When I was a kid there was a family across the street that had a Rixie triple with a front motor, the whole thing was factory, motor and all, someone from their family had brought it down from NY one summer and left it. It was made in Germany. I'm not sure of the year but it had to be from the late 50's or so. The thing had to weigh 150 lbs or more, had oversized rims and tires and a tiny little Durex coaster brake hub.
It lived under their carport, it was too long to fit in their shed outback. The front wheel had a massive brake drum, it used 12ga spokes and I seem to remember it having some odd 26" tire size, something like 26x3.0 or something. The motor hung over the front wheel like that but it was a lot larger, more like a moped engine or sorts that drove off a roller on the tire. I never rode it but I do remember it sort of rattled when it ran. It had some sort of centrifugal clutch, to disengage the motor to pedal you had to get off and lift it up off the tire and lock it with a pin or latch somehow. I think rust got the better of it before it quit running, I also remember helping them load it in a pickup truck one time, the thing was too long to fit in an 8ft bed truck, it had to sit on an angle with the rear tire on the tailgate. The chain system on that thing was an oddball, to adjust the front chain, the one BB was eccentric and you would unclamp the BB shell from the assembly and rotate the inner half to tension the front chain, then the rear chain got adjusted via the dropout slots. The chainguard was one piece, about 6ft long.

Rixe. They made bikes, scooters and mopeds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rixe

Found 1967 BSA on Facebook Marketplace
 

It can be a bit of a challenge finding quality British 3 speed roadsters in the US, especially in the South, so I was really happy to get this beautiful original paint BSA with exceptional decals and overall condition.As found, should clean up nicely. Even came with new tires/tubes, new brake shoes and original color matching Brooks saddle
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f50a985ab.jpeg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4f9b6e2f5.jpeg
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Very nice find.
Hopefully at a fair price.

JIMBO53 Really nice bike and will clean up very nicely. As an ex-owner of a BSA motorcycle would have loved a bike like that.

The seller was a biker so he know sort of what he had, but I thought the price was fair for the condition esp w/new tires/tubes and even comes with a nice Stewart Warner speedo which I'll probably sell to offset my cost

Thanks! I've had dumb luck finding bicycles from British motorcycle marques (Triumph, Dunelt, Rudge and now BSA) Are there other British motorcycle/bicycle colloberations out there?

Royal Enfield for sure; I assume Sunbeam was the same company; I'll bet there are more! I have a Humber but I don't believe they made motorcycles, just cars. Edit: yes they did!

would love to find a duplex fork Humber! I’ve seen posts with vintage RI’s too and would welcome one of those to my stable, too!

JIMBO53 : Always a good excuse for a picture.....
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...29f9530557.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...7ea3c1fb1e.jpg

I took some advice from a post a while back to try and correct
the forks on my Mexican bike.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4ad18c21e4.jpg
They're bent in every direction,
I think I made some progress.
Now to straighten the bars....

You dog, you seem to be in a much more moderate climate zone. Good for you.

I always liked the nice job you did on this one. I'm still sitting on a '52, waiting for inspiration. It's the biggest mess but for $25, it's my mess.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...613b0ec9ea.jpg

Yeah..
I quit my job and came down here to Sayulita early Dec.
Not knowing (but suspecting) that things in Toronto would go to hell quickly.
They did.
When I return I'm supposed to go to "Travellers' Prison" for 3 days and pay $2000
for the pleasure......
The parts to fix/restore this bike are available here by mail and quite cheap.
a new handlebar and complete rod and lever brake system sells for 419 pesos ($21.00 US)

I'm going to leave it here when I go.
A young man that works at the taco stand ran across the street and flagged me down
saying how much he liked it.
I'll give it to him.

I think the various English brands were distributed fairly unevenly around the country.
I've been working on and have been around English bicycles for almost 50 years and have never even seen a Humber model in this area. The most common brand is Hercules, then is Raleigh, Robin Hood, Philips, and the occasional Dawes bicycle.
I suppose that back in the day, this was mostly a farming area and English bikes weren't likely big sellers here. When it comes to older bikes, I find mostly American brands from the 50s and 60's.

WOW! Now we're talking! That's a beautiful bike, almost the same colour as my BSA. That duplex fork is such a unique feature, surprised it hasn't shown up on other Brit bikes (or maybe it has...?)

Being 1952 that would be inspiration enough, wouldn't it? It should have a bottom bracket oiler. My Humber Sports roadster is a 1951 and for whatever reason is a more charming ride than my '72 Superbe.

Spot on. I sit on projects because of personal and professional circumstances more than lack of willpower or desire. Time is precious and you really only understand that in your senior years.

It certainly is!

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...28344015181034

https://scontent.fric1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...8a&oe=604FAB58

Great value at the price. Minty almost.

Bikes must have an easier life down that way, I've seen quite a few decent looking old English bikes for sale over the past few months. Everything I find up here is rusty or just plain rough. I don't know if its the area here or the way people take care of bikes. I've looked at dozens over the past year and very few were even worth bringing home for parts. The biggest issue here is rims, if that Robin Hood was closer, it would no doubt be donating a set of rims to my Dunelt, but its just not worth what would be almost a 4 hour ride and a couple tanks of gas for me.
I'm also surprised that its still for sale? I'm starting to think the little bike boom we've seen is over. I've seen dozens of decent bikes locally that are cheap that have been listed for months now. There was a '71 Raleigh Sports listed here for 4 months that looked brand new in a 21" frame with perfect paint for $65, the seller finally parted it out on eBay. If it had Dunlop rims, I'd have bought it for the wheels but I don't have a bike that uses Raleigh pattern wheels and after a recent clean out I helped with here, I'm about out of room.

Just because the ad is still up does not mean the bike has not yet sold. FB flakes don't differ much from CL flakes. As for its condition, I suspect that the owner had a dry basement or garage to keep it in, perhaps even hanging up to preserve the tires.

Outside bikes don't fare well around here, either. I found a perfect 20 year old ladies' Sports for a neighbor who liked mine and wanted one for herself. $24 for an old bike that looked brand new with sparkly chrome and the little nubs still on the tires. Twenty years later her husband gave it to me and when I went to pick it up it was leaning up against the fence in the back yard with snow up to the hubs. It looked very different from the way I remembered it.

I believe @dweenk is the area of that Robin Hood.

I agree about there being a little more charm in the 1950s bikes than the 1970s ones. They pre-date many of cost-cutting measures Raleigh went through in the 1960s and early 70s. They have some of the more "old school" features that you don't see as often. But with that being said, don't count out the 1970s era bikes. Many of them make very good riders. And some people use them as a platform for modification involving more modern parts. They have a lot to offer too. I have a 1974 Sports and a 1978 DL-1 that I love and have owned for many years.

I would love a set of these, where did you get them?

Well said. The 1950's bikes are particularly special, but the later ones are still fine framesets, especially after a brake upgrade. Also, it's less conflicting to modify one.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...48756e35a9.jpg

They're salvage from scrapped JUMP e-bikes. Difficult to come by, though if you Google the model, you'll sometimes find these hubs online through third-party sellers. They require a twist or thumb-operated 3-speed shifter, as the cable pull is different on these.

FYI, I think I read somewhere that the rotary shifter design on the 3-speed hubs was (supposedly) patented by Sturmey-Archer in 1970, but it took SunRace to put it in production. Go figure.

-Kurt

Ignore the rim
 

There are plenty of modern rims that are replicas of any era of bicycle that fit the orginal look. SS originals not so much, but they do appear if you use the replicas whilst you wait. The old frames can take a huge amount of rust - much more than the chrome rims of the same era and much more than the crappy accessories stuck on them in the 1970/80s.. I've bought 1930s bikes that have stood so long in the damp that their rear hubs were touching the ground after the rims/spokes had rusted away and collapsed. They are still going. The only thing is if the bike had a kick stand mounted behind the BB. There can be a structural problem caused by the kickstand clamp crushing the chain stays allowing deep rust to penetrate. However a bit of metal plate discreetly welded on solves that possible problem and remains almost un-sighted.
Obviously a frame builder can fix it no sweat but at a price.

I didn't realize there were any modern 32/40h steel wheel options in 26x1 3/8"?
I've found a few new old stock Rigida Chromolux rims, and seen some low end Asian rims and wheels but all are 36h.
The Sun Ringle CR18 in alloy is the only option I've seen and for me, those just look out of place on an otherwise all original bike.

I've used CR18s on my three speeds, and they look fine to me.
https://live.staticflickr.com/8204/2...c09cecc2_z.jpg