Letterbox full of goodness

Today the postie brought the latest William Gibson, a good secondhand pair of Bicycle Fixation knickers, and an SR Royal Extra Super Light stem.
Most of SR's output was functional but uninspiring melt-forged crap, but, pre Yen Shock, their top of the line products were something else. Cold-forged, drilled, milled, slotted, and hollowed out, SR's Royal line mimicked the fashionable customised 'Drillium' components , but with the benefits of a factory warranty. They also supplied crankarm forgings to MAVIC and OMAS.
I already have earlier model fluted SR Royal SL stem and a matching seatpost on my Echelon Spectra. The hollow stem is destined for my putative Rory O'Brien frame, with some early Superbe Pro deraillers & hubs, Sugino Super Mighty cranks & seatpost and Dia-Compe brakes.

Catalog picture from Mr Gami's catalog scans page

A shopping trip

Last Saturday I went forth on my demountable, with BoB trailer attached, to pick up a Legnano frame from Tony at Cycle City. On the way I stopped at Bunnings, and got me a big manly Swedish axe and a gallon of Evapo-Rust (of which more later).

While I was rooting about at Cycle City I found a pair of 28h Fiamme Red label tubulars laced to Campagnolo Record wide flange hubs. The wheels themselves are pretty cool, but I had to have them for the Hills Cycle Works wheelcovers.

Retro Ride Report 12/8/07

You might think that Retroriders would stay abed on rainy mornings, but you would be mistaken.
Despite worse weather than the last Okoroire Ride, we had 6 starters on Sunday.
Mark Skelly, Dan Rosser, Peter Alexander, celebrity economist Chris Tennent-Brown, Donna and I managed a short lap of Mangere before retiring to the loungeroom for more coffee.
Dan showed exceptionally good form in debuting his brand new Mercian 753.

The Baylis Cycles website

More photos of Brian Baylis' work work from Carlos Martell.
Two galleries, one showing the painting process on a Baylis custom frame, the other showing the customisation of a Pacenti lugset.

More dodgy retro fashion.

After a decent interval of procrastination, I fitted some press studs to a pair of cutdown NZo 307 Lites, thereby converting them into a decent pair of cycling plus-twos. I have been commuting in them for a couple of weeks, worn over a pair of NZo Cruiseliners.
While you can get knickers in hemp, or wool gabardine, or fancy Swiss nano-fabric, the cutdown 307s are hard to beat for cost, ease of laundering and Nzo's legendary crashworthiness.
The only downside is that NZo doesn't acually make these themselves. If you think you would like a pair, or better a pair of knee length Dobies, feel free to deluge NZo with emails.

The Campagnolo Clothes Hanger

It turns out that the Campagnolo corkscrew was not the first application of Tullio Campagnolo's genius to domestic matters.
On the CR list yesterday, Dale Brown outed these patents for fancy clothes hangers, designed to prevent clothes being creased while they hang.

The Adventures of Sir Maldoror

Carlos Martell (right) , aka Sir Maldoror is Brian Baylis' (left) protege at the new San Diego-based framebuilders & painters cooperative .

Lately Carlos has been putting some of their framebuilding and restoration work online at maldororbicycles.com.

Without giving away too many of Baylis' hard-earned professional secrets, Sir Maldoror shows some of the processes involved in restoring vintage bikes after after a lifetime of hard use.

Some of these jobs, like paintstripping by hand are just nasty, while others, such as masking lugs, require incredible attention to detail in what seems like a mundane task.

More links to Baylis' work:
Large Fella on a Bike Framebuilders questionaire

Sheldon Brown's Baylis-restored Raleigh Professional

Baylis gallery at the Pacenti Cycle Design site.

Photo of Brian and Carlos by Matt Gorski, from WoolJersey

Okoroire Mid-Winter Fun Ride 2007

Due to truly Biblical weather, a number of people stayed abed yesterday and missed the Okoroire Fun Ride.

I was not one of them.

Arising at 5:45 to the sound of torrential rain, I breakfasted, packed my bag and awaited the arrival of Richard Oddy with the Pedaltours van. Collecting Richard's son-in-law Ivan from Ngaruawahia, we headed for Okoroire, where it was merely drizzling, in good time. By the 10am start, it was raining steadily, and as the day went on, the wind and rain increased steadily .

Usually I ride the fixie at Okoroire, but this time I rode the Hurlow. With my present lack of fitness and the strong wind, I made frequent of the 12 gears as I shamelessly wheelsucked my way to the finish. This strategy got me to the last couple of kms, but a strong effort up the last rise (and past the official photographer) finished me off, and I crawled to the finish.

RESULTS 'alla Francaise'

I could not have said it better myself...

BRUTUS appears to be a lifestyle magazine for stylish young Japanese persons.

This issue looks like it has plenty of meat for the Kanji-literate cycling enthusiast, though the back issues on offer indicate that it usually concerns itself with mundanity like cars, clothes & coffee.

MapMyRun

This is meant to show a map of the Retro Ride route, generated by Map My Run, a cunning web based device that seems to piggyback on Google Earth.
Unfortunately the embed code generated by their site does not work, but regardless, it's a very cool thing for mapping out routes.









In the absence of a functional embed code, here's the link .
Use the Map Settings to the left to turn off the annoying Distance Markers.
'Display Elevation' produces a course profile, while 'Map Type' allows you to switch from a street map to various Googloid satellite views.

Chris Money's new steel bike

On Saturday afternoon, we swapped Money's late 20th Century Avanti Kona frame for this fine Salsa Casseroll.

Needless to say, these jobs are never straightforward.
The Shimano BB was frozen into the Avanti frame, so I stripped the Campagnolo AC-H cartridge and Suntour Superbe Pro cranks off my neglected windtrainer bike.

The Casseroll frame makes a great all-round road bike.
It has a full set of rack and mudguard eyelets, and clearance for 32mm tyres with mudguards, or 35mm without.
Long, stainless steel, horizontal dropouts allow easy conversion to single speed or fixedgear.

Sizing is, maybe, a bit weird.
A 55cm Casseroll fits almost identically to my 60cm Ritchey Breakaway.
The frames are large for their nominal size, and I would recommend paying attention to top tube and head tube lengths when ordering.

Mafac Top 63 brakes

A few years ago Jonty Ritchie gave me two sets of old Mafac brakes that he had no use for.

The set of pimpy gold Mafac Competitions found their way onto a Witcomb I owned for a while, but these Top 63s stayed in their plastic bag until I saw a set go for ₤273 on ebay.
Not that I will be cashing in- they will go on the Hurlow when I have found a few small parts that are missing.

Top 63s were the most expensive centre pull available in their day.
According to Mick Butler:

'Regarding the 1969 prices of the various makes of centre pull brakes in that year. Balila Q.R. 49/6. Universal Q.R. 55/-. Mafac Racer 55/-. G.B. Coureur 66 60/-. & Mafac Top "63" at a whopping 75/-. '

This works out at a little over ₤6, pretty cheap compared to the 27 guineas (1 guinea =₤1-1s) that Richard Oddy paid for the then-new Campagnolo Record sidepulls in the same year.


Image above from Classic Rendezvous

Frenzy of bike acquisitions continues unabated...

except that this time it is Donna's turn.
This Bob Jackson touring frame is brand new. Imported by Sheppards in the mid-80s, it languished in a Christchurch bikeshop until it appeared on Trademe a couple of weeks ago.
Everything that I needed to build it into a civilised road fixie, except cables and bar tape, was lying about in the shed.

This is very much a work in progress.
The Superbe Pro seatpost may yet be swapped for a Campag 2-bolt post to get a little more seat setback, the rims don't match, and the mudguards are clapped out from my previous misuse.

Mo'fotos

Spec:
Gearing________________42 x 17
Bottom bracket__________Campagnolo AC-H
Crankset_______________SR Royal track 165mm
Brakes_________________MAFAC Racer
Brake levers____________Dia-Compe AGC251 Compact
Saddle_________________Brooks Swallow, by Tony Colegrave
Seatpost_______________Suntour Superbe Pro
Stem__________________TTT 9cm
Handlebars_____________TTT Competizione
Pedals_________________Campagnolo Superleggera

Okoroire Mid-Winter Fun Ride, July 29

The Okoroire Winter Fun Ride is on July 29th.
Details and a downloadable entry form are at http://www.tokoroalions.com/FunRide.htm
Usually there is a small but congenial Retro Grupetto. A report on last year's ride here.
If you are planning to join us this year, email me so that we can arrange to rendezvous before the start.

Retroride NZ discussion group

I have set up a Yahoo group called RetrorideNZ, with the intention of creating a New Zealand-wide online community of vintage lightweight bicycle enthusiasts.
If you would like to join, login at http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/RetrorideNZ/ or if this does not work, email me and I'll send you an invitation.

Wild Bill Hurlow rides again

Saturday was devoted to final parts acquisition and assembly of my W.B.Hurlow.

Tony Mahon very kindly gave me a Zeus Criterium derailler & shiftlevers and a pair of Zeus track pedals; and to complete the gear train a Zeus front derailler arrived in Saturday's mail.
Most of the other parts came from my collection of junque- T.A. Cyclotouriste cranks, Mafac Racer brakeset, aluminium railed Ideale model 90 saddle, Fiamme stem and 44cm Ambrosio handlebars.

By bedtime, all I needed was to attach a bottle cage, and strap on a spare tubular.

I haven't achieved my goal of no-Campagnolo- my trusty pair of Campag Record-hubbed tubulars were pressed into service until I get time to build some Mavic MA2s onto a pair of Zeus Gigante hubs.

MORE PHOTOS at the Wool Jersey Gallery

Spec:
Headset________________Tange
Bottom bracket__________T.A
Crankset_______________T.A. Cyclotouriste 175mm, 38/47
Brakes_________________MAFAC Racer
Brake levers____________MAFAC Course 218 ?
Shift levers_____________Zeus Criterium
Front derailler___________Zeus
Rear derailler___________Zeus Criterium
Hubs__________________
Rims__________________
Freewheel______________Suntour Winner Ultra 6
Saddle_________________Ideale Mod.90, light alloy frame
Seatpost_______________
Stem__________________Fiamme 12cm
Handlebars_____________Ambrosio 13 Volte Campione del Mondo
Pedals_________________Zeus Pista, Christophe clips, ALE straps

Thanks to Robert S Broderick and Brad Stockwell for posting the Zeus, Ideale, T.A. and other catalogs that I have linked to.

60cm Rory O'Brien frame seeks new home

The arrival of the Hurlow means that something has to go, and the Rory O'Brien frame drew the short straw.
It's on on Trademe until next Tuesday at 4:25pm. Reserve is $50.
From the TradeMe auction:

"A frame with some interesting features- fastback seatstays with an unusual seat collar, Campagnolo vertical rear dropouts and round track fork blades.
Requires long reach (47-57mm) brakes.
Brazed-on top tube cable guides, bidon bosses, downtube lever bosses, seatstay cable stop and cable guides under bottom bracket.
Sold to me as a Rory OBrien, but I have no evidence to support or disprove this.

Seat tube: 60cm centre-top
Top tube: 57cm top tube
Wheelbase 100cm
Ritchey Logic headset fitted"

According to CR-list contributor Mick Butler, Rory O'Brien was a 'famous East London cycle shop owner ' who had frames built by Ephgrave. I would guess that this was built by someone else, well after Les Ephgraves' death in 1969.

PHOTOS on WoolJersey.

More Hurlows- updated

In the absence of my Hurlow frame, apparently scheduled to arrive early July, I googled up a couple of others:

This super-spanky 1969 Hurlow is featured at the V-CC New England Section blog.

Over at Fixed Gear Gallery, the lugwork on Adam Schwarcz' Stan Miles track bike is unmistakeably by Hurlow.

Some more Hurlow factoids and a couple more examples of his work at Hetchins.org.

Over at Bike Works NYC's bikecult site, a Hurlow-built 1962 Condor Italia, and a 1968 Condor with Hurlow's Superbe lugs.

Gaz' Bike

This is Gaz' road bike, newly fitted with Gran Bois Cypres 700 x 30 tyres to enhance it's already-sumptuous comfort.

It used to be blue, until a few scratches convinced Gaz that it needed to return for a second helping of Walter Thorburn magic.

According to Gaz:
"It is the best bike I have ever had, and the one I would take to a desert island as long as there were at least smooth paths."