Chaser95

They look very comfortable. I like the way you have the bars set up. I would like to do that to my Lotus road bike.

browngw 

With a Canadian spring hopefully only a few weeks away, I've finished a lot of my winter projects and started getting "fair weather" bikes ready. I do ride all winter, but on my hard tail MTB and fat bike mostly.
My DL1 "Sir Wayes A. Tonne" is finally getting the pretty Lucas light that has been converted to LED. A friend had bought it a while ago and decided he no longer wanted it. It is paired with a vintage Cat Eye taillight I found in a thrift store. I fabricated a battery pack (3xAAA)which powers both lights, and ended up placing it under the new Brooks B67 I just purchased and installed.
Next step is to install the new salmon Kool Stop brake pads purchased on Amazon.

Chaser95

Beautiful bike from all angles!

BigChief

[MENTION=298130]browngw[/MENTION] Wow, I love the way you set up Sir Weighs A Ton. Pure class. What a delight to see. Thanks for posting the pictures.

gster

Posted today on Kijiji Toronto
Priced at a hefty $800.00!
$_59.JPG

BigChief

I like the look of these a lot. Reminds me of the old fashioned English Beston grips I have on my Bonneville.

BigChief

I have a pair of English Sinclair and Rush style 9 in IG2 soft rubber on my 70 DL-1. I like these a lot. The soft rubber is very luxurious feeling. Difficult to find though. Supposedly, they come standard on the Pashley heavy roadsters.
https://www.sinclair-rush.co.uk/cate...-grips-style-9

nlerner

Those look a lot like Dare grips, but sounds like the material is much softer. I find the Dare grips to be too hard; they make my hands sore after relatively short rides.

BigChief

They are much softer. They have become my favorite. I originally bought a pair from some guy on eBay. I was just looking for a Dare style grip that didn't say Taiwan across the top for my 70 roadster. He made a fuss about them being used on Pashleys. I was searching eBay "DL1" for chain adjusters and these came up. They are a bit floppy, so I used dish soap to get them on the bars. They fit the Raleigh bars perfectly. They showed up again recently and I bought another pair for my Rudge. These are very nice if you want the traditional look of Dares, but also want a softer more comfy grip.

arty dave

I'm really happy with the grips I put on my DL-1, a Japanese made copy, OGK brand I think. Edit: they also come in white, brown and dark brown



I also found the dare grips don't work with my hands, they are probably too hard, I get a vibrationy kinda itchiness. It's a shame the softer compound sinclair-rush style grips aren't available. I'd love to get a pair of the Britannia grips for my Aussie/English Speedwell roadster project - I thought I had a lead on some, but the guy never replied to me. I may go with some of these Rustines (also available in multiple colours), very similar to an advertisement I found for the Speedwell popular roadster: ...has anyone here tried them?

BigChief

I'm not finding any Britannia grips either. I'd love to try them. Looks like finding great grips is just as tricky as finding a great bike. Or maybe it's just English grips

jamesj

I really like the shape of those bars!

browngw 

The brakes on the roadster are not confidence inspiring in any way. My new Kool Stop salmon pads have arrived and I am trying to install them (starting with the rear) so they work their best. The old pads were worn to a fairly large angle, yet the new ones are square on the bottom and only the edge touches the rim. Will they wear in? Should I shape them before installation?
The '79 rear chain stay clamps are different (closed like the front) than my similar '77 ones (open). Both bikes appeared to be original and were badly neglected almost causing their demise. Any hints at bettering the performance are welcome.

Salubrious

Do not shave them down! You can see one really good reason you had poor braking- the old pads were shot.

With the rod brake machines the brake levers on the handlebars are made of soft steel and bend easily. Often they have bent towards the handlebar grips, limiting brake travel. Rod brake machines should have good braking, but if the brake levers are bent they can be scary. To bend them back, you have to grip the hinge mechanism bit on the handlebar that supports the brake lever with one hand to support it so that when you bend the brake lever down away from the handlebars, that hinge mechanism does not break off. This should be checked and adjusted on a routine basis.

BigChief

One of those pads is facing the wrong way, gotta watch that. They will wear down and conform to the rim quickly, but you want to make sure they land correctly on the rim. The old pads look like they were landing too far out, away from the center. Since the brake stirrups work as return springs, the pads move in toward the center of the rim as they move toward the rim. So you want them to land exactly on the correct place on the rim (in or out) You can adjust this by loosening the bolt holding the guide arm and tapping the guide one way or the other. Up and down on the fork legs on the front or forward and back on the chainstays for the back. The only reason I would dress off any pad material is if one of them is contacting the rim sooner than the other. I do that by holding a strip of emery cloth against the rim, applying light pressure on the lever and pulling the emery cloth through. And +1 about the brake lever travel [MENTION=330095]Salubrious[/MENTION] mentions. I like around 3" of travel from the end of the lever to the grip.

browngw 

Not sure what you mean about one pad facing the wrong way. The pads are symmetrical. If you mean one holder is different, yes it is. The ones on this bike were closed at both ends. When opening, one broke off. As I thought that might happen I opened the one not against the rotation. The holders on the '77 are open on the reversing end.
I had already bent the levers (see photo of SWAT above). I think that will help a lot.
Thanks @ Salubrious and [MENTION=398265]BigChief[/MENTION] for the advice!

BigChief

Oh, I see what happened now. You have the Fibrax style pads with tabs at each end of the holder and had to bend away a tab to install the Kool Stops. I didn't notice that. I was thinking they were the original Raleigh holders that are are just open at one end and narrowed down at the other. Seems that it would be much more difficult to install the Kool Stop inserts in the Fibrax holders that are closed at both ends.

nlerner

The recent talk of grip options inspired me to photo document the current state of grips on my bikes and in my bin. Certainly these are not all "sanctioned" grips for English 3-speeds, but they do demonstrate the wide variety of options:

A close up of a Brittania grip, this one on my '49 Raleigh Clubman:


Dare grips; I'm not quite sure of the history of these or when they might be found on Raleigh Sports:


Some kind of hard rubber grip I have on my Rudge Sports, marked "Made in England" on the end:


Some white ribbed "made in England" grips. Seems these came on lower-end 3-speed in the 1960s:


Not vintage or British, but the most comfortable grips I have: German, cork/rubber blend, purchased by my wife on a trip to Germany several years back:


These are also marked "Made in England" on the ends; I thought they might be GB but no mfg's mark:


These Raleigh grips came off of a 1950s 3-speed; the material is quite worn away and it's hard to know what the original color might have actually been:


These grips look and feel like they belong on a golfing putter. They're quite comfortable and currently on my 1950 Raleigh Lenton Tourist:


Some random grips I had in the parts bin: no markings at all, but they kind of look the part:


Finally, a page from a 1950/51 Raleigh parts catalog, showing some grip options at the time:

BigChief

[MENTION=45088]nlerner[/MENTION] I really do like the Brittania grips. Very elegant. I'm going to keep an eye out for them. How about posting some pictures of your bikes. Even if they did appear on this thread miles back, I'd enjoy seeing them.

nlerner

Certainly! Here are the IGH Brit bikes in the current fleet in chronological order:

1949 Raleigh Clubman


1950 Raleigh Lenton Tourist


1953 Rudge Sports


1973 Raleigh SuperCourse with a 5-speed IGH


And while not a 3-speed, but instead a derailleur-equipped bike, I've set up this '73 Raleigh Competition in city bike mode:

BigChief

Ahhh eye candy. What a fine looking stable. Clubmans have always been at the top of my wish to find list. I remember following up newspaper ads in the 70s hoping that the 3 speed Rudge in the ad would turn out to be a Pathfinder when I got there...never was. Not yet anyway. So many years have passed that any 50s 3 speeds have become almost extinct. I love the Rudge! I did find an early 50s tall frame Rudge, a lot like yours recently. After about 4 years of searching. Makes me wonder what happened to them. They didn't used to be so rare. Is that a genuine Clubman crank on your Super Course? Looks great. I always wondered what single ring cottered crank I could use if I ever got around to making my own club style bike.

nlerner

At one point, I had three Raleigh Clubman: this '49, a '50, and a '51. The '50 and '51 are essentially the same bike, and eventually I sold them off, holding on to the '49 because I bought it from the son of the original owner, who bought it in Milwaukee, so the provenance is kinda cool.

Funny story on that Rudge: I bought it late last summer from a Craiglist seller a couple of towns over. Ends up that seller bought it from a friend of mine who cleared a bunch of bikes out on a garage sale. I could have saved $5 by buying it from my friend!

And, yes, that's a Clubman chainset on the Super Course, but I've since swapped that out for a Stronglight 93 w/ a single 45t ring. I was having trouble with the fit of the cotters, the spindle, and the chainset, so the swap just made life easier, and I do like that configuration for a single speed or IGH build.

johnnyspaghetti

This guy has several in airplane hanger Lake Elmo Mn. Then we go.
.

browngw 

Anyone else considering thinning out their fleet of three-speeds? I now have four and realize that they will not all get a lot of use and even overlap in function a bit.
The 1971 Robin Hood Sports will likely always have a home at "One Browns Lane". That leaves little space for the recently completed "scorcher" '72 Supercycle "Golden Glow Express".
Likewise, the 1979 Raleigh DL1 aka. "Sir Wayes A. Tonne" has secured a permanent place as my about town/coffee shop/shopping bike. The look and feel of this somewhat heavyweight is incomparable. Unfortunately the newcomer '77 DL1 needs to find a new home.
I really enjoy the process of rebuilding these old bikes and making them relevant once again but there is only so much space to keep them and time to use them.
One of the spaces was stolen recently by an older (1965) French Dilecta Le Blanc touring bike that had to be rescued from neglect, missing or not appropriate parts and "fix-ation"( fixed gear). I have a feeling it may be a keeper!

nlerner

^ Nice fleet, [MENTION=298130]browngw[/MENTION]. I seem to have a steady flow of 3-speeds come and go through my fleet. Mostly it's because I like working on them, so if I see a screaming deal on CL (usually $60 or less for a 23" men's frame) I'll buy it, rehab, and resell or give it away. A couple of years back I rehabbed a Raleigh Superbe and ended up having to buy a couple of lady's Raleighs (which go for cheap around here) in order to get the right fender set and chainguard. All eventually got resold, including the Superbe, as ultimately it didn't ride as nicely as my Lenton Tourist, which is a 531 frame with 700 x 32mm wheels, gen hub and front lamp, and is, in my view, the ideal upright bar 3-speed.