More Spring Cleaning

[WVBicycles]

nice bikes all of them look spotless

 

[SirMike1983]

Flat tire on the 1958 Raleigh - rotted tube from a blown grease seal gradually leaking oil. Not a big loss; the tube was a Duro brand that came with the tires, and those are pretty damned cheap. I refreshed the grease seals at the cones with better grease and replaced the rim tape and tube. The tire itself was fine.

While I had the wheel in the vise, I took a picture of the spoke heads. These 1940s-50s era Raleighs had some high-end touches, including brand name "R" strikes on each of the spoke heads. The modern spoke makers do this too, but back in the day Raleigh did it as well. The spoke washers are Velofuze brass types I added when I re-built the wheel as a four speed with an FW hub from 1956.

https://bikeshedva.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-maintenance-carousel.html

 

[SirMike1983]

Cleaned up the kickstand and saddle bag a bit today; gave this Raleigh a little oil as well. Fun bike.

 

[SirMike1983]

Had a weekend away visiting family - where I store my 1978 Raleigh DL-1. This bike got a cleaning and a short ride on a nice day. Our longer ride day was rained out.

 

[SirMike1983]

Losing daylight - so I like the B&M Lumotec Classic headlight and original tail light on this 1974 Sports with Dynohub.

 

[SirMike1983]

Got this window sticker for my Jeep.

 

[SirMike1983]

1958 Sports out and about on a summer-like day.

I am riding a patched rear tube on it now: I last rode this bike a couple weeks ago. The day after I last rode it, I noticed the rear was flat, and found a piece of glass in the tire and tube. I patched it the old way - I still use the old-style, red and black glue-on patches. I find the old way still works fine. But what I am also finding is that fewer people seem to be using the traditional patches. I'm noticing more and more people just replacing the tubes, or using sticker patches.

I trash the really cheap tubes (Duro, for example) when they get a flat. But I still patch middling and better tubes - Kenda, Forte, and the thorn-resistant heavy duty tubes.

 

[SirMike1983]

A little Twenty fiddling with the headset, particularly the plastic collar unit. It's in better shape than I had feared - perfectly workable still. The brakes needed some tweaks, and we're pretty much done now. Then I did a little clean up and took a picture.

 

[SirMike1983]

In this edition of "Side-by-Side", a comparison of the finer points of the 1970 Sprite and 1958 Sports.

https://bikeshedva.blogspot.com/2017/10/side-by-side-1958-raleigh-sports-and.html

 

[SirMike1983]

Warm for a fall day today. I took out this 1958 Raleigh Sports for an evening ride before it got dark.