Wheel Issues on the Raleigh Sports

I totally slacked off on regular maintenance of Ginger's 1972 Raleigh Sports. Ginger told me that the brakes were squealing so I threw the bike up on the repair stand. Once it was on the repair stand, I realized that the wheels were badly out of true. Upon closer inspection I found that some of the spokes were frighteningly loose. One of them was even broken! I pulled off the front wheel with the broken spoke and tossed it aside and then trued up the rear wheel as best I could. My old man has several old Raleigh Sports rigs and he came to rescue with a temporary replacement wheel. So now Ginger's machine is back on the road, which is nice. Though I have to confess that I totally forgot to fix the squealing brakes.

Now I'm torn on how to proceed. As I see it, I've got three options:

1. Replace the front wheel with a used or new wheel
2. Pick up a donor bike from around the same vintage and pilfer the wheels from it
3. Re-lace the original wheels

All three options have their advantages. Option 1 is probably the path of least resistance. It's pretty easy to find brand new 26 x 1 1/3 wheels for a good price. And I'm sure there are plenty on eBay and/or Craigslist. But most of the bike is completely original, so I kind of hate to do this.

Option 2 is slightly more intensive, but not much. And it still entails replacing the original equipment with non-original, which would totally suck.

Option 3 is the most attractive, but it's the most expensive (I would need to invest in a good truing stand and tension meter) and time consuming (I've never built or re-laced a wheel before). At the same time, building wheels is something I've been interested in trying my hand at. And a decent truing stand would be a pretty solid investment for someone who works on six bikes of my own, plus my friends' bikes when they need a hand.

The jury's still out on how I'm going to handle this. But I'll have to do it soon, because my dad's going to want that wheel back eventually.

An Especially Special Stringer Bicycle

My Dad brought his 1975 Raleigh Sports into town last weekend to pedal around downtown for Bikes & Brews. He ended up leaving the bike with me so that I could tune it up, as it's been in storage for quite some time. Last night, I poured myself a gin & tonic and hauled the old girl down to the basement. It's really a beautiful bike: a classic English roadster with a copper color frame. It even has the original leather saddle (my old man bought the bike new in 1975).

I put a couple coats of leather conditioner on the saddle and tensioned it a bit to reduce some sagging that was beginning to occur. Next, I ripped out all of the old cables and housing and ran new cables, including a new shift cable kit for the Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub. Once I had all of the cables adjusted properly, I added a few drops of Tenacious Oil to the rear hub and pulled the machine out of the repair stand.

The bike is now functioning great. It could stand to have a few parts replaced in the near future; a new chain, new brake pads, new tires and tubes, etc. There are also some areas that are beginning to show some surface rust, so a heavy cleaning and rust removal might be in order. But other than that, it's in great shape and is an exquisite specimen. Maybe I can talk him into letting me hold on to it next winter so I can give it a full overhaul and polish.

Stringer Fleet: 1972 Raleigh Sports

 

The current crown jewel of our garage has got to be Ginger's 1972 Raleigh Sports.  The Sports was a hugely popular and superbly well-made bicycle.  Many of these bikes survive today and so when Ginger expressed an interest in a roadster- or cruiser-style bicycle that would provide her with a more upright riding position than her road bike, I had no problem finding an old Sports for sale.  I picked up this particular bike in small town outside of Kansas City.  It hadn't been ridden in many years and had been living in a chicken coop; and was therefore understandably covered in bird shit.  I brought the bike home and started taking it apart and cleaning it up.  I snapped this picture when I was nearly finished with the breakdown - I decided to overhaul the headset as a kind of afterthought so the fork is still attached in this picture, and I also had some trouble getting one of the cotter pins out, so the crankset didn't come off until a few days later.

I cleaned and degreased everything that was to go back on the bike and then took a trip to my LBS for the parts that were not.  New parts that went on this bike included a Brooks Flyer saddle, leather grips, nickel-plated chain, rubber and tubes, and of course cables and housing.  Other minor additions included new cotter pins and a new shift housing stop.  Usually I try to do all the work for these rebuilds myself, but since I was reusing the old cotter cranks, I had to have the guys at Klunk press the cotter pins into place with a specialized cotter press.  In the end the bike came together beautifully and I was - and still am - very pleased with how it looked.

Since the above photo was taken, I've added a small basket to the handlebars on my wife's orders.  I was hesitant to do this, as I thought it might detract from the elegance of the bicycle.  But instead, it really added a nice touch.

Here are a few random thoughts on this bike.  The old Brooks mattress saddle that came on the bike when I bought it was probably perfectly comfortable, but nothing beats that beautiful honey-colored Flyer.  This particular machine was manufactured in Malaysia (or at least the frame was).  Initially this was a concern for me, as I thought I had maybe paid too much for an inferior bike.  But after some research, I've discovered that these bikes were built to last and are every bit as mechanically sound as the Nottingham-made machines.  I do, however, have one issue with this bike, and that is with the old Sturmey-Archer 3-speed rear hub.  The integrated freewheel is a bit of a nuisance and does not turn freely at all.  I've heard that this is an unavoidable and common problem with these old hubs, but it's a problem nonetheless.  Other than that, this bike is proving to be a real beauty and a true workhorse for Ginger's daily commute.