58 Years from 1958: This Isn't Even My Final Form!

I have recently completed many updates on Gwendolyn, my trusty 1958 Raleigh Sports. It may seem strange that the bikes that I ride the most such as this one, The Ross, and Gilbert, are ones that I seldom write about anymore when you see how many new projects have been coming my way. The Lotus will probably end up going this way, too. I think it is because these are my most-ridden bikes, I make it a priority to get everything working right at one time, only taking them out of service once in a blue moon to perform a large batch of updates or general maintenance. And, as I wrote in the last post about the Lotus, once everything is dialed in, there really isn't anything that grabs my attention.

The Small-Wheeler

Just as Lovely Bicycle! wrote in her article years ago, "The handlebars look like antlers and somehow the bike seems to be always smiling. Just a friendly little reindeer, waiting for you to ride it..."

2Pake

Behold, my first custom build intended purely for sale, my first entirely "modern" bike, my first bike assembled on film, so to say, and the first bike I have assembled from the ground up in one day, which I think is worth mentioning since none of this came as a kit that was supposed to fit together out of the box. I'm just surprised that everything fit together perfectly and I didn't have to wait for different parts to arrive.

The 200-Mile Shakedown Ride

Exactly three weeks ago, I got my 1981 Lotus Excelle mixte to the point where I could ride it and sort out any bugs that came up.

Overhauling a Sturmey-Archer SW 3-speed Hub

In my experience, bits of information on the Sturmey-Archer SW hub are few and far between. While Brian Hayes provides a wealth of valuable information on Sheldon Brown's website as does Tony Hadland, I still had to dive into this operation unsure of what to expect the first time. That being said, if you plan to work on this hub and/or put many miles on it, I suggest that you thoroughly read Hayes' article before doing anything else. This post is the first of a few "tutorials" I plan to write and with it, I hope to bring together all of the information I have found useful and provide straightforward, basic instructions to tear down one of these hubs and get it running without modification.

Image from en.wikimedia.org

Throwback: Raleigh Tourist Comparisons

I have recently unearthed some old photos from way back before I first overhauled my DL-1 Tourist. Here, I remember lining it up side by side with my old Sports to see just how much bigger it was.

Red

So, where do we begin?