The Stuff (Unfulfilled) Dreams are Made of.

This is what a 1966 BSA Lightning shouldn't look like. So beat I got it from a hardcore California biker for just fifty dollars about six years ago. While it has only continued to rot its decadence festers in my soul. It's beauty has tortured me as I am so enamored by its 650cc twin engine. It ranks just third in my engine-aesthetic behind a knuckle-head V-twin and Flathead V8. $3000 worth of new parts and a couple hundred man-hours of work later and maybe it could be a ride-able motorcycle again; with a little more maybe just maybe it could be the cafe racer I've always dreamed of having. The cafe racer I really wanted while throwing clubman bars on the 1978 Honda CB550 I loved dearly but I had to give up too when my life went to shit after college and even with two degrees I couldn't earn enough to keep up the insurance on it.

There's far too much resignation in my life these days...spent biking at night, broke and dispirited, wondering how in the folly of youth and in university I ever let myself dream it could be better than this; losing (slowly) my connection with the people, things and activities that I have loved.

Or my days spent trying to cobble together something useful from the mountains of accumulated trash that actually is my life now. And while I'd like to hope for better, something tells me one of these days I'll be pedaling a busted blue and red bmx bike down a Shreveport street still grumbling about my lot. Even then I probably won't be rid of my foolish dreams. I'll be on the look out for the smile of a pretty girl to melt my heart, solicited by the caricature of a bike rider I'll cut with my six foot frame on a 20" bike.

The Wages of Underemployment; herramientas nuevas.

Recently, I was lucky enough to finally be able to afford some long desired bicycle tools. I had wanted a cable-puller for sometime but was never able to find one in a bicycle shop. I shopped around online and though I would like to have purchased the Park Tools brand cable puller (it is made in the U.S.A.) it was more than double the price of other options; so I settled on the Pedro's brand probably out of an affinity for its vibrant yellow color.

 

No longer satisfied with my universal coin shaped spoke wrench I also found a pro set of spoke wrenches (that contact the spoke nipple on all four sides) also made by Pedro's on close-out and got those along with the cable-puller for less than thirty dollars before shipping. I was very impressed with this set that came clustered on a carabiner and included a star shaped wrench for some strange breed of Mavic nipple that I doubt I will ever lay eyes on.

 They each have both the more traditional, less secure nipple opening that contacts just three sides of the spoke nipple as well as the four sided contact opening...

and I got four of them plus a carabiner for less than the price of one Park Tools (four sided) spoke wrench; and while I don't have the satisfaction of supporting American manufacturing jobs I still received a quality tools at an affordable price and I'll just have to make my peace with their foreign origins (and with the fact that none of the four are anywhere near large enough to accommodate the enormous, industrial sized spoke nipples of my Atlas cruiser).

Painful Regression

I've been back from San Francisco nearly a month now and am slowly easing out of the doldrums. The city was fantastic and were I a man of means I probably would never have come back. I hope to write more about my experiences there but have not yet invested the effort.

Back in Shreveport I began working on another vintage Peugeot.

This one is a 1986 Peugeot Corbier and it is in much better shape than the last one I was involved with. I did a very minor tune-up on it and de-cluttered it of its light generator and other superfluous objects.  The only major stumbling block was the rear derailleur which was fouled up to the point that the spring in it would not snap the pulleys back into tension against the chain; if you pedaled it backward the chain would come off. While pulling that apart I notice its brand:

It made me wonder if it were manufactured by the same Sachs that used to manufacture mopeds in Germany (and now again in China).

I also found this front page for an old Peugeot catalog which was for me at least immensely amusing:

I don't know if it's the castle or the hideous bike but something is screaming bad fantasy novel. I found this cover as well as the vintage of this Peugeot here.

Unseasonably Cool New Bike Parts.

After recovering from resent illness and waiting for some latent winter weather to subside I finally got to work putting new parts on my new old stock Raleigh.

Before.

After. 

I ordered the braided steel brake cables/housing at Scooter's Bike Shop on Shreveport-Barksdale Highway. The Freewheel mentioned in an earlier post I bought at Bikes Etc. in Bossier City.  The housing clips and grey cloth bartape I had to order online; I bought both of them from Velo-Orange:

Before.

After. 

I am very pleased with the results. I am tempted to try shellac-ing this cloth tape in the future to water-proof it. However, I am reluctant to do it so far as the tape overlaps the porous wound steel gear cable housing that the shellac might gum up.

I still need to buy a new saddle for it. Currently I am debating between my beloved Selle San Marco Concor Super Corsa in white suede or a Kashimax Five Gold 4p in patent gold. I will also be buying it some new tires colored either brown or blue and some new pedals (most likely MKS Sylvan Touring pedals).

Old Lives and New (Old Stock) Beginnings.

I drove down to Baton Rouge this past weekend hoping to get to ride in Critical Mass but it was rained out; such is my luck. While I was there I did get to have dinner with friends from my old life that I am gradually being disintegrated from by distance and time; a depressing reminder of how much I cared for South Louisiana which has only ever broken my heart for loving it so much. On the upside I did buy a new bike there. It is a NOS Raleigh Super Grand Prix from the 70's.

I found its soft blue quite beautiful and can now rely on the ease and in-expense of its clincher rims the next time the Franklin blows a tubular. The Raleigh actually only cost the equivalent of 6.6 tubular tires ($200). I have only test rode it so far. I will be doing some serious work to it before I take it out on the road. The wheel bearings are grinding like a couple of dry-humping teenagers so I will be overhauling both hubs. It came geared for Alpine inclinations not the humble hills of Highland so I purchased a smaller 5-speed freewheel.

New 14-28 on the left stock 14-38 on the right.

I had intended to buy a small IRD freewheel geared 13-24 but none of the shops in town carried or could order one so I settled for the SunRace pictured above. I am also no fan of exposed brake cables so I ordered some new Jagwire braded steel casing to run like a backbone down the top-tube to the rear brake with the help of these beauties:

Campagnolo brake housing clips.

I found these and the braided steel casing at Scooter's bike shop on Shreveport-Barksdale highway. I'll also be changing the bar-tape to a lighter color and eventually ordering a new saddle when I can afford it. It should be a wonderful bike.

The School of Hard Knocks; Don't Drift on Dented Rims

Impressed by some youtube videos, the other day I set out to teach myself to drift and do doughnuts on my bicycle. Drifting was easy. Doing doughnuts proved impossible for me, at least on the bicycles I had at my disposal: a wal-mart moutain bike-ish hybrid, and my Franklin road bike. I drifted through turns for a few days and without realizing it I wore through the millimeter-or-so of rubber bonded to the case of my tubular that passes for tire tread. There is a defect in my rear rim (earned from the unforgiving edge of a pothole on the outskirts of Querbes Golf Course) that causes my caliper brake to stop it always in the same spot when braking heavily.  Jump ahead a week or so and a friend and I decide to bike to our local (corporate) video store which is seven-or-so miles away; I on my Franklin and he on my yellow Goodwill cruiser. We had covered probably five miles of that distance when we had to stop for a small family of five: mom, dad, and three children to cross the street to a Catholic Church. As I decelerated there was a loud bang and hiss from my rear tire that frightened both my fellow rider and this God fearing family (the children ran for it). Instantly I knew what had happened; I'd had a blow-out at 100 psi.

This was way louder than it looks.

I walked my wounded road bike a block to Broadmoor Library and chained it up. I put my friend on the handlebars of the yellow cruiser and pedaled him the rest of the way to the video store. Riding together we laughed at how funny a picture we must have been striking and bemoaned not having a camera to capture it. I described to him how I am often struck by such humor when realizing I am an unemployed twenty-eight year old loser still living with his parents and riding a bike to his local comic book store. Then he and I marveled that I had ever managed to have a girlfriend at all. At the video store we rented Maximum Overdrive and then went to grocery store next door and bought some 1 liter Tecates so I could drown the dissappointment of my life. When we returned to the library another friend was kind enough to give us and my bicycles a ride back home in her VW van, saving the day ($30 mistake with tubular tire excepted).

The day after this debacle I got the MKS dust caps in for my Campagnolo pedals.

All in all I consider them a very good replacement; and the monicker they bare has proven not to bother me so much. They are quite beautiful for $4.

Divine Intervention.

It's been a bit rainy here in Shreveport. Rainy enough to loosen the roots of two 100 year old red oak trees and down them into our and the neighbor's yards/house totaling two cars, damaging structure and taking electricity and cable with them in their downfall.

On top of all that madness, the rear wheel of my Franklin was severally dented in one of the obscenely large pot-holes that Louisiana roads are notorious for. On a seventeen mile ride through various neighborhoods and downtown Shreveport I did not see the gaping hole in the darkness until I was upon it. I knew immediately there was a problem as I could both feel and hear the back-wheel rubbing the pads on its caliper brake. I was able to true it back up but as of yet am unable to correct the dent that has it out of round.

It's a little hard to see, but the dent is directly above the middle spoke hole.

Looks small but it has a pronounced feel while riding.

I am still riding it while I plan on how to attack this. I was just planning on removing that individual spoke and hitting it with a hammer, but I believe that even a brass hammer is probably to much for the aluminum rim which means I would have to buy a plastic one.

To true the wheel I used a coin shaped universal spoke wrench which I have seen much maligned elsewhere on the internet. 

It was my first time using it and I thought it performed quite well. It might not be up to the standards of someone accostomed to expensive precision tools, but I am used to making due with less.

The Ravages of Neglect and Poverty; beggars can't be choosers.

I have a beautiful Franklin road bike. This bike is so beautiful that I would never have been able to afford it (I can barely afford to keep it on the road). The luck of my ownership of it I owe entirely to the laziness of a former roomate. In college I had a short lived roomate of about three months. He brought with him to my apartment his stepfather's old Franklin equipped with exotic, intimidating names like Cinelli and Campagnolo. It sat in our living room completely unused on flat tubular tires because he would always rather ride the racing Haro BMX bicycle he bought when we were in grade school. At the end of his tenure as my roomate (he dropped out of school) he moved to Dallas TX and told me I could have it because he didn't feel like moving it back with him. I let it go further neglected fearing it's exotic nature (it's components all bore the above mentioned brand names of refined Italian breeding), choosing instead the cheap safety of my yellow Goodwill cruiser.

Upon my depressing return to Shreveport Louisiana I found myself struggling to get around it's hilly neighborhoods on this same extremely heavy cruiser. I realized I needed something lighter in weight, something with gears for my coffee shop trips and I had this Franklin just laying around that was the lightest bike I had ever handled so I took to it and have only rarely, on flat roads, looked back to to my cruiser.

It's lightness and gears have liberated me here but I have found new struggles with it in trying to afford to keep it on the road. For all the neglect it has suffered it has paid me back in need of parts and maintenance. I am well aware of the debate between the impassioned riders of both clinchers and tubular tires but their arguments have rarely included price. The Franklin has had three flats since I brought it here and each has cost my sorry unemployed self thirty dollars apiece. All concern for ride quality or rolling resistance have gone out the window with the bitter knowledge that if I'd had clinchers these flats would only have cost me three dollars for new inner tubes.

Another recent potential financial burden came in the form of its brake hoods. The original gum hoods on its Campagnolo Record non-aero brake levers were UV damaged, dry rotted, and falling apart (as gum hoods are so apparently prone to do). The only thing I was keeping them on with was yellow electrical tape.

I searched for new replacement brake hoods. They were available by order at my LBS, in black rubber only, for nearly sixty dollars. Completely ignoring the expense I was unwilling to accept, I did not think black was a fitting color to compliment its navy frame and canary yellow tape and housing. I searched and found some NOS brown gum hoods but they were equally expensive. I was assured by the website that these NOS hoods were "show quality," but my bike is going to be ridden not be on display. These were unacceptably expensive solutions so instead I bought some cheap brown Cane Creek brake hoods:

They are obviously not a perfect fit, but they work. They are ridable and more aesthetically pleasing than the rot covered in electrical tape that they replaced. Plus, I saved fifty four dollars over the new or NOS alternatives. Now I only hope that its fantastic Benotto Cellotape holds up because I can accept no substitutions for it.

Life isn't always about bicycles.

Sometimes it's about getting your 30 year old motorcycle running again so you can gun-it and pray for death.

corroded old point.

new points.

lubricant.

After all that they just had to be re-gapped and it ran like a champ. Honda engines from the 70's are incredibly long lived. This one has been kicking ass since '78. I got it for free after it had rotted in neglect under a pecan tree for two years losing all its paint (hence the spray painted gas tank). I love it though it burdens me with perpetual need of  maintenance and fear of its decaying old carburetor boots and air box. I worry that soon one of the boots' many cracks will open up wide enough to let air flood in and run it lean to the point of scorching the rings of a cylinder; and it will die in my arms at interstate speed, screaming out in blue oil smoke pain before losing all power in a rapid deceleration death rattle.

 
Maybe I'll get lucky (for once) and that will be a few years off yet.

The Shreveport Triangle (a Bermuda-esque mystery).

I posted a little earlier about finding a Schwinn Collegiate 3 frame in the trash:

and while its having drop bars was certainly curious it did not spark my interest like finding a sister frame to it has. On Wednesday I found another wheel-less Schwinn women's frame in the trash that someone had done a horrible hack-job of painting on.

Which left me wondering why always Schwinns? Why only women's frames? And why always sans wheels? What cultural phenomenon, what bizarre sexual fetish could account for some pervs hoarding the wheels of women's bicycles and discarding the rest of the bike like so much refuse? Or maybe it's a hobby. Maybe someone is constructing a bicycle based multi-wheel monstrosity of transportation and for some reason only favors the wheels of women's bikes, believing them to have some totem power lacking in those wheels belonging to men's frames.

I also found this anomaly of a bottom bracket in the trash:

I cannot rationalize the need to cut a hanger away like this, as it would leave the rest of the frame almost certainly completely useless. I cannot fathom what the person who did this was thinking. I should probably quit rifling through people's trash for bicycle parts before it schews my view of humanity.

Reunited!

I gave to Peugeot back to its rightful owner Sunday night and he seemed happy with the end results.

An almost new Peugeot.

Finally finished the Peugeot up today and it has been a good learning experience. It's nice to have something constructive to do. The test ride was quite fun and I hope to return it to it's rightful owner on Sunday.

The Cane Creek hoods fit the Mafac "Racer" cantilever brakes well enough.

 Though, I did have a problem with one of the old cable guides. One of the two original brass cable guides from the old hoods was broken. I bought two barrel adjusters and filed them down and thread-locked them to fit.

I just hope that the aluminum is strong enough not to break after being filed down so much.

Here are some of the shots of the end product:

The brake cables come up a little high. I cut them to the original length and may shorten them later. This might just be a feature of older bikes  because the cables on my father's vintage Raleigh look to be up at a similar height.

I hope that it will be kept out of the weather now.