"How a Bicycle is Made (1945)"

A cool vintage movie from Raleigh. The lack of protection for the workers is sobering (belt drives, along with buffing and grinding wheels are not enclosed and waiting to remove a finger or more), but the industrial processes are fascinating.

Wheel Art

Hey, where did I go? Sucked into Facebook land with my photos, mostly. And otherwise just busy. But time to get back to the blog!

I've always liked bicycle related art. A few months ago my sweetie and I noticed an upside down fork with front wheel in someone's yard, spinning in the wind due to some tape or plastic put between the spokes. I took that idea and ran (cycled?) with it.

As usual, the re-Cycles shop was the source for all the bike parts. I started with a road bike handlebar, with one fork/wheel in the usual position, then jammed a sawed-off straight bar into the top (well, bottom since it's upside down) of the stem to go into the ground as an anchor. I originally added a fork to each upturned end of the road bar but the wheels ended up too far apart. So I added some inboard mtn. bike stems and then used straight handlebars to extend the outboard forks. The wheels are each held in place with the usual axle nuts but I also added some old-school wingnuts (vintage quick-releases) for decoration.

There was then the usual fussing over angles and height (sort of like hanging a picture on a wall), but the general idea was for it to resemble a flower.

Nothing yet has been added to help catch the wind and make the wheels turn. We'll get to that eventually...

@#$%^& taggers

I've been told that graffiti taggers don't hit public art such as murals. Well, I guess the "good" ones don't and the stupid punks do. The re-Cycles shop had both its front door and volunteer-crafted mural (and the wall of our neighbour's house) hit last week.

Fortunately, they used white paint and not black, missed pretty much all of the front door's lettering, and hit mostly the blue background of the mural.  We had kept the mural's paint colours for touch-ups, and we were able to cover things up rather nicely! Thanks to volunteers Melinda, Carla and Matt for their hard work, and also for the weather for giving us a 20C day in the middle of March!

Internal gear hub tear-down

Winter bike #2, the one with the Sachs Spectro hub, made a cracking sound one night and then was reduced to about 3 gears. So I had to open it up to find out what went wrong. Fortunately RGB has overhauled these hubs before, and so we met up at the re-Cycles shop.

I only thought of videoing once he started showing me how the gearing-changing mechanism worked, and it's now on YouTube.

New old winter bikes

My faithful old winter bike was getting pretty rusty after 8 seasons, and I was also getting rather tired of the mtn. bike frame geometry and wide tires. It was a very stable set-up, but with a studded front tire it was annoying to ride on those days of clear dry roads. Sure, I could have another wheel handy with smooth tire and swap it in, but I also felt the need for a second bike for back-up purposes, if nothing else.

So as an experiment last winter I took an old CCM skinny-tire bike, swapped in an aluminum front wheel (for decent braking) and used it as a "dry roads" bike. I ended up using it as often as the mtn. bike, and quite enjoyed how much faster and lighter it was, especially when towing one of the two trailers.

This year I wanted to go the full route and build up a pair of hybrid bike frames; one with smooth tires, another with winter tires (studded front, knobby out back). This way I would have my choice of bike for whatever road conditions, as well as a back-up in case one bike flatted or broke something right as I was heading out to a gig. So through the season at the re-Cycles shop I kept an eye out for suitable frames / bikes. Both bikes were to be built with very low gearing for trailer-towing in winter conditions, so top gear is usually the cruising gear, and everything else for uphill or towing. If I want to go fast downhill I'll happily just coast...
 
First up is called Winter Bike #1, only because it was the first one I put together (WB2 is further down). A late-80's Nishiki touring frame came in. It needed a fork, and the one from my deceased (hit by a taxi) hybrid bike luckily fit just right. The frame has some rust and even a small dent in one tube, which allowed me to not feel bad about using what was once a nice frame as a winter bike. This beast has smooth tires for those days when roads are clear and I have some distance to travel and don't want winter tires adding drag.

I ended up with very tight clearance for the 46-36 double chainring due to the cartridge bottom bracket I happened to have on hand, and should perhaps put in one with a longer axle. Yes, the rear shift cable just touches the underside of the front derailer cage.

Indispensable front "crap flap" was added to the bottom of fender to keep slushy salty spray from hitting (and sticking to) the frame.

Modern v-brakes added for excellent stopping power (remember that I often tow a loaded trailer in winter since the Mighty Cargo Trike goes into hibernation).

Yellow crate on rear rack adds both practicality and visibility. Seasonal Xmas led lights run off a small 12v battery w/inverter, though will be removed very soon.

Adjustable stem is great for getting the bike dialed in, but needs a little attention to keep from gradually wearing out and getting loose.

Simple non-indexed drivetrain, with nice wide-range 6-speed freewheel of 14T to 32T!

Lightweight aluminum handlebar, fat grips for winter mitts, and light and bell stuffed on there. Note stylish yellow cable housing.

Winter Bike #2. It was a complete Nakamura hybrid bike, showing some rust and so like WB1 no qualms of using it for winter. I kept the cantilever brakes but had to build new wheels (my 6th and 7th times ever doing so), since the front was getting a new generator hub and the rear a used internal-gear hub. (Yes, these Xmas lights are also coming off soon.)

 

 This is what a studded tire looks like. It does a nice job of grabbing in slippery conditions, and you know it's working when the non-studded rear end fishtails. Having the rear wheel wash out is usually recoverable, but having the front end do so usually means a wipe-out.  :P  On the old bike I did try riding both tires studded one year but the amount of drag was not worth it.

This bike gets an added treat - a Shimano generator hub! This little device will supply power to the not-yet-installed custom led lights RGB is putting together for me. No friction from this thing like from those old sidewall generators that leaned against the tire!

Shifter for the Sachs 7-speed hub. Now only available in twist-grip form (which I dislike, especially with big winter gloves) this thing is like gold, as the entire unit of shifter/cable/hub clickbox has to be replaced as one. 

 
If you've ever tried to mount a single chainring on a crank meant for three, you'll find the bolts are too long, because they are made to join the larger two. While short-stack spacers (used for BMX and fixies) can be purchased, the cheap solution is to take a worn out chainring and carve away just the areas around the mounting holes, leaving nice, if slightly irregular, spacers as shown here

Drive side of Sachs 7-speed hub. The click-box is where the indexing takes place, and it usually comes with a metal guard arm that clamps to the axle and projects out to protect the unit if the bike falls over. Since the rack-mounted crate sticks out even further I can leave the guard off, which means one less things to fiddle with during a wheel / tire change. Rear cog is a 23T from my old winter bike, while front ring is a 38T.

Left side of Sachs 7-speed hub, showing coaster-brake (back-pedal) arm and receiver for trailer hitch (WB1 has same receiver, so both bikes can tow either of the two trailers). Maybe I should paint over some of that rust...

Unlike WB1, this rear wheel did not get full close-fitting fender since that design often packs up with snow. So a plastic spray guard is attached under the rack. And like pretty well all my bike, the rack holds the handy crate.

I fastened this piece of platicized cardboard in place to keep snow churned by the rear wheel from dumping into my boots and also on the chain. Time will tell if it simply just packs up with snow...

Front mount for spray guard, with a twist of stiff wire to keep things in place.

More HPVOoO parade fun

Last Saturday the HPVOoO gang took part in our local Help Santa Toy Parade. We've been doing this annually since 2003, and our thing is to dress up Richard's Greenspeed tandem recumbent trike towing the big organ trailer as our main float. Then the rest of us cycle around it on our mostly dressed-up bikes and trikes.

For this year we came up with the idea of dressing the rig up as an old steam locomotive, with lights being used to delineate the form.  A blog was put together for sharing design ideas, then a bunch of us gathered at the re-Cycles shop on a Saturday afternoon (only doable because re-Cycles had switched to being open on Sunday for the winter) and got things underway. More work was done throughout the week, and on parade day it was fabulous!

Details on the build here:  http://hpv.tricolour.net/train.html

Lots of photos:  http://tricolour.net/photos/2010/11/20/hpv.html

The main feature was a real diesel train horn, which Richard went looking for and was actually able to acquire! It sounded awesome (and very loud) when we tested it (hooked up to a compressor), and so it was incorporated into the design. It was a great hoot (literally) during the parade.

More links to the parade at: http://hpv.tricolour.net/events-2010.html

Catching up.

Yikes, I've really let this blog wither on the vine! Three months since my last post is a bit much.

Not too much happened in February, though the re-Cycles shop got an offer to relocate into a much better space, and conveniently right door to the one we were in! So once that got set in motion (we moved March 13) things have been a bit of a blur. I had to work up a floor-plan, and get the move organized, and we're still cleaning up and sorting stuff, since the move happened (like last time) right on top of the start of the busy season. I do have photos of a cool drum to post, and am collating the various photos taken of the shop's relocation. Time to get back at it!

bikes on parade

The HPVOoO gang once again took part in the annual Help Santa Toy Parade here in Ottawa. This year things were a bit different, as the event was moved from Bank St. (due to concerns it might not be ready after a long season of construction), and it was also moved to the evening hours.

What was cool about this is that now everything could be lit up in festive fashion, and many of our bikes were festooned with LED xmas lights powered by inverters and small 12V batteries. We also had a quite a few kids from Richard's neighbourhood arrive on the various machines in his fleet, and they had a lot of fun.

The new route went from the War Museum to City Hall, via Wellington St. past Parliament Hill, the Elgin St. to Laurier. The turnout was amazing!

We had, of course, the main float vehicle (the tandem trike with trailer) towing a load of kids plus tree plus Frosty:And I was riding the Rainbow Chopper:And we had recumbents:And we had tallbikes: And we had pedal-electric pedi-cabs:

(All photos by Richard)

Many more photos at Richard's parade page.

And we also have video footage! Check out Lane's YouTube page.

And special mention for Charles Richer's amazing Gumby LED man!

more music / bike mixing

One of my many drums is a synthetic West African djembe. I chose this type over a real one mainly because it requires zero maintenance, and can also endure a certain amount of abuse, which is handy when I use it for street events and that sort of thing.
Usually this type of drum is played either standing up with a strap, or sitting down with it between your knees, and you either rest the base on the ground (tilting it to allow the bass tone to come out) or hold it up off the floor with a waist strap or on top of your feet.

With the Propeller Dance groups I need to sit, and it can be awkward holding onto it when I have other instruments to play, as at the very least I have the synth and sometimes also the e-drum pad, the laptop, and other devices (see my post on the gear). There are commercial floorstands available, but they cost money and seem a bit bulky. Being both cheap and reasonably creative I decided to make a stand based on available materials.

First up was a RIMS mount for a 14" floor tom. The RIMS has the legs attached to it and the drum sit in the cradle, as opposed to the legs directly attached to the drum. This is to reduce resonance losses from the legs touching the drum then the floor. (I've personally never had a problem with a big floor tom not ringing enough, but the system they use for rack toms works very well indeed, and I've been using them for 25 years now). I bought this thing cheap many years ago and never used it for its intended purpose.
The challenge is that the djembe is 12" in diameter, while this is 14". So the opening needed to be narrowed down. So, I scrounged through my pile of surplus drum bits (it's about the same size of my pile of surplus bike bits) and found a 13" rim.
Two opposing lug holes handily lined up with two on the RIMS, so they were bolted together.
It still needed to be narrower, but I also needed some way to cushion the drum. I first thought of using a 12" bicycle innertube, but that'd probably be too bouncy. Then I came up with this:

A solid foam 12" tire - excellent! :) And taped it in place.

One drawback, which became obvious when I started using it, is the how the legs attach. This is an early version of the RIMs concept, and the old "screw pushing against the chrome metal plate" does not grip all that well.

New versions have a better set-up (see link above), and I'll take some old floor tom leg brackets I have and MacGyver those onto this rim. In the meantime, it more or less does the job and does not look too shabby.
One added benefit to the bike tire is that I can use it with the drum off the stand. Because when sitting the bottom of each tuning lug tends to dig into one's thigh, and the tire will act as a cushion against this.

vintage velos

Some very cool old velomobile and other recumbent designs at: http://mochet.org/

little tandem

I recently came into possession of a small-wheeled tandem bike. I think it was made by Miyata, as it's called the "Miyarenter" (perhaps it was designed for use by bike rental outfits?). If so, then it joins my little tilting trike as yet another "perhaps made by Miyata".


Those twin, umm, top tubes give it a nice swoopy look, no? The bottom/ down tubes curve up to become the seat tubes, a design also used by those old cheap Euro folding bikes from the 70's, like this one:

Hey, it's yellow too. :)

The tandem currently has only one gear, but there are a few cable guide braze-ones on the rear-most chainstay that indicate it may have sported either derailer gears or an internal-gear hub.

The gearing is rather low, which I guess is fine for when it's carrying the weight of two people. Though I frankly don't know how much those typical crappy 20" tires, holding only about 40psi of air, would cope with two people. At least not two large people. If I was going to seriously use this thing I'd swap in some Schwalbe Big Apples or similar, since those can take the weight and also give a nice cushioned ride (I use the Apples on the cargo trike). Of course, like some of the other interesting machines I have it's a bit small for me...

Oh, and if you look at the rear wheel its hub has what looks like a rotor for a disc brake! I'll need to get a better photo of that, after I try to hook up an old Shimano disc brake unit we had lying around at the re-Cycles shop. Not that this tandem really needs a disc brake (nor the extra weight of one); just that it would be way cool to actually find a use for this old brake.

Another idea I had was to turn this thing into a poor man's Xtracycle. I could use the rear seat tube and some clamps and fashion some sort of way to carry loads on the rear half. Y'know, for those trips that don't require the big cargo trike... Hmm...

cool bike links

Some good summer reading.

CCM catalogue from 1918:

http://www.archive.org/details/bicycleaccrepair00canauoft

Bicycle accessories catalogue from a Toronto supplier in 1900:

http://www.archive.org/details/bicycleaccess00riceuoft

This Online Vintage Bicycle Museum is a public internet database for fellow enthusiasts of vintage bicycles and tricycles.":

http://oldbike.wordpress.com/

"The name describes any 3-wheel vehicle, including un-motorized 3-wheel delivery tricycles and ordinary pedal tricycles; motorcycle and scooter pick-ups and vans.":

http://triporteurs.wordpress.com/

Mark Twain's "Taming The Bicycle":

http://www.online-literature.com/twain/1323/

unhinged on a bike

No, 'twas not I that was unhinged, but someone else...

Late this afternoon I was walking home and had just crossed the construction mess that is Bank St. I got onto James St. and saw what looked to be an older East Indian couple sitting on some steps, perhaps waiting for someone. What drew my attention was that there was a guy with a bike saying something to them in a loud voice, and I realized he was insulting them (stuff like "f-ing immigrants").

They tried to ignore him, and I was wondering what to do. I was across the street, and it was one of the moments that can happen where you have to decide very quickly whether or not to get involved with people you do not know. I thought what he was doing was pretty awful, and after he walked away from them I thought it was over, but then he went back and started in on them again, and they looked pretty nervous and got up to leave.

I then decided that if this guy thought he was so tough he should pick on me, not them, so I shouted "hey, it would be good if you left them alone!". He looked my way and then got on his bike and cycled into the middle of the street, shouting more abuse and I basically said "look, leave them and me alone and just go home". He stared at me briefly and I realized he would probably not try to attack me, and instead he just pedaled slowly as I walked and shouted general abuse my way. I thought "well, the other folks are safe so I'll just let him do this for a bit and then get away from him at the next intersection". I didn't know whether he was mentally ill or high on drugs, but also did not really need to find out.

As we both got to James and Kent he accelerated and turned left, the wrong way onto the one-way street. Problem was, he was riding down the middle of the road with three lanes of traffic heading straight for him! He half fell / half jumped off his bike, and made a motion at the traffic like "come and get me" and started waving his arms and shouting as the cars slowed and dodged around him. Then he grabbed his bike and threw it at one car, and that's when I remembered that I now have a cell phone and that this would be a good time to use it!

I called 911, describing the situation as he threw the bike at yet another car (he missed both times), and they asked me to stay until Police arrived. Just as they said that, the guy, after wandering around for a few moments, threw his bike for a third time and finally hit a car. The driver slowed and stopped for a moment, then turned down James and did not come back.

Just after this a cruiser arrived, and as it pulled up I saw the guy walking off southbound on the opposite sidewalk, with his bike still in the middle of the road. I pointed him out to the officer and she ran after him, and she was joined by another officer at Gladstone Ave. They all disappeared around the corner for a bit, and while I waited a fellow came out of a nearby house, sating he had seen most of what had transpired and that he had also called 911.

Then a third cruiser arrived, and the officer go out to talk to us, and as he did yet another fellow walked up - the driver of the car that had been hit by the bike. From there it was just talking and filling out statements, and the officer said they had grabbed the perp. The original officer returned, the perpetrator was in the back seat of the second car, and they then double-checked our statements (I was the only one that had seen it all from start to finish).

Just as I was leaving the scene I heard the driver of the damaged car say to the officer "my car is over at James and Bank because that's where I was going to pick up my parents". I asked him "were your parents sitting at the apt. building there?" and he said Yes. This was bizarre - I had called the perp. away from them, and then he manages to hit their son's car with his bike; only after trying to hit two others. Now that's one of those Twilight Zone moments...

And this is all on top of the three separate incidences this past week where cyclists were hit (and in at least one case killed) by motorists.

Cyclecide

A profile of the amazing bike collective known as Cyclecide. I love all of it, especially the Rimshot Bike, because "your joke can be lousy but you still get the rimshot". The "pedal-powered carnival" may be the ultimate in HP fun:



Now there's a job description: "Artist in Residence at the Dump". :)

newest oldest bike

I've just acquired a rather old but still completely functional steed. It's a CCM "Red Bird", and the serial number dates it to 1937! Holy smokes, that's 72 years ago!!


I plan to get more info on its history from the guy that passed it on to me from a friend of his.

The only things I've added were the bell and a perhaps even older seat (which is covered with some black fleece, but under that is some worn leather with horsehair padding!). The bike did have its old-style seatpost that is shaped a bit like the number 7, and I'll see if I can fit this seat to it.

The bike has its original but rather faded paint, but some of the detail work is still there:

as well as various stickers:

and the rather cool head badge, where the name is cut out of the metal:

The bike rides just fine, but has a few issues. The easiest to fix is a slightly reluctant coaster (back-pedal) brake. I'll just open that up for an overhaul, and do have some replacement brass brake "shoes" if they are needed.

A little more fussy is that at some point the bike's hubs got re-laced into cheap steel 27" rims, when it originally came with Canadian 28" (700C) wheels. I'm presuming they are the original hubs, as they have oil ports that seem to match the one on the bottom bracket shell.

The single rear cog even has a slot in it for easy spoke removal, which is a feature not seen in a long time.

These replacement chrome-plated wheels with their skinny tires and flat braking surfaces just do not look right on this bike.

I have access to a complete front wheel from the "railing bike" at the re-Cycles shop (a dead CCM from 1945 that was going to be an outside sign bike, but instead now graces the shop's library railing), as it did not fit the installation and was simply snoozing in a basement corner, and had escaped being spray-painted. I dug it out tonight and was pleased to note that the painted rim matches my bike!

So I either use this wheel as it is, or only its rim and lace in the bike's original hub (this other wheel does not have an oil port). For the rear wheel, I could either remove the one from the railing bike and carefully strip the spray-paint (and simply substitute any old single-cog wheel), since it wold be the correct colour, or find one online.

The bigger challenge is that the stem is seized, and its bolt loose. It has probably been this way for quite some time, and I fear that the stem bolt has snapped off inside at the top of the wedge. But the bolt, while loose, will not back out, so until I can get it in a vice and tug it out I can't see what is really going on.

I'm applying some Liquid Wrench inside the head tube at intervals to start freeing up whatever rust might be holding things, but if the bottom end of the bolt is stuck in the wedge then I may have to unfortunately cut off the stem. This would allow me to dismantle the headset and pull out the fork, then hopefully get the conjoined mess out. Via the "English Roadsters" discussion group at OldRoads.com, I've been offered a replacement stem if needed.


An interesting feature on this bike is that it sports non-cottered cranks. And it is not the usual one-piece / Ashtabula crankset. I was told that CCM pioneered this, but need to get more verification.

And here's the most worn part of the bike:

I'll post more photos as the "restoration" continues.