I suppose early on the English brands pretty much owned the market when it came to three speed bikes of this style.

When I was a kid, the local dealer sold Rollfast. My first three speed bike was a Rollfast with a Made in England logo that so many other English brands had. The rest of the bike was labeled as a Rollfast. It had an AW hub, Dunlop Endrick rims, a Crown front hub, a red and white saddle with a Crown logo on the back, but it was identical to the Wright saddle on most Robin Hood bikes. It had three piece cottered cranks and a snowflake chainring. The hub was dated something in 1962. The bars, stem, and chainguard were all the same as a second tier Raleigh brand bike. Other than the Made in England decal on the top tube, and the headbadge reading Rollfast and DP Harris, Birmingham, England, it was badged as a Rollfast, not Crown. (Crown was DP Harris/Rollfast's in house line of parts).
I found it odd that they built the bike with pretty much all English parts except for the front hub, which was a common galvanized, 36h Crown hub as found on nearly all Rollfast bikes. A few years later my younger brother got a brand new Rollfast Ultraflight, that bike was more of a mix bag of parts. That bike had the same Dunlop rims, an AW hub dated 67-2, the same Crown front hub, Raleigh pattern chrome fenders, a similar "Crown - Made in England" badged saddle in two tone, the same English bars and stem, but that's where the English part ended. The cranks were one piece, the chainring was common to most lightweight Rollfast bikes, the forks were also stacked plate style American forks, and it came with SA twist grip shifters. They had basically just taken a standard Rollfast lightweight and hung all English parts on it.
It was a lot lighter than mine, but not as smooth and not as durable.
Somewhere along the line I sold mine and bought a larger frame Philips that was very similar. My brother had his till a few years ago, he sold it when he moved last.
I frequently hung out at the local bike shop here back then, I remember all sorts of old Rollfast bikes but I don't remember seeing any badged Crown.
I'm thinking they may have been a brand they sold to non-Rollfast dealers. I did run into a guy one time with one, I do seem to remember him saying his dad bought it for him as a kid at a local feed store that sold bikes around Christmas time. From what I've seen, the Crown models had far better attention to detail than the other bikes.
Back in the day, Rollfast was a major player when it came to bikes, they were a dealer only brand back then with a serious parts department

I also remember seeing a few Schwinn bikes that were Made in England back then, my cousin had one he got used, it was a red English built three speed badged Schwinn Spitfire on the CG. The CG was the wide style, the headbadge had Schwinn spelled out on an angle across the badge. The frame and badge were both marked Made in England. For some reason I seem to remember it said Birmingham on it somewhere too, That bike was also red, sort of a dark solid color. The tires were wide whitewalls with the old Schwinn script on the sides but in standard EA3 size with Dunlop Endrick rims, an AW hub, and an English oil port type front hub.

Does anyone actually have a list of all the brands that were produced back then?

Brands that I've run across have been as follows:
Raleigh, Humber, Robin Hood, Gazelle, Dunelt, Philips, Sun, Sunbeam, Triumph, Derby, Hercules, Royal Scot, Royal, Royal Crown, Phillips, Rudge, Norman, BSA, Armstrong, Dawes, and Royce Union, (not all Royce Union bikes were cheap Japanese bikes, I've had three or four that were Made in England and pretty much identical to the same period Robin Hood).

They are getting scarce around here, but when an older English model pops up, its not usually cheap. In fact, lately it seems that the off brand models seem to bring more than Raleigh branded models.

Mongrel lenton
 

I thought I would post a photo of the mongrel Lenton with her new wheels. I had 700c wheels built with sun cr18 rims, and the hubs I showed a few weeks ago. I like the result but I haven’t been able too take it out since I am having some medical issues.

Hopefully the FM hub is sound. It seems fine, but I haven’t tested it under load.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1f23ec7b9.jpeg

In the 50's. Hercules bikes were re branded as Indians as in Indian motor bikes.

I always liked that colour.

I've had a few of those over the years, they were sold as Indian Scouts in the early 50's. I think they continued well into the 1960's too. The last one I had here was complete with a Dynohub, full sprung saddle, and a rear rack.
Most that I've found over the years were likely very early 50's models with a more relaxed geometry then the later models.

Here you go, two cheapo 3-speeds in a dumpster. I was going around the block for a photo op yesterday and saw these in the alley. Both of them have Shimano hubs. The blue Murray looks American-made and the red Free Spirit looks Japanese. The red one has a Bike Machine 2-stroke gas engine driving the rear wheel. I used to have one in running condition.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d5767c27d4.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...fccf61936a.jpg

The Little Things in Life
My Mexican bike which really is a piece of sh@t needed a new cotter pin.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...48bcddd87e.jpg
Looking online/Amazon mexico it would have cost about $30-$40.00 to get one delivered.
I had to take the girls into Puerto Vallarta yesterday for the dentist and on the way saw a ramshackle bike shop.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...e9c9813f07.jpg
I stopped in on the way back and got a couple of cotters for a grand total of 10 pesos (.50 cents)
we have to go back to the dentist next week and I'll see if they have any rod and lever brake pads.

LBS with another save!

That is looking great! And you were able to get the brake pads to line up! I may try 700C on my next English bike (I already have an AW laced to 700C plus a front QR wheel also laced to 700C for my Trek IGH conversation - never thought of putting them on an English bike).

Oh and BTW I believe you can peel off the CR18 stickers if you are so inclined - I use Alex DM18 rims for the most part (available and not too expensive around here) and I always take the Alex graphics off.

Hope your medical situation resolves positively and soon!

If you have an alloy hub body, they are known for failing. The FW does not seem to do this. The FW and AW have some parts in common but the FM is an entirely different design. I have one that broke its hub body and I have a replacement body. The mechanicals seem alright and the hub worked fine prior to failure (which happened while the bike was in storage; the spoke tension eventually caused a failure because the hub body developed a crack). A steel hub body is the solution, but I've never seen an FM with a steel hub.

This frame was designed for 27x1 1/4 so there was ample room for 700c.

Back in the 70's they sold a bolt on motor like that around here called a Bikebug, it used a Tanaka 2 stroke motor and a friction drive. Most got mounted on the front wheel but I saw them mounted in the rear as well. I had a Columbia 10 speed that I trash picked back in the day that had one on it, the engine ran fine but the thing didn't grip the rear tire very well. You had to all but sit on the motor to make it grip the tire well enough not to just grind off rubber. The funny thing is the thing had a ton of spring pressure down on the tire but the 2" or so diameter drive hub just didn't have enough contact surface. The surface of that hub was serrated like a file, the thing tore up tires something terrible and the heat from the motor would cook you in the summer time. Those who put it in the front got to enjoy the two stroke smoke and exhaust for the whole ride.
I also had an outboard by the same company, called an Aqua Bug, that was great, it never gave me a single problem in the 30 years I used it, its still around here somewhere still but I seem to remember that the plastic prop had turned to dust over one winter and basically crumbled.
I sold the bike motor to some kid back when I was in still in school. By that time I had rigged a counter weight with a big lever to press the thing down on the tire. I don't think they were made to move a 300lb man on a full size bike plus books and such.

A buddy of mine had another brand of bike motor on an old Sting Ray, that one was made in Italy, and it used a rubber driver hub, it worked far better than the Bikebug and needed very little pressure for it to pull the bike along. So much so that it was easy to get dragged through an intersection if you forgot to disengage the lever before trying to stop. (That one had a flip lever that reached up between the handle bars, pulling the handle downward locked the mechanism over center like closing a pair of vice grips).

There was also a bolt on motor sold that used a belt drive, you bolted a large pulley to the spokes on a wheel, then the motor sat on a rack above with a hand operated belt tensioner. Those actually worked well when put on a decent bike. It tore up wheels on cheaper bikes.
I've actually knocked around the idea of building a modern Whizzer of sorts, I picked up a half dozen Briggs Stratton 4 stroke weed wacker motors which appear to be what the Chinese copied to make their 4 stroke Whizzer kit with.

I was also thinking it would be great to have something like that but in electric these days, with Li-ion batteries getting more affordable, it wouldn't take much to power one that would run 20 or more miles on a charge or even further depending on rider weight and the terrain. I was never a fan of mixing two stroke fuel, or dealing with ethanol fuel and carburetors, and electric motors have far more torque than a wimpy little weed eater motor.

All this motor talk reminds me of a bike I once saw that was owned by a rep who called on our shop. He'd taken a nice fendered American bike of the '60s and installed a motor above the front wheel, which had a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub laced in with its cog driven by the gear on the motor. So he had a gas-powered bike with a 3-speed trans. No telling the life expectancy of that hub but it must have been fun while it lasted.

-----------------------------------------

And how about a nice Italian version of the perennial Sturmey bike? Good price and beautiful condition.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...87711235085450

https://scontent.fric1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...c1&oe=604B26A3

27" wheels? Aluminum rims?

That chainguard is sharp! The fenders look much newer.

I wondered about those points also, but my own Condor (Swiss) 3-speed has 700C alloys and a Sturmey hub (and a rad chainguard), and the Motobecane Nobly Sturmey 3-speed had 27s in steel.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...668b313473.jpg

I converted a boss' Raleigh Sports to 700C alloys for her guest bike and there was clearance for 35C tires. I suspect the Atala might have been converted, especially because of the front QR, but who knows? The 3-speed world may be larger and more wonderful than we know.

That's it!
They could never get away with that today.
The exhaust was right in front of you, they smoked like a freight train pulling a hill, and the engage/disengage set up was iffy at best.
But they sold a ton of them. The motors were really good, they never died, but the drive set up was good for bearings going bad and the tire roller wearing out tires. That one appears to have a rubber tire roller, those I saw around here were deeply serrated and concave to match the tire. If the roller slipped, it ground a bald spot in the tire. If it didn't slip, it eventually balded the entire tire in short order.
They had a speed limiter setting on them when new, guys would adjust or break off the screw to allow it to over-rev. They also drank a lot of gas, so much so that if you intended to go on a longer ride, you needed to take a gas can on the rear rack. They would burn through the 3/4 gallon of fuel or so that the tank held in about 25 miles or so if run wide open, which is the way everyone ran them.

Here's one on an old Schwinn tandem.

http://www.facebook.com/marketplace/...17057632824621

https://scontent.fric1-2.fna.fbcdn.n...f0&oe=604C9BAA

Nice colour!

I've converted 2 old Hercules 3 speeds to 700c, I was only able to fit 25c tires though with the fenders in place, they work just great, all in all, but it would be nice to get some bigger tires on the rims. Both those bikes have the nice Hercules Chrome fenders so I did want to retain those, I did bend them around where possible to get as much clearance as possible, but going to a 28c tire did result in rub, not the end of the world, but I'd love to fit 32's on those bikes.... I converted a Raleigh Sprite to 650b with which is a great bike, and fits 38c tires just fine, but I do like the look of the bigger 700c wheels on these old 3 speeds.

For reference here is my Herc with 700x25 tires,

https://i.postimg.cc/5yQdqP52/A6-F5-...68-F4-D2-C.jpg

And here is my Sprite with 650bx38c tires, or 27.5 x 1.5 according to the manufacturer,

https://i.postimg.cc/tCqV9T17/C202BC...5F71A598D9.jpg

Nice!

So, how did you fit 35c tires on a sports? Was that with fenders?

Put them on the wheels and the wheels on the bike. Brrrrump! Cha!
Seriously, they fit, but thinking back it might not have been a Sports but some other English gem with perhaps more clearance than a Sports. It was about 40 years ago.

Yes, with fenders.

I have two Raleigh Sports frames here, and a set of 37-700C Kenda tires on Weinmann 519 rims. The front would fit if the fork dropouts were larger, (the 9mm axles won't fit into the smaller Raleigh fork dropouts). The tires would easily clear the fenders. The rear is different on both bikes, the older frame will not fit the 700c wheels with or without fenders, they would fit on the 1972 frame but the fenders would be super close at the front. A smaller tire would help but it would have to be a much narrower tire.
I tried them on a 1962 Hercules frameset and there's far less clearance both front and rear, they may fit the front but not with fenders, the rear is not happening with a the 700-37c tire with or without a fender.
With all this in mind, I've got a buddy who has a late model Sports, I think his is a 1979 model, and he put a set of CR18 36 spoke 700c rims on it with white wall tires, they're a tight fit but they do fit with the fenders.
My thought was that maybe the later bikes were built a bit larger for this reason? Maybe if Raleigh had continued we may have seen a 700C Sports?

I had a Motobecane Nobly once, it had 27x1 1/4" Hutchinson gumwall tires on Rigida Chromolux rims with the serrated sides, and an SA AW hub.
I bought a his/hers pair at a yard sale for $10 back in 1979, The owner said they were 3 years old, he and his wife were moving to FL and couldn't take them along.
The one thing I remember most about them is that they tended to rust easily, no matter what I did I kept getting rust popping up on the rims and even on the paint. I'd clean, polish and wax them to look like new, and two weeks later they were rusting again. I finally gave up and sold them both. The things were getting rusty sitting inside the house, and I don't live near the shore. My Raleigh bikes never rusted like that.

I also had a Peugeot three speed in the early 80's, it had 27" alloy Super Champion wheels, 1 1/4" tires, aluminum fenders, and an AW hub, that bike was almost as bad with the rust issues but mostly just due to the poor paint they used. My biggest issue with that bike was that it kept popping spokes, so I finally respoked both wheels with straight gauge DT stainless spokes and the problem was solved. (For some reason my size and Robergel double butted spokes just never got along).
I had bought the Peugeot at a bike shop that was closing and got it brand new for something like $30 cash, (The hang tag price was only $59.99 back then).
Neither were bad riding bikes but they weren't as well built as a Raleigh when it came to paint and chrome. The Nobly bikes didn't stop well, the serrated rims didn't help in the rain, and the original saddle on the men's model didn't last a month under my then 250lbs or so.
The ladies model pretty much just got hung in the garage and rarely used.
I had the Peugeot for a few years, but it sort of became a loaner bike at some point and someone crashed it bending the frame and forks on it The wheels are still hanging in my basement.

That's probably a well suited application for that motor, if you ever rode one of those old Schwinn tandems, you know what I mean.
We had one when I was a kid and the thing had to weigh 80 lbs. It was a middle weight model with chrome steel front and rear racks, a generator set that run off the rear tire, a speedometer, a took kit and back on the rear seat, and a pair of those folding saddle baskets in the rear attached to the chrome steel rack. My dad had pulled it form a dumpster somewhere along the road while at work figuring it would be a good thing to have around during the summer, but no one ever rode it and it took up a ton of space in the garage. He finally let me trade it for a pair of Varsity 10 speeds back in the early 70's. Riding that thing, even when it was fairly new, was like pedaling a bike through mud the entire ride, and stopping it when it got rolling down a hill was just as bad. Me and my brothers were all big kids, (I was 6 ft tall- 200lbs going into high school and in most cases the other rider was the same size or better). That red stripe coaster brake used to smoke and turn blue trying to stop going down hill. I remember parking it one day and watching the red paint in the hub stripe bubbling from heat. I think it was from around 1964 or so. Regreasing the rear hub was almost a monthly chore, The brakes in general left a lot to be desired, the front caliper didn't do a whole lot, and the coaster brake wouldn't lock up the rear wheel unless there was only one rider. I always thought the two seats were too close together, with to big riders, the rear rider didn't have much room. Years later I had ridden an older Rollfast built tandem from the 30's and it was a much better ride with plenty of room between the riders and balloon type tires.

Figured these would be appreciated in this thread:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d2690765e2.jpg

I don't believe Sturmey-Archer ever cataloged the RXL-RD3, even though these have finally trickled down to the aftermarket.

It's a version of the S-RF3 with a huge, honkin' 90mm drum brake and matching right side flange; a companion of sorts for the XL-FD.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...379f1fb772.jpg

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...eadc9f49e2.jpg


-Kurt

I had a yellow Deluxe Twinn with the rear drum brake and the five speed derailleur setup. It was barely adequate as a conveyance but it could be fun at times. Chicks and kids dug it.

Ahhh, this all makes sense now, I always thought the hercules frames were identical to the Sports, but they are not, so me only being able to fit 700/25 with fenders on my Hercules is in line with what you experienced.