Tigger and Blue
06-25-21, 06:02 AM
#76
Senior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2020
Location: Eastern Poland
Posts: 743
Bikes: Romet Jubilat x 4, Wigry x 1, Turing x 1
Mentioned: 3 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 194 Post(s)
Liked 204 Times
in
151 Posts
Another trip, they seem to be coming hot and fast now….
Krupe is a small village, today just a place one might barely notice as one passes through if one were local travelling between one unremarked town (Krasynstaw) and another (Rejowiec). In terms of popularity in the region it is not a natural choice, because the road is at a right angle to the roads radiating out from Lublin and would not even be a natural choice if one were travelling north-south through the region.
Things were evidently not always the same, because a couple of kilometres short of the actual village, alongside one of the uncountable carp lakes in the region (uncountable because the lakes are frequently left to dry out and then may or may never be refilled) is Ruiny Zamku w Krupem, or ‘Ruins of the Castle in Krupe’. Maybe the Krupian villagers craftily upped and moved along the valley after there was no one to keep them at work at and supplying the castle, maybe the masters shifted the scruffy Krupians out of sight of the castle walls, or maybe ‘in Krupe’ is a loosely used geographic term.
Krupe castle (read: palace), dwarfing My Wigry
Whatever, the ruins left today form about a third of the original castle, essentially one complete wall and two bits, in what is termed the Lublin Renaissance style. There are stacks of buildings, especially churches, in this style, from a period when the city of Lublin was one of two in Poland that the royal court would visit each year to make the kind of decisions in which the owners of castles might have a vested interest. Enough interest to involve a dozen or so of the really big castle owners building a dozen or so palaces in Lublin. Today, though, it is difficult to recognise them today as palaces, as the royal court stopped coming centuries ago, and in the meantime there have been many wars, rebuilds, restyles and diverse changes of use.
Anyway, Krupe Castle is an adventure land of empty doorways, roofless passages, broken masonry, weeds - and not one sniff of a safety barrier. One can (and one did while wifie was not looking) stand on the edge of an empty doorway and look vertically down a wall to the ground some five metres below.
We had overnight visitors last weekend, and after they had gone and it being such a nice day wifie suggested we finally get round to visiting Krupe, without side trips this time. Gladly I loaded My Wigry into the back of the car, noting at the same time that if I continued to take it on Tigger style trips then I would seriously have to consider buying it a new set of tires. Wifie added her Nordic walking sticks.
It was about a 25 minute drive, and we actually missed the place due to the entrance looking remarkably like just another dirt track into a wood. Parking was minimal, hillocky, and clearly not intended for mass tourism. The information was poor, as is usual here, with a lot blah blah about the owners in the sixteenth century and nothing much else. Unlike the information the weather was hot, but the shade under the trees was gentle, the grass soft and fresh-looking and we could have lain down and dropped off.
My Wigry and the lake
So we disembarked My Wigry and the sticks from the car, then with the bike unfolded and wifie all sticked up, we set out to enjoy the grassy paths with other people shyly enjoying the sheer beauty of the place, one eye on the lookout for the envious glares from those who place too much faith in books as the sole founts of knowledge and happiness.
The paths were mainly smooth enough that I could ride seated, and even to get up some speed when I had to return to the car to get the sunglasses wifie forgot. For the central keep we abandoned our travel devices, as the paths were too steep - but well worth the struggle to see the lake through the empty windows of the remaining outer wall.
We were not quite sure of the extent of the site as a map had not been included amongst the history waffle on the boards, but it would have been pleasant if a path could have been arranged to allow one to walk or ride around the whole lake, even if that meant walking down the Street of [the group of buildings] With No Name on the other side.
Outlying ruins, tired bike
It was all good cycling, but just too small and the main road lacking a path to make it safe to ride there, so all too soon it became time to pop everything in the car and head back. Next week I might be bringing Tigger up from the city, which will allow us to tackle some longer routes, more adventurously.
#romet #rower #bicycle #wigry #jubilat #shopper #poland #polska, #krupe
Krupe is a small village, today just a place one might barely notice as one passes through if one were local travelling between one unremarked town (Krasynstaw) and another (Rejowiec). In terms of popularity in the region it is not a natural choice, because the road is at a right angle to the roads radiating out from Lublin and would not even be a natural choice if one were travelling north-south through the region.
Things were evidently not always the same, because a couple of kilometres short of the actual village, alongside one of the uncountable carp lakes in the region (uncountable because the lakes are frequently left to dry out and then may or may never be refilled) is Ruiny Zamku w Krupem, or ‘Ruins of the Castle in Krupe’. Maybe the Krupian villagers craftily upped and moved along the valley after there was no one to keep them at work at and supplying the castle, maybe the masters shifted the scruffy Krupians out of sight of the castle walls, or maybe ‘in Krupe’ is a loosely used geographic term.
Krupe castle (read: palace), dwarfing My Wigry
Whatever, the ruins left today form about a third of the original castle, essentially one complete wall and two bits, in what is termed the Lublin Renaissance style. There are stacks of buildings, especially churches, in this style, from a period when the city of Lublin was one of two in Poland that the royal court would visit each year to make the kind of decisions in which the owners of castles might have a vested interest. Enough interest to involve a dozen or so of the really big castle owners building a dozen or so palaces in Lublin. Today, though, it is difficult to recognise them today as palaces, as the royal court stopped coming centuries ago, and in the meantime there have been many wars, rebuilds, restyles and diverse changes of use.
Anyway, Krupe Castle is an adventure land of empty doorways, roofless passages, broken masonry, weeds - and not one sniff of a safety barrier. One can (and one did while wifie was not looking) stand on the edge of an empty doorway and look vertically down a wall to the ground some five metres below.
We had overnight visitors last weekend, and after they had gone and it being such a nice day wifie suggested we finally get round to visiting Krupe, without side trips this time. Gladly I loaded My Wigry into the back of the car, noting at the same time that if I continued to take it on Tigger style trips then I would seriously have to consider buying it a new set of tires. Wifie added her Nordic walking sticks.
It was about a 25 minute drive, and we actually missed the place due to the entrance looking remarkably like just another dirt track into a wood. Parking was minimal, hillocky, and clearly not intended for mass tourism. The information was poor, as is usual here, with a lot blah blah about the owners in the sixteenth century and nothing much else. Unlike the information the weather was hot, but the shade under the trees was gentle, the grass soft and fresh-looking and we could have lain down and dropped off.
My Wigry and the lake
So we disembarked My Wigry and the sticks from the car, then with the bike unfolded and wifie all sticked up, we set out to enjoy the grassy paths with other people shyly enjoying the sheer beauty of the place, one eye on the lookout for the envious glares from those who place too much faith in books as the sole founts of knowledge and happiness.
The paths were mainly smooth enough that I could ride seated, and even to get up some speed when I had to return to the car to get the sunglasses wifie forgot. For the central keep we abandoned our travel devices, as the paths were too steep - but well worth the struggle to see the lake through the empty windows of the remaining outer wall.
We were not quite sure of the extent of the site as a map had not been included amongst the history waffle on the boards, but it would have been pleasant if a path could have been arranged to allow one to walk or ride around the whole lake, even if that meant walking down the Street of [the group of buildings] With No Name on the other side.
Outlying ruins, tired bike
It was all good cycling, but just too small and the main road lacking a path to make it safe to ride there, so all too soon it became time to pop everything in the car and head back. Next week I might be bringing Tigger up from the city, which will allow us to tackle some longer routes, more adventurously.
#romet #rower #bicycle #wigry #jubilat #shopper #poland #polska, #krupe
08-26-21, 03:36 AM
#77
Senior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2020
Location: Eastern Poland
Posts: 743
Bikes: Romet Jubilat x 4, Wigry x 1, Turing x 1
Mentioned: 3 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 194 Post(s)
Liked 204 Times
in
151 Posts
Well I am back, because I have actually done some things on my folders as opposed to my other bikes.
I have a notebook in my warsztat where I have been developing a list of things I would like to do to each of my bikes, once I manage to complete my current 'Ten Turing' project. To that end I have retrieved Danusia from the city as I want to put its forks on Zenit, I have a Fichtel and Sachs 3-speed coaster brake rear hub to go in Zenit so I can remove its brakes and achieve the fun-ness of the coaster brake off-road while maintaining its 3-speed flexibility. The countryside around here is semi-forested, with a lot of clay and sand, and many steep slopes, which is really beyond the capabilities of Tigger, while Zenit eats it up, although as a small bike the riding can sometimes be brutal.
Anyway, I bought a secondhand kids bike on 20" wheels with SRAM 3-speed coaster brake hub. The bike is a Zasada, another Polish manufacturer, and I now have bikes from all the current three: Romet, Kross and Zasada. I might pop the SRAM on Tigger, but I am really trying to put together a stock of coaster brake hubs - F+S, SRAM and of course Velosteel, the latter two with products deriving from F+S, to keep all my hubs in the family. The wheels on the Zasada are 36 spoke with aluminium rims, with tires that resemble the classic and original Stomils on my 1992 Wigry. The steel rims on My Wigry have a bit of rust, so I would like to put them in storage and run with the aluminium rims.
Zasada being stripped
If I ever decide to put mudguards on My Wigry, I now have a set with just mild dings, plus the saddle might find its way on as well. My Wigry is not in the same class as a modern folder, but it takes up noticeably less room in the back of the car than Tigger. I thought about putting the SRAM on here, but the kind of riding I do on it does not warrant anything but a single speed.
New 36 spoke wheel fitted plus original 24 spoke wheel
Notice how skinny is the Romet front hub on the left, classic cheapo Romet. The Rat Rod Bike forum, where my Ten Turing build project can be found, has proven to be a goldmine of useful techniques when dealing with older bikes - like dunking rusty things in wood bleach to remove rust without damaging the surviving paintwork. Look at the size of the hub on the 36-spoke wheel. See how chunky it is? Whether these old bikes had a thick or thin axle the bearings were the same - well here is the duh-obvious thing under my nose that I never noticed and which I learned on that forum - you can build either axle in the thick axle hub because their cones fit the bearings and there is enough space in the hub for either axle. I already know the thick axle does not fit the Romet thin axle hub, but I had already filed out Turings fork to accept the larger axle - and had to stretch the fork to fit the hub as they tend to use wide wide cones and locking nuts.
So the hub above is the thick axle Zasada, running on standard thin axle, cones and lock nuts. It dropped straight in.
The rear wheel has been stripped to remove the SRAM and pop in a 36 spoke Velosteel hub tube from a Jubilat, so My Wigry's hub internals will slide straight in. I need a 36 piece set of Wigry size spokes as the Zasada ones are 5 mm too short to reach the Velosteel hub - I do have a spare set of Wigry spokes, but that is 8 spokes short of what I need...
Romet Jubilat 2 in town
Here is a Jubilat 2 I came across while shopping the other day, it makes my projects seem so much more relevant when they standard bikes are still doing service.
Interestingly, I learned from a Pole interested in bikes that during the 1990s it was easy to get hold of new genuine stickers for bikes. It became a common thing to upgrade the look of a used bike with new factory stickers, which explains why I keep seeing adverts for original Jubilats with Jubilat 2 stickers being sold as 'Jubilat 2', even though I can clearly see the original steel strip stiffener between the BB and fold lock instead of the Jubilat 2 tube style stiffener. If I were more interested in gaining a bike collection I could buy Jubilat at the lower Jubilat 2 prices
I have a notebook in my warsztat where I have been developing a list of things I would like to do to each of my bikes, once I manage to complete my current 'Ten Turing' project. To that end I have retrieved Danusia from the city as I want to put its forks on Zenit, I have a Fichtel and Sachs 3-speed coaster brake rear hub to go in Zenit so I can remove its brakes and achieve the fun-ness of the coaster brake off-road while maintaining its 3-speed flexibility. The countryside around here is semi-forested, with a lot of clay and sand, and many steep slopes, which is really beyond the capabilities of Tigger, while Zenit eats it up, although as a small bike the riding can sometimes be brutal.
Anyway, I bought a secondhand kids bike on 20" wheels with SRAM 3-speed coaster brake hub. The bike is a Zasada, another Polish manufacturer, and I now have bikes from all the current three: Romet, Kross and Zasada. I might pop the SRAM on Tigger, but I am really trying to put together a stock of coaster brake hubs - F+S, SRAM and of course Velosteel, the latter two with products deriving from F+S, to keep all my hubs in the family. The wheels on the Zasada are 36 spoke with aluminium rims, with tires that resemble the classic and original Stomils on my 1992 Wigry. The steel rims on My Wigry have a bit of rust, so I would like to put them in storage and run with the aluminium rims.
Zasada being stripped
If I ever decide to put mudguards on My Wigry, I now have a set with just mild dings, plus the saddle might find its way on as well. My Wigry is not in the same class as a modern folder, but it takes up noticeably less room in the back of the car than Tigger. I thought about putting the SRAM on here, but the kind of riding I do on it does not warrant anything but a single speed.
New 36 spoke wheel fitted plus original 24 spoke wheel
Notice how skinny is the Romet front hub on the left, classic cheapo Romet. The Rat Rod Bike forum, where my Ten Turing build project can be found, has proven to be a goldmine of useful techniques when dealing with older bikes - like dunking rusty things in wood bleach to remove rust without damaging the surviving paintwork. Look at the size of the hub on the 36-spoke wheel. See how chunky it is? Whether these old bikes had a thick or thin axle the bearings were the same - well here is the duh-obvious thing under my nose that I never noticed and which I learned on that forum - you can build either axle in the thick axle hub because their cones fit the bearings and there is enough space in the hub for either axle. I already know the thick axle does not fit the Romet thin axle hub, but I had already filed out Turings fork to accept the larger axle - and had to stretch the fork to fit the hub as they tend to use wide wide cones and locking nuts.
So the hub above is the thick axle Zasada, running on standard thin axle, cones and lock nuts. It dropped straight in.
The rear wheel has been stripped to remove the SRAM and pop in a 36 spoke Velosteel hub tube from a Jubilat, so My Wigry's hub internals will slide straight in. I need a 36 piece set of Wigry size spokes as the Zasada ones are 5 mm too short to reach the Velosteel hub - I do have a spare set of Wigry spokes, but that is 8 spokes short of what I need...
Romet Jubilat 2 in town
Here is a Jubilat 2 I came across while shopping the other day, it makes my projects seem so much more relevant when they standard bikes are still doing service.
Interestingly, I learned from a Pole interested in bikes that during the 1990s it was easy to get hold of new genuine stickers for bikes. It became a common thing to upgrade the look of a used bike with new factory stickers, which explains why I keep seeing adverts for original Jubilats with Jubilat 2 stickers being sold as 'Jubilat 2', even though I can clearly see the original steel strip stiffener between the BB and fold lock instead of the Jubilat 2 tube style stiffener. If I were more interested in gaining a bike collection I could buy Jubilat at the lower Jubilat 2 prices
Likes For Geepig:
