Oilit
Cruisin' on my Bluebird
A couple of weeks ago I bought a 1940 (D8727, but the "8" is hard to read) New World with a derailleur three speed rear hub. The derailleur itself is a Huret Alvit, so no older than the late '50's, but the rear hub is an English Bayliss-Wiley. I found one piece of advertising on the Veteran-Cycle Club library, but there's no date. The hub has 36 spokes and is laced to what looks like the original pre-war rim, so it must have been made for the American market, but does anybody know when Bayliss-Wiley were in operation? The woman I bought this from said her mother bought it from a guy who was getting shipped off to WWII and rode it until she was 70. She also had an uncle who worked on bikes (I'm not sure if she meant he was her mother's uncle or her own) and he was probably the one who installed the three-speed, with whatever he had lying around. It was stiff when I first got it, but I sprayed it down with some penetrating oil and now it feels ready to go! These are the best pictures I've got for now (the first three were from the seller), I'll get some better ones later.