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

Raleigh Winner Singlespeed Handlebars

The drop bars were not fun on this bike. When it comes to drop bars my current thinking is --Velodrome : Yes. Fancypants racing bike : Maybe (I have no real experience). but this bike : No. 

So the initial plan was to do what countless other builders of fixies and SS's have done and turn those drops upside down, chop the ends off and create a set of bullhorn bars with the original brake levers mounted on the end of the horns. It was all going swimmingly until my brother suggested I see what the set of bars from a Raleigh Stowaway would be like upside down in the style of a Pashley Guv'nor (but with slightly less elegance and a bit more bodginess)
Hmmmm, not a bad idea said I. 

I took a couple of photos of the drops upside down with the levers roughly mounted so that, in Bullseye fashion, I had a photo of what I could have had, then got started on fitting a moustache to this bike.

My thumb is at the point where I was thinking of doing the cut:

You can see here roughly what the outcome would have been. There are plenty of tutorials about doing this, such as this one.

The original Raleigh drop bars are aluminium with a 1 inch stem mount. Whereas for a 'Raleigh only knows why' reason the Twenty/Stowaways come with chromed steel bars that are slightly less than an inch in diameter at the mounting point. They overcame this by welding a shim into the stem on the Twenty and the Stowaway. So to fit them to the stem on this bike required a new homemade shim. This was made out of a piece of plate steel (actually a Corus rainscreen cladding sample).

This is the homemade shim just before the bars where slid fully in, once in you can't see it.

The brake levers are ones I bought on impulse as part of a larger order from SJS cycles a while ago. They cost a whopping £1.99 and purely by chance they match the bend of these bars perfectly.

Note the very short cable run this setup allows on the front brake. It also shortened the rear by about 6 inches too.

The red bar tape was recycled for grips and the chrome plastic end plugs modified with a pair of scissors to help them fit into the thinner gauge tubing of the steel bars. The final result is a bit Caff Racer.

This is now is much more to my liking. The effect on the steering is pretty profound as these bars place your hands a good few inches further apart that the drops allowed. And finally....this bike is veeery fast. It weighs bugger all and is so easy to get up to a high speed cruise. It's given me a new understanding on having only one gear, in a metaphysical la-di-da kind of way you don't have just one gear - you have a very short range of infinitely variable gears, because you are varying the gearing with your legs and not the mechanics of a deraileur or a hub. It's certainly not a practical everyday bike, but is now a great option for a sunny day and a fast ride.

As a Brucie bonus, the old single pivot brakes on this bike are now exceptionally good. Something I never thought possible. The combination of bmx levers, v-brake pads, super short cable run on the front & 4 hands instead of 2 when setting them up results in a fairly decent set of brakes.

The final result with mandatory Charge Spoon saddle fitted.