A Fixie for Africa
 

Tom, Sadly, I don't think so. Canucks are the only peeps in the whirled with no accent, %-) I dew love accents though! Find myself mimicking them unconciously. Get rather some stares at the airport. And after a long ride there's this clicking between words, rather like the freewheel - I fear it might mean something in Swahili or Kalihari or some such. Good reason to ride a fixie in Africa.

Western ones that is.

Yeah, I quite like the purple, and colour-matched fenders and chainguard. I don't like the deformed handlebar (boo low-quality steel stem), and the shifting needs tuning, but so far it's a damn reliable smile generator!

And yep, it does appear to be a Sachs 3-speed. Needs a little attention to work quite right but 2 gears get the job done for now.

Robin McNeil (a Canadian himself), in The Story of English, gave an explanation of why there's pretty much one accent across all of English speaking Canada. I don't remember it, and I'm not sure I believe it, either.

I'll have to look that book up.

I guess it's because of the fur trade and the railway. There's something about chasing beavers all over the shield that mixes things up. You know, traditionally they farmed in the summer and went off trapping or logging or digging rocks for the winter or minded lifts in Banff... There wasn't always enough to do if you stayed in one spot all year. Winter being like a national cocktail party. That's one theory anyway. The east was settled earlier, Newfoundland being Irish influenced, Nova Scotia being Scotch influenced (I'm half scotch and half water myself) Quebec, well we dursn't go there right now...

Or perhaps it's the CBCs fault...

Tashi, yah, I saw too much of that stem :eek: Just rolled steel, not even a piece of pipe and not terribly long either... Did you see how the rear bars attach to the front seat? No height adjustment possible! (except by pivotting) They could have made a little bolt-on bracket just as easy I would guess?

My Torpedo selector didn't want to stop in first, until I WD40'd it and flicked it obsessively for a while. The tiny spring that flips the little stopper tab in there is rather slenderous. And the whole gadget is rivetted together - like they thought we'd never want in there.

Hey, they made me "Senior Member!" All I had to do was make 53 posts? I'm off for champagne.

You're hilarious, Fir. I bet I could listen to you all day.

T'isn't true... I can often tell where people are from and where they have lived in between... there is an Ontario by way of Winnipeg accent that is quite distinct.

Martimers are unitelligable at any speed unless you have Gaelic roots or drink enough Screech and many people have taken me for being a Maritimer with a PEI accent.

Can't stop from rolling my r's due to my grandmothers influence and being Scotch / Irish means I like to drink... and hate to pay for it.

The Swedish side keeps the Scotch and Irish in check methinks.

I'll drink to that! :cheers:

This just gets better and better. Keep it coming, eh.

Here's my phillips 3 SPEED
 

Here's my Phillips, I think it's a 70

Is that Phillips a rebranded Raleigh? Looks a whole lot like the Raleigh Sports that I posted pictures of a couple days ago. Particularly the chrome accent on the front fender -- Made in England has the same script, too.

There was a Huffy Sportsman for sale in Hempstead, Texas (about 50 miles up the rode from Houston) about 2 weeks ago and I was tempted to go look at it but conquered the temptation. The Huffy Sportsman was a re-branded Raleigh Sports that Huffy sold in the U.S. back in the 60s or early 70s. Actually a decent bike. Pictures showed it to be pretty rough, though.

Somebody in Fond du Lac Wisconsin has a lady's model Phillips on Ebay. Nice looking bike.

I've been to Fond du Lac. The name means bottom of the lake, the lake in question being Winnebago. Supposedly, the name Winnebago means stinking waters in one of the Indian languages of the area. So, we're talking about the bottom of the lake of stinking water -- that's where I go to find my bicycles.

Thanks Tom, my Mum says i sound like Stephen Hawking, except with an annoying nasal twang, slurred sibbilants, dipthongs that endanger the crystalware, and an inexplicable glottal clunk on the voiceless fricatives. But then she's biased. The provincial school speech pathologist said nothing could be done. We think that's what he said, it was devilish hard to follow his PEI inflected North-end Winnipeg brogue. After it was too late for me they discovered his credentials were done by hand, remarkably close to his own style. Them was the days. We used to watch him rolling up to the school on his lovely sparkling English 3 Speed in his tweeds and pipe. He'd talk to it while rubbing his ashes into the saddle and endlessly twisting the indicator spindle. Pontificating the while to us about we know not what.


Question: if a fellow had clunky bearings underfoot, and pried the little chrome end-cap off his Nottingham pedals with a screwdriver, just a quick straight-up pry? and there would be a nut under there holding it all together?

Fir - You were an English major weren't you ?

So the monster got up this morning and looked at the grey skies which were foretold to be bearing a little rain and said, "It looks like a lovely day for English three speeds".

:)

We have a 4 1/2 mile commute to school and made excellent time with the girls both cranking it out in third gear (had a little tailwind) and just beat the rain and am hoping we get a little break this afternoon for our ride home but if not, a little rain won't hurt us or our lovely old bikes.

The girl said she liked her new leather saddle as although it was hard it was also sproingy and had no complaint about a sore behind and also liked her new pedals as I installed some old Lyotard rat traps... I know... French pedals on an English bike.... heresy.

UBC '91 :-) (but they want to revoke it for mangling that poor little defenseless language)

Mum said 'go into something that pays.' Why couldn't I listen?

We're having a break from the monsoons today. I expect tomorrow we'll get your today clouds. Better old French than new no-names. Do the girls bus in winter? Our little guy goes about 6km. Last winter was convenient as there was a contingent of bus riders coming and going to his campus. But now and then I'd fetch him in the waggon. He'd fall asleep in there wrapped in his blankets no matter the weather. Except big storms, they were fascinating and he'd be glued to the little portal. Perhaps next winter he'll be peddling enough to stay warm, don't know yet.

Last night I put a 22T cog on the Twenty... Q'el diffrance! you could pull stumps with it now. A little tooo much lowness indeed... Ok, I'll try 20T on the sports for hauling waggons - but the stock 18T seems good for unladen runningabout. Brooks saddle? They look smashing. On my list :-)

Canadian Tire Co. Supercycle
 

I picked this bike up last night -
CL description:
Vintage Rare Mens Supercycle Road Bicycle Canadian Tire Co

Nice gold rare English made Canadian Tire Co Bike. It has front and rear chrome fenders, original white wall tires (hold air, but may have to be replaced in the next few seasos) rear rack, front horn, Sturmey Archer gear changer without derailer.Bicycle stand folds over both sides elevating the entire bike. This thing is a beauty! You will not find another one like this in Chicago! It is 21' with a 31.5 stand over height. Great condition. Bike was stored away for years.

I will include better shots later.

Supposedly it was purchased through the Canadian Tire Co. catalog around 1970. I would love to find this catalog, but have not been successful yet.

I'll count the teeth on my three speeds. The Hercules (relabeled Raleigh Sports) has ratios too high. The Twenty seems to have it just right. Nice and low, which is good for a heavy, slow bike.

Fir, you're still cracking me up. Keep it up.

And yes, that's how most pedals work. Crack it open, and you'll be looking at the locknut. Under that is the keyed lockwasher. Under that is the adjustable cone. The fixed cone is really the other end of the axle.

My girls ride 20 inch wheels with SA AW hubs and I have installed 20 tooth cogs for them which gives them a useable gearing for commuting and short climbs, ran an 18 on my Twenty before it was a fixed gear as I never had to pull stumps but liked to be able to get up hills.

The stock gearing for a twenty uses a 15 tooth cog which makes the gearing as high as it is on a stock three speed.

My Sports has a 48 mated to a 20 tooth cog which gives me a really nice all around gearing with 700c wheels... the later Sports models have a 46 tooth ring and usually come with an 18.

I recently picked up a 1971 Triumph that's turning out to be a gem. Been cleaning her up the last couple of days and am finding that the surface rust on the chrome comes right off with some superfine wool. it also appears to have the original brake pads, Dunlap tires, and tubes...all in great shape. All but one decal look amazing as well.

I have some cool old canvas and leather saddle bags I picked up in Holland a while back and would love to put them on. Any suggestions for a rear rack that is decent quality and would look good?

Sorry about the crappy photos...I'll post some better ones once I'm done with the cleanup.

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The bags I just fitted to my Raleigh are Dutch style sling bags and I used a Pletscher rack and it seems these stlye of bags were designed for just this.

My heel clearance is minimal on the Sports but on a roadster would guess there would be a few more inches to work with.

Sorry about the crappy photos...I'll post some better ones once I'm done with the cleanup.

archaehologist, I'm getting

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with your photo links.

My Twenty and Sports both came with 18T on the back. One day it dawned on me [while riding beside Mrs. Fir and observing foot revolutions] that meant different gears due to the different wheel size... Better count the fronts now...

Congrats, it's a Raleigh Sports rebranded as a Supercycle. You've got the racer style with drop bars...totally original. The threading is 26 tpi so keep it in mind if you need to swap a headset or bottom bracket. Which is unlikely of course. The catalogues must exist somewhere but they generally lacked a lot in detail.

-That's the same rack as on the Raleigh Grand Prix i found last week. I figured it was bastardded on there from some other application, but it looks like the little legs only reach part way down the seat stays on yours too. Was your frame made in England too? Nice find.

"front horn" [from the advert] - I understand the rear horns never got that much traction. I will keep an eye for those catalogues now! my neighbours had a ~1974 Eaton's catalogue in their yard sale and I didn't even think to flap around for the bike section...

What are your plans for it?

I am having a hard time finding any info on this bike and I was hoping that the catalog could shed some light. But it great to know that it actually is a Sports. And from your comment it sounds like the drop bars are original which I was not even certain about. Do you have anymore interesting details about this bike you could share?

OK, I'll try this again. It's odd because I can see them when logged in.

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Good Idea! I have the Heron cranks ranging from 42t? up to a 48t. Rear cogs vary accordingly. My Twenty is currently geared with a 44/15 which is adequate for all but the steepest hills. I really need to work on re-powering the motor though...

Aaron :)

That worked. Very nice! I have a matching Lady's model I'm fixing up for my sister-in-law (terrible garage pictures):

Attachment 154711Attachment 154712

I took the AW hub apart last night (it was sticky), and boy, was it full of varnish and crap. Also found a broken pawl spring. Cleaned up nicely, though.