888 

In my experience, it's less so with the cones. In fact, the cones on both of the hubs where those drivers came from are pretty much perfect and can go back in as-is. If I had to guess, I'd say the rider's weight on the cones helps to minimize the movement on them, but the driver's length and direct connection with the chain makes it more likely to get slapped against the ball ring bearings on hard acceleration.

Sometimes you can hear the difference between rougher raceways than smooth ones, though as you point out, this is usually in the stand rather than on the bike. A poorly lubricated / greased hub is more likely to make ball ring noise than anything else, anyway.

I had an ex-back room supply from one of the LBSes. Kicking myself for parting with most of it now, though there are still enough Sturmey AWs out there that I'm not that concerned about it. In fact, given how many SRF-3's I had around here at one time, I had my pick of just about any part, minus the original clutch and driver (given that those are based off the 1980's NIG hub).

-Kurt

gster

The weather here in Toronto is improving.
Sadly it looks like another shutdown/lockdown is coming today and
I'm still in quarantine having returned from Mexico.....
I ended up giving my Mexican bike to a young man that worked at my favourite
taco stand.
I rode by one day and he ran across the street to tell me how cool he thought
it was. I figured he would be an apt recipient.
One of the front wheel bearings shattered shortly before I left but he seemed willing
to repair/restore the bike.

Straightening the fork....
The saddle looked good but it was some sort of pressed cardboard....

Ghostknife

That piece seems to be missing from mine, I’ll see what I can come up with

cudak888 

An almost-lost-by-the-USPS '75-76 Sports chainguard from eBay just arrived. It's like night and day in comparison to the gawd-awful guard spec'ed on my '80 (the 1977+ guard).

It completely un-Searsized the look of the thing. (More pics for those interested: https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...e-again-7.html )

BEFORE:



AFTER:




Good on you. Giving a bike away is a great thing; giving it to someone who thinks a particular bicycle is cool is even better. Bravo for doing the good work.

-Kurt

dweenk

Much better. The hockey stick style guards are more elegant (?). There may be a better term for the look.

Johno59

Personally I don't go with the faux leather stuff. It didn't last when i was a kid and it certainly doesn't last now. Get your stuff from India. They are Hindu and they can't be seen dead with anything leather regardless of having more leather from the sacred cow than anyone - so it is dirt cheap. Go here

Patrick Leather World.

They have everything in real leather. Postage is free and arrives in a week via DHL. The one thing is they are organic so a bit of non-organic dope on the leather will keep away the mold.
They are paranoid about delivery. As per DHL everywhere you can track it to your door.

SirMike1983 

Be careful of cheaper leather - the lower-cost tanning processes can leave residual chemicals in the leather that corrode metals when in prolonged contact.

Johno59

You're right regards the caution. I'm not sure what a tanning shortcoming poses to metal fatigue but certainly mold is an issue if stored in a damp shed. The items I have purchased are pristine if stored in a normal environment but not so good if left wet and cold. Having said that the mildew soon buffed out with no apparent lasting effects.

Johno59

This T

This tool bag is three years old. It's been keep in a semi-heated garage. Go figure.

stevel610 

A few months ago I asked about the age of a HUMBER with no date code on the Sturmey Archer 3 speed. I found a code on the top of the seat post.
89438 with the letters AK underneath.

Any help on dating?