You sure can.

Looks like a kickstand was cinched down way too hard and then weather did the rest. I'd wager it would still last another decade or three.

I agree. You see a lot of squished tubes due to kickstands.

I recently picked up a Dawes kingpin folding bike and it has this absolutely massive seatpost: 530mm/21" long by 28mm diameter
Does anyone know if it's original and why it has the holes?

1200g for the saddle and 590g for the seatpost!

http://i.imgur.com/Qh94ET5l.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/0rQIanel.jpg

Well that's good news. Once I'm done with the wife's '76 Raleigh, I'm going back to it and finish.

I've done a fair amount of brazing in my day job, nothing related to bike frames. I'm kicking around the idea of brazing reinforcing saddles (1/2 or 1/4 rounds of tubing) over the affected areas with heat blocking paste and wet rags to control heat spread. Good idea or not? It's so close to the bottom bracket, maybe not.

DAWES

Crazy idea would be to somewhat lighten it up. Not gonna mention anything musical... good chance the post is original but not sure about the saddle. Those early cheap ones were massive heavy!

Would love to see the full bike!

I'm not sure what that seat is, but I just parted out two late 60's Raleigh Sprite ladies bikes that both had that same seat but in black.
They were probably what ever the cheapest cruiser seat the local bike shop had on the shelf when the original owners didn't like the Brooks leather saddles.

Years ago, in the 70's a buddies dad retired from a company that did overhead doors.
He gave me a roll of that chain that was too big to lift. I've been picking off it for 40 years. The roll was originally about the size of a 6 gallon bucket or so. A huge wooden spool, made from real wood, not plywood. The chain is branded Diamond.

Cool. Diamond Chain is still in business in downtown Indianapolis IN.
Edit: Oops, I looked it up. Still cranking out chains, but planning to move nextdoor to Illinois in the next 2 or 3 years.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...075127576c.jpg
The bldg on the left is Diamond Chain. The red brick bldg on the right is a very old power house that now supplies steam and chilled water to the whole city.

Check out those brakes!

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...63081214495581

https://scontent.fric1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...6c&oe=615452AC

This bike has been on and off Marketplace for awhile. It is not, from what I can gather, a 1963 Sunbeam, but appears to be an earlier Sunbeam using some of the oddball Sunbeam type parts. It would be a good buy and a good project for someone, but it's not the sort of thing you would do as a first bike because it really deserves to be gone over with original, correct Sunbeam parts instead of later stuff. At $80 though, if you know your way around English 3-speeds, it's a great start to a project.

A stepthrough and a camelback for a C-note in IN.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...84464315320641

https://scontent.fric1-2.fna.fbcdn.n...ad&oe=61554FED

I took out my Schwinn Superior 3-speed after the recent rain storm Friday afternoon. Several low-lying roads were under water. I had to turn around and change my route up a little bit. This was too deep for my liking, and the cars were up to their axles in water on this road. But it turned from a rainy day, to a very nice one. We don't have a lot of season left here for riding, before the cold and then the snow strike.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LIVxh0cul...924_174827.jpg

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nTWh7RyQe...924_175136.jpg

Mudguards
 

Hi
Could it be possible to fit 26" mudguards [fenders] to a 27" wheel?
Thanks

Many vintage mudguards, Bluemels for instance, will fit most wheels. The effective outside diameter of the tires on 26"/EA3's and 700c are virtually the same. 27's aren't much larger but a few issues can crop up, like width of the mudguard vs frame specs like bridge placement and clearances for seat stays and fork crowns.

Sometimes you've got to McGyvor the crap outa them.

You can gently massage fenders to change their radius too - if you squeeze the edges together along the length of the fender it will become narrower and the radius larger. The slightly narrower fenders should fit OK with 27 x 1 1/4" tires.
I hope this description makes sense - I think someone here once posted a pictorial of this, but if so it's probably many, many pages back by now

...just did a quick search, here's a how to...

https://somervillebikes.wordpress.co...er-arc-radius/

That sounds good. Will try. Thanks

Odd little smaller-than-a-Twenty Raleigh.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...5906435694974/

https://scontent.fric1-2.fna.fbcdn.n...16&oe=615C271C

Mounton with a 4-speed.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...60132809356431

https://scontent.fric1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...7d&oe=615BF101

I have a real English 3 speed and an American English style three Speed.
Heres the Birmingham one...


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c0880f3f5.jpeg

Great value there. Not your average Sports.

Was the 1966-69 era Raleigh Sprite the only models to use an S5 hub?

I picked up a 23" Sprite frame that takes 26" wheels a while back, I have everything but the original wheels.
It came with a single speed rear coaster brake laced to a set of Raleigh pattern, Westrick rims.
I spotted this on fleabay (https://www.ebay.com/itm/23420600007...IAAOSwBuBhRrcS).
I was going to just make it a three speed but was thinking of maybe putting it back to original.
I got nothing in the bike as it sits and its in pretty nice shape overall.
I've been watching for a while and I don't see many S5 hubs for sale.
Was the Sprite the only model to use an S5?

The only thing I ever recall seeing them on is the late 60's Sprites and I think a few kids bikes.
They're pretty much rare as hen's teeth these days,
For me, the only way to fix up a bike is to put it back the way it was built at the factory.

To me, getting on a 60's Sprite and seeing a three speed or coaster brake would be like getting into a classis muscle car and turning the key only to hear some anemic four cylinder engine under the hood, or like having a Cadillac without air conditioning.

I've got two S5 equipped Sprites here myself, I've been offered $300 each for their rear hubs, but they didn't want the whole bike. I will not part out a good bike.
I actually bought both of them for parts but it turned out both were solid bikes, a matched green his/her's pair. I was after the minty clean rims on them but soon decided to
leave them as is and keep looking for the rims for another project.
Around here, whole bikes won't sell. Value wise, the only way I'd ever get any money out of these is in parts, but I have little doubt, the only thing that would sell is the rear hubs. I've watched a half dozen decent looking Sports models for sale all summer for cheap and they just sit here, folks won't pay $100 for a clean Sports, and lately most don't seem to even sell for $50.

(I dragged home four for $10 last weekend from a local fleamarket, I was there around closing on Sunday and the guy didn't want to load up any bikes. He was asking $25 each on the tags, and each one was decent and ridable, yet he got no takers. He told me he started out with 22 bikes on Sat. morning, and only the Walmart junk sold, the two Raleighs, one Robin Hood, and one Schwinn never got a look. He told me he can sell a dozen rusty Huffy and Murray bikes to every one decent Raleigh or Schwinn).

The bikes I brought home were a '68 and '78 Raleigh Sports, one 22" and one 23" frame, '65 Robin Hood Sports in 23", and a 1950's Schwinn Traveler.
The 68 Sports had one wrong rim, someone stuck a Dunlop Endrick rim on the front, and the fenders are a bit messed up and the Schwinn fenders are likely trash, but they were otherwise all in good shape. Especially for $10. ( I was able to hop on and ride each one with no real issues as found).

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...0fd997e4f.jpeg

Back in the day I worked at a shop that sold many brands, Raleigh being just one of them. They stocked all the road bikes, and 5 and 10 speed Sprite 27 models, but I don't think I ever ran across an S5 hub back then The go to three speed was the Motobecane Nobly or any number of US made bikes, Columbia, Ross, even Puch. They had one black rod brake Raleigh roadster that the owner said was a 1974 model, it were there well into the 80's with no takers. The price tag was just over $200.
I was there through the mid 70's to the late 80's. They dropped Raleigh when Huffy got involved.
Road bikes were the mainstay of that shop back then but regardless of the type of bike, the number one seller was always what ever could be sold the cheapest. Raleigh was never in that category.
In the shop, by the end of the 70's, we were seeing mostly all Shimano three speeds in for repair Partly because they broke more often, partly because most of the cheaper bikes tended to come with them.
We did see the occasional Raleigh or sub brand bike but most were old bikes owned by regular customers.