bikamper

The rusty Ural is back up and running.

It fought me the entire way.

It's going to be hauling my 68 Raleigh Superbe later this afternoon to the start of an evening ride. That said, I hauled some Christmas cheer to the wrenches and owner of my favorite bike shop.


The owner and I got to BSing about the Dutch Everton step thru frame I got earlier this year and turning it into a ride for next year's 3 Speed Tour. He said he had something I might be interested in as a donor bike. It turned out to be a Finnish Tunturi with alloy rims, Sachs Torpedo 3 speed hub, fenders, and chain guard. The frame is poorly welded gas pipe and has a one piece crank but I'm not keeping those. If I'd had the bike rack on the Ural, I'd have taken it home but it will have to wait for a later date.

RCMoeur 

Today is the big day for Recycle Your Bicycle. After spending months fixing up donated bikes (about half & half big box / C&V), we give them all away to foster families.





My job most of the day (starting before 6 AM): signing and traffic control. With all these folks arriving to pick up bikes, it helps to clearly tell them where to go.

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For much of the day, I was on my ol' Nishiki Pueblo "Uglybike 2.0", an old frame that didn't (come even close to) make the cut for the program in terms of aesthetics last season, which I've built with eye-irritating componentry into a very functional and efficient bike but clearly not going to be mistaken for anything we'd want to actually gift to a foster kid. It allowed me the ability to check on traffic flow, see how long the lines were, and go out and fix anything that wasn't working right.




Even with all these other assigned tasks, I was not excused from wrenching and repair duty. In my few available minutes at the stand, I drilled out several sets of wheels for Schrader valves, wrestled with a balky mechanical disc caliper (it won this round), and swapped tires and tubes with maniacal frenzy, patiching tubes for sizes for which we'd run out of spares.

Now exhausted and happy, but did end up with 4 "kickout" bikes for the co-op, a cute lil' bike to pass on to the church bike drive, and some leftover pizza. Woo hoo. Let's do this again next year, but let me get some rest first...





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RCMoeur 

Made the acquaintance of many 7xx, 8xx, and 9xx bikes spanning from the late 80s until the early 2000s. As many of you can attest, they typically were speced with decent components that should be easy to refurbish, but there was many a gunky Rapidfire shifter, an occasional trashed wheel or axle, a few fossilized brakes, and sometimes a combination of factors resulting in shifting malpractice to the point of near-madness. But you can't stay mad at such good solid (and often 'Murican-made) bikes for too long.

Nemosengineer 

I built up a tubeless tool kit for the Land Shark, the tool roll is a Silca Asymmetrico, Silca's smallest tool roll. It holds a surprisingly large amount of stuff.

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

The contents are from left to right, Co2 fill valve, spare presta valve cores w/tool, KOS plug tool w/worms, 30ml of tire sealant, 10cc syringe w/10ga blunt needle, Co2 cylinder, Fix It Sticks bicycle kit.
What no tube or tire levers... Seating the bead took my air compressor and 75 psi, if I tear up a tire bad enough that a plug wont fix it, the ride is over.

by nemosengineer, on Flickr

: mike

merziac

Love these, just bought two more, wish they were still like the original with the red and white stitching.

jdawginsc 

Thats awesome to be involved in that!

JaccoW

I finished the front wheel of the Gazelle A yesterday, spent 2-3 hours fiddling to pull the dynamo wires through the fork and rear fender and deep-cleaned and waxed the chain! It's going to be in a fully enclosed chaincase but this way it will stay good even longer.
Currently down with a flu, perhaps it's Covid again, but I hope to wrap this up by the end of the month. The main thing is touching up the paint on the frame and putting everything back together again.

The reason the wiring is sticking from the fork tube is because I will be running it inside of it up to the handlebars. These bikes have the lights mounted really high and there are special handlebar wedges with a hole in them to sneak the wiring through.
All in all it's going to be a very clean setup with minimal maintenance once it's done.



Here it is in its original form, pre-rebuild;

VintageSteelEU

Unless there's something horribly wrong with the frame, it looks like it's actually decent and not bad at all for $15. Yes, requires de-rusting, stripping paint and re-painting, but even just the parts are worth much more. Crankset looks like Apex, which is respectable. Overall, not the fanciest ride, but with reliable components. And if the wheels are OK, that's an amazing bargain.

VintageSteelEU

I got Pelissier 2000 Professionel front hub some time ago (still hunting for a rear one with 36H drilling) and decided to give it some cleaning. Photo below.
The skewer was bent, so I've ordered a standard skewer hoping I can use the Pelissier cam lever and nut. I actually have some Campy skewer which could serve as a parts donor, but I thought it's best to just get a new one. As I have no experience with cartridge bearings, any advice on these? I don't think they need replacing yet and they seem to be ok, but should I do anything with them? Oil? Grease? Also, if I were to replace them, how do I go about that?

Chuck M 

I bought it for the metal crank arm caps and one was missing when I got there. But for $15 bucks I knew the parts I would salvage would more than make up for my time. I did air the tires up and ride it around the block for giggles when I got it home and it rode nicely for the shape it was in.

But to put it back together with new brake pads, cables, bar tape, tubes, tires, rim tape, chain, and saddle would be a waste of money. Let alone the time it would take to clean it up to paint it. With that being said, it will likely be my winter project.

VintageSteelEU

There's a company in Europe (in Poland) which makes copies of various bits and bobs: dust caps, copies of Campy brake cable adjusters, pedal dust caps, branded dust caps, rare-ish tools. Mostly reproductions and, admitedly, a bit on the pricey side in my opinion. I have also seen genuine SR dust caps out there for roughly $15-20. But you know, for $15 it looks like you got good value, the parts are worth several times more. The bicycle looks like a decent ride to restore, especially if you do the repainting yourself. Have fun with the project!

retlaw53 

Congratulations! We at Bob's Free Bikes, a volunteer group also located in Fountain Hills, AZ, have been busy too. We're on target to give away > 1,100 bikes this year. We operate all year long collecting, refurbishing and distributing bikes to children in need located throughout Maricopa County, AZ
www.bobsfreebikes.org

romperrr 

Beautiful bike. I always had a soft spot for Lotuses. The paint looks like it's in good shape and I love the chrome socks. Looks like a thoughtful build. I heard great things about those brakes if one can get them setup properly. Life is good, indeed.

RCMoeur 

Bob's indeed does great work, and as I recall RYB and Bob's have worked together in the past, most notably on bike collection day this year in August, where RYB filled four semi-trailers with donated bikes and Bob's also benefited greatly.

We're trying to build lines of communication between as many bike nonprofits and civic-minded shops in the Valley as we can (RYB, Bob's, FB4K, Rusty Spoke, Bike Saviours, Bike Cellar, Grey Matter, Brass Monkey, Welcome to America, We Bike, etc.) That way we can share information, surplus material, and other items.


Meanwhile, back on topic: I fixed up an mid-70s Raleigh Super Record last night. Not a bit of Super Record on the Super Record, but Raleigh-branded Suntour & SR componentry is always cool.

Positron400

Wheelbuild with Shimano 600 AX hubs (front is NOS, the rear in great condition), Sapim D-Light spokes and SON H+ TB14 rims. LFT it!

RCMoeur 

Peeling tires off of old C&V-era salvaged wheels. This might possibly explain why this one was flat:

merziac

My son's SS has been out of commission for quite awhile and he hasn't ridden his road bike hardly at all the last couple of years.

Cleaned up and cobbled back together with misc. bits on hand, pedals and saddle are placeholders for Christmas, he has good ones on his road bike we'll swap in.

Turned out ok, hopefully gets him back on the road. Gotta get a good bike sorted out for his SO so they can ride together.

Budget basic Nashbar special, bombproof and solid, he put a lot of miles on it before.

xiaoman1 

Not bike related but, what a B@@@@@@
The Joy of the Holidays arrived early. I've been working on my roof and also crawling in a tight crawl space with little room to move, pulling 120 wire for a washlet and a 230 for a new mini-split.
I am so happy,

RCMoeur 

Still probably easier and more reliable that wiring an old tire-mount generator light.

bikamper

I brought home the Tunturi BSO Monday and got around to stripping it Wednesday.

Boy, it's weird. One piece crank but with cast machined bearing cups. A clamp on the stem instead of a wedge or expander. Seat tube looks to be 25.4 but was shimmed for a 20mm seat post. Rear rack bolted to a plate on the seat stays, each rear dropout, and one bolt through the rear fender. Yet, it has a decent set of wheels on it. For hauling around my heinie, anyway.
I pulled apart the Sachs 515 three speed coaster brake hub today and went through it. It was perfect, so just some new grease. I wanted to make sure that 700c wheels fit in the Danish built Everton frame before I went nuts with it.

Guess I can stop worrying about that.

Chuck M 

I've had this rusty Carabela sitting on my B&D Workmate since I did what I thought was going to be a parts harvest. I've been looking for reasons to not put it back together. So far the biggest challenge and possible excuse was the NDS pedal was stuck in the crank arm. But after disassembling the pedal and putting the spindle in a vice it came out without damage to the arm or the spindle. Thinking the rust had to be bad enough to leave pits, I thought I would do an exploratory look with some sand paper and I found nothing. But just to be sure I stripped the top tube and seat stays today and there was no crutch to be leaned on there. I've been eating this elephant a piece at a time thinking I'd give up, but every time I do something with it, it looks more like I will need to use the parts I harvested to build it back up.

The Workmate is vintage too.

xiaoman1 

HAHA, Is it a good sign when the 230 outlet smokes?
Best, Ben

bikamper

I have been led to believe that letting the smoke out is bad.

xiaoman1 

Correct.....

bikamper

Well, you could look for a British car restoration place. They stock jars of Lucas Replacement Electrical Smoke. That said, it's probably either 6 volt or 12 volt Positive ground smoke that won't work with AC smoke.