Winter Bike

As the evenings draw down and the days shorten, thoughts turn to unearthing the winter bike. We have not had much of a summer here, generally very wet. The trees started losing their leaves at the end of July, to the point, a maple in the garden is nearly in winter mode apart from the seeds still on the tree.

I suppose it is a left over of my cycling apprenticeship of decades ago, where you had a heavier winter, or hack bike, equipped with mudguards, on which to maintain fitness, keeping your prize machine in good trim for the following racing season. The other reason was using your heavier hack bike would give you an advantage when you changed to your lighter race bike at the start of the new race season.

I started off my cycling career a Hi-Ten Raleigh sports bike and covered thousands of miles on this humble machine. My winter bike was purchased secondhand in the 1980s as a complete bike. Bike was stripped and frame painted by hand. It was a cheap sports bike, confirmed when I stripped the frame to reveal seamed frame tubes. It has had a number of repaints since and still going strong. The bike originally was fitted with a double chainset and Suntour derailleur gears. I had the frame professionally re-enamelled by Bob Jackson years ago, taking advantage of their £50 re-enamelling offer. I chose to have the frame painted black with a maroon headtube, reminiscent of the 1930s BSA Sports.

Around 2009 I rebuilt the bike as a fixed gear machine. It rode well enough in this trim except for the fact my arthritic knees protested at the fixed gear. I liked the fact there was no derailleur gears and freewheel block to attract road dirt and the workings affected by winter road salt. I needed a freewheel to ease the workload on my knees and would like a few gears, but keeping the simple drive train. The solution suggested itself when I rescued a 1960s Sturmey-Archer AW3 wheel dumped in a local bog. The challenge was, could I strip it down and get it going again? I managed to achieve the first and following a thorough clean achieved the second, however the left hand ball cup was badly worn. The hub was the Mk3 with the pressed in ball cup and the bottom gear would never work. I aimed to have a middle gear of around 60 inches, with a top gear under 80 inches. Sturmey-Archer 3 speed hubs tended to be fitted to bikes with too high a gear in my opinion. I ended up fitting a 22T sprocket to my hub gear.

I also took the opportunity when converting the bike to hub gear operation, to build a new front wheel too, incorporating a Novatec hub dynamo. These were getting long in the tooth when I bought mine and could be bought cheaply on ebay. The downside of the hub was the resistance in the dynamo when riding with lights off. It is not actually such a drawback riding with the lights permanently on as the short days and overcast weather mean you are more easily noticed by motor vehicles. Whether they actually make room for you on the road is another matter…..

I used Busch and Muller LED lights on the bike and routed the twin wire cables on the outside of the plastic mudguards. I used pieces of plastic tube glued to the mudguard with epoxy to retain the wires. The tubing came from used liquid soap bottles, being the bottom part of the soap dispenser assembly. Not very elegant, but it works and is in keeping with my bargain basement ethos for my winter bike. I still have the adapted Ever Ready plastic rear light fitted to my old 1970s Carradice Nelson longflap saddlebag. The light was fitted to a custom made aluminium bracket which fits into the offside side pocket of the saddlebag. I always found it useful to have a rear light on the offside of the bike as well as the central rear light. No excuse for a motor vehicle not to give you enough room when passing.

The parts fitted to my bike have all been cascaded down from other bikes over the years, except the wheels and mudguards. The seatpost is an old alloy SR Laprade fluted model. The headset is an old 'Red S' sold by Freewheel in their mail order catalogue. It was actually a Stronglight A9 needle bearing alloy and plastic copy. The cranks are odd cranks, the right being an SR Custom fitted with a single chain ring and the left a Stronglight. They are the same length though! Bars were a modern replacement 44cm for the old narrow SR bars. The stem is 3T. The saddle is an old Cinelli off my MKM racing bike and is now worth too much to leave it on my bike. I have an old Brooks B17 to replace it with. The Cinelli will be re-used in a restoration.

I always like the idea of the old Sturmey-Archer 3 speed quadrant lever mounted on the top tube of bikes in the 1930s. I couldn't get any modern lever to fit onto the top tube of my bike. Instead I used a lever designed for use on 22mm handlebars on the handlebar stem of my bike, with a cable stop on the top tube and the cable routed via a pulley wheel down the seat stay to the dropout. An old fashioned idea, which works well and looks neat on the bike. I will rebuild the back wheel with a new Sturmey-Archer 3 speed hub gear in the next few weeks, so the bike will be ready for when BST ends.

Building a 650A Randonneur

The idea of building a 650A Randonneur bike came about after reading articles in the US cycling press about 650B French Randonneur bikes. I have never liked the MTB 26” wheel size, as from my experience, I found they didn't roll as well as older British 26” wheel sizes. The French 650B size is not widely available in the UK or Ireland, but tyres and rims were available in 650A or 26 x 1 3/8. Could I build a randonneur bicycle with 650A wheels, with a Schmidt SON lighting system for under £1000? This was the challenge. I began by sourcing a suitable steel frame. It was tired as found and I had it powdercoated a pale blue colour. It was fitted with a new Tange-Seiki threaded headset. The frame was not to be altered as it was worth more in it's orginal condition, so this was the first compromise. I used SKS MTB muguards, with Brooks leather mudflaps front and rear. A new triple chainset for square taper bottom bracket was sourced and a sealed BB unit was also fitted.

I chose to use some Sunrace components as I wanted to see how they well they worked, when compared to the more expensive brand name parts. The front stainless steel rack is a Velo Orange 'PassHunter' which didn't fit the frame as received. It had to be cut and re-welded to make it fit.

The STI levers whilst comfortable, don't allow the use of a handlebar bag, because of the routing of the cables like Shimano. They do work very well though. The wheels were built with stainless spokes and alloy rims. Tyres are Schwalbe. I have received comment about Schwalbe tyres being heavy and not rolling well. (I don't believe the correspondent had actually used the tyres in question, but had obtained his information from internet forums). I have to say, I have found them great, they are 590 x 37, roll well, comfortable on our less than perfect road surface, offer some degree of puncture resistance and are a heck of a lot better than some of the tyres I have used over the past decades. I have no problem riding the bike on these tyres for day rides or keeping up with others on bikes equipped with 700c wheels. The lighting system with the Schmidt SON Klassic hub is brilliant. I use the hub with a B & M Cyo and B & M rear light and I have no problem being seen and more importantly, being able to see and ride safely on the rural roads of the area.

I was able to build the bike for less than £1000. Am I happy with it? Yes, I certainly am, but having built the bike up, I know the problems encountered and compromises I had to make, so a Mk2 version will address some of these shortcomings. I enjoyed building the bike and working out the solutions.

I am very pleased with how well the bike rides and intend to take it on a tour next year. This year in terms of touring, did not pan out, owing to a health problem requiring surgery. (I am now well into the post op recovery, but still not able to drive or ride the bike). I loaned the bike to a friend for his evaluation. He rode upwards of 500 miles on the bike in the autumn of 2012. His impression was favourable, particularly the lighting system. If you were to commission a custom made frame, then your bespoke frame could address many of the pitfalls of using an existing frame, however this would be at a significantly increased cost. My bike was built to test ideas, assess components and come in under a strict budget limit. There was always going to be compromises, as compared to a bespoke bells and whistles solution, with a budget for branded components. Has my idea worked and delivered a bike which is pleasant to ride and fit for purpose? I think so. Following his testing of the bike, my friend's comment was, 'You could ride round the world on it'.