Stowaway Build

Here is all the various parts of my Stowaway laid out and ready to be built up. The freshly stripped frame had recieved several coatings of black Hammerite, which when sprayed on is really nice stuff. I started with a thickly brushed on undercoating then after a light sanding sprayed over the top.

I had planned to retain the original handlebar stem but once the bike was together and test-rideable it was obvious that for the trekking bars to work the bike needed a much longer reach stem.So I got a long reach adjustable stem off ebay for £15.

The Stowaway handlebar stem is a bit unsual because it doesn't have a normal headset. Instead there is a plastic bush at the top and a piece of looped wire which slides inside the stem. This bit of wire secures through the bolt for the from caliper brake. This means that when you are adjusting the quick release stem you can't accidentaly pull the stem out too far.

The finished wheels with tyres fitted. These Kenda tyres seemed like a good good choice (there isn't much choice with 451 tyres) but when it came to fitting them they have a ridiculously tight bead - not good news for any on the road punctures.

As with alot of vintage bike building the cotter pins for the cottered cranks where a bit worse for where. These things suffer on old bikes, mainly because they have old imperial threads and over the years someone will always have tried jamming on a metric nut. So both cotters got retreaded with metric threads and given brand new locking nuts.

mmmm shiny crisp new threads.

Here's a little video to show how easy it is.

During the build I stupidly managed to break the shifter for the Sach 5 speed hub by overtightening the nut. Its not a great design to be honest , since it relies on the plastic to take all the strain on the metal clip being wedged inside of it.

After deciding that there was no way to fix the original method of fixing I started to work out an alternative. So I took an old shimano friction shifter. Took out the handlebar attachment from that. chop some bits off it. Drilled a hole directly through the top of the sach shifter and glued/bolted the shimano base onto the sachs body.

The end result is slightly less elegant than before, but is actually more ergonomic as the whole shifter now sits a bit higher above the grips, meaning its easier to shifter with my thumb than it was before.

You can get long foam grips specially for butterfly bars, but I'm not keen on squishy foam, so instead got some honeycomb effect fake leather tape. Brown because the plan it to get a Brooks saddle of somesort, or a Charge Spoon at some point. With this build I used a gusset 1/2 link chain. I've never used a 1/2 linker before, but knowing how much bother it has been sometimes trying to get the chain tension just right on a hubbed bike (and then resorting to using a 1/2 link piece anyway) I decided this time it was worth trying. I'm a convert, 1/2 linkers are really easy to split & fit.

The rack is the original style Stowaway rack, but was a 24" wheel version new old stock. I had planned to just cut the stays down to 20" (so that the deck lays horizontal) but decided the extra heel clearance from it being slightly angled might be more useful.the front X-FD drum is as superb as expected, but the original cleaned up rear caliper is about as much use a chocolate firegaurd. I'll try it with some modern pads and see if i can get it any better.

The finished bike is very light and agile - as Stowaways usually as, but with the added fun of drum brakes, extra hand positions

A week in Scarborough

We spent last week up on the coast near Scarborough. There wasn't any cycling involved, but whenever we were out and about I tried to keep an eye out for any interesting bikes to post about on here.

Before I even got chance nosey at other people bikes, the first thing I noticed on the drive up there were some great looking (for this country anyway, which means crap for any country with decent infrastruture) cycle paths and the a much greater effort to provide facilities for cycling in general. I'm sure there is still the inevitable dodgily routed cycle lanes that appear standard in Britain, but through the eyes of someone more used to the streets of Manchester it was quite refreshing to see some effort put into providing a useable cycling infrastructure.

A bit of googling comes up with Scarborough Council's cycling strategy.

There seemed to be a thing of using old bikes as a bit of themed advertising. Such as this one advertising Scarborough Music on the main shopping street:

There was a similar bike to this outside a butchers shop on the way into town. That one had a smaller front wheel though to allow for a bigger front basket. unfortunately they had closed and taken the bike in before I got a photo.

Here's a lovely old Pashley that looked as if it was in frequent use and not just a bit of advertising furniture:

This couple has their young kid in a little towalong trailer. He was busy on his Nintendo whilst mum and dad did the pedalling.

I really liked this well-used looking Dawes Super-Galaxy, but if it was mine I wouldn't have locked it up with such a skinny little cable lock. I once had a lock like that, I thought it was fine to use until one day I accidently snapped the lock shaft with my barehands using very little effort (I bought it from Halfrauds obviously)

Nice touch on the bicycle racks, shame the only person enjoying the use of them at the time wasn't actually locking a bike up!

When I saw this fella from a distance I thought he had a Raliegh Twenty, so I got the camera out and snapped. When I got closer I realised it was some kind of Philips folder with deraileur gears. Still nice to see the flatcap and trouser clips combo combined with a nip to the corner shop. (funny colours in the photo due to pressing the wrong setting on the camera, I quite like it though!)

Postie bike, but not a Mailstar on our way into town.

And here it is in use on our way out of town. Liking the socks.

This last one is in Middlesbrough, it caught my eye as it had no brake levers which is odd for anything other than a 'fixie thats trying a bit too hard' in this country. On closer inspection the owner must be happy with just a rear coaster brake.

Brompton

The first time I tried cycling to work I lived North of Rochdale. Meaning it was a pretty serious bit of riding each way to make it the 14 miles or so into work. It would take around 1 hour in the morning and maybe 1 hr 20 to get home because the area I lived was at a higher elevation than the city centre. I did this journey for a short while, but mostly carried on getting the train because the distance and time it took was a bit overwhelming for a daily commute.

My previous experiences of commuting by train from Hyde were fine, but getting the train from Rochdale was soul destroying. It was constantly late, constantly cancelled, always dangerously overcrowded and bloody expensive. As soon as I stopped getting the train I stopped catching colds....go figure.

Luckily Woman changed jobs and began working in Manchester. Meaning we could commute together and get rid of one of our two cars*. This presented a new problem, we could park for free at her new workplace, but I would still need to travel the last 3.5 miles myself to get to the city centre. So at first I was driving the last few miles in and parking up in one of the cheapo car parks further out of town. But that was no fun, and all those £2 a days etc add up to alot.

So I started looking at folding bikes. The idea being the car would be parked up for free, then I would cycle in the last few miles. After a bit of umming and arring I stuck to my principle of 'buy cheap, buy twice' and went for the best folder there is - The Brompton. Second hand off ebay, it was a red basic M3L version, with 3 speed Sturmey Archer hub & mudguards. I worked out that if I rode it in everyday for around a year it would pay for itself courtesy of the savings on parking & petrol. But frankly, I would have paid that money just to be free of the train.

Of course none of that takes into account that the train used to cost £80 a month, or £960 a yr. hmmm... maybe I should have got two Bromptons....

Over that period the B recieved a few upgrades, some because I felt like it, some because they were required. It got a pair of the ever dependable Schwalbe Marathons, some ergo grips, new front brake cable, a lefthand folding pedal and recently a new cheapo right hand pedal.

The most important addition was my Dad's 30+ yr old Brookes saddle to replace the terrible spongy thing that Brompton's used to come with.

I'd definately recommend a Brompton to anyone. It might not beat other folders in a spec war and it might not look quite as racey as some, but its far far better than any of its competition.

*getting rid of a car is like giving yourself a payrise, nothing has changed but now you are richer.