Andrew Gorman
Cruisin' on my Bluebird
I recently ended up with the bike from this thread:
http://thecabe.com/forum/threads/1931-32-german-adler.97504/
I've been intrigued by these bikes for a long time, but they seldom show up in the US. High protective tariffs at the time undoubtedly had something to do with that, because even in Germany these were expensive bikes, listing for around 125 to 150 Reichsmarks when equivalent bikes were less than 100 RM (excahnge rate was something like .75 USD to the RM). Add in the fact there was almost no market for adult bikes in the US at that time. The bike arrived dis-assembled and very well packed and I started right in tearing it apart even more. This is a quality machine and a real treat to work on. Paint is in pretty good shape and will be kept. It gave off the same nicotine stain ook that Raleighs of the same vintage do when rubbed down. That paint is awesome and bulletproof, and this is the same, confirmed by some text in the Adler manual I got off of eBay- dipped, baked asphalt based paint. Some ghosts of decals and pinstripes remain:
Evapo-rust was on sale at a nearby Harbor Freight, so I gave it a try. Boy howdy, did it work well:
My usual coating of shoe polish should keep the chrome bits presentable. When the original owner brought the bike back to the US they had to make a few changes. I think the rack is a US model, and at some time the original rims were swapped out for 26" metal clad wood rims and 1X1.75 singletubes, and the front hub for a (presumably) pre-built wheel with a New Departure hub. Why? Due to various Nazi austerity measures, by 1936 the only bike tires made in Germany were 26X1.75 clinchers, and these were not available in the US until the dawn of the middleweights. To keep the hybrid look I'm swapping the rims out for a pair of 26" Velocity Blunts. I've found a couple of really good German bike sites. For general information and reprint catalogs, manuals etc,
http://fahrradsammler.de/
and a big general old bike board at:
http://www.altesrad.net
Lots of information on both sites, but putting it kindly German grammar can be complicated so machine translation at best will get you an "all your base are belong to us" quality, and at worst, Monty Pythons Hungarian-English phrase book-
I'm having fun with this. More news as it happens.
http://thecabe.com/forum/threads/1931-32-german-adler.97504/
I've been intrigued by these bikes for a long time, but they seldom show up in the US. High protective tariffs at the time undoubtedly had something to do with that, because even in Germany these were expensive bikes, listing for around 125 to 150 Reichsmarks when equivalent bikes were less than 100 RM (excahnge rate was something like .75 USD to the RM). Add in the fact there was almost no market for adult bikes in the US at that time. The bike arrived dis-assembled and very well packed and I started right in tearing it apart even more. This is a quality machine and a real treat to work on. Paint is in pretty good shape and will be kept. It gave off the same nicotine stain ook that Raleighs of the same vintage do when rubbed down. That paint is awesome and bulletproof, and this is the same, confirmed by some text in the Adler manual I got off of eBay- dipped, baked asphalt based paint. Some ghosts of decals and pinstripes remain:
Evapo-rust was on sale at a nearby Harbor Freight, so I gave it a try. Boy howdy, did it work well:
My usual coating of shoe polish should keep the chrome bits presentable. When the original owner brought the bike back to the US they had to make a few changes. I think the rack is a US model, and at some time the original rims were swapped out for 26" metal clad wood rims and 1X1.75 singletubes, and the front hub for a (presumably) pre-built wheel with a New Departure hub. Why? Due to various Nazi austerity measures, by 1936 the only bike tires made in Germany were 26X1.75 clinchers, and these were not available in the US until the dawn of the middleweights. To keep the hybrid look I'm swapping the rims out for a pair of 26" Velocity Blunts. I've found a couple of really good German bike sites. For general information and reprint catalogs, manuals etc,
http://fahrradsammler.de/
and a big general old bike board at:
http://www.altesrad.net
Lots of information on both sites, but putting it kindly German grammar can be complicated so machine translation at best will get you an "all your base are belong to us" quality, and at worst, Monty Pythons Hungarian-English phrase book-
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