Foreign Affairs

[Lots of steel bikes]

G'day Robert
Are you heading anywhere towards London (I know you're currently "up North liyke")? The best vintage bicycle shop in the UK is Sargent & Co (http://www.sargentandco.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) 0207 359 7642, they can assist with rethreading. The shop is is Arsenal (Finsbury Park). If you're not heading back South any time soon, perhaps Rob could recommend someone in your area. Good luck!

Clicked on the link and 'wow'. I'd spend all day in that shop as would most of us. It's a wonder they get any work done.
I recently spent far too long in a retro type bike shop just chatting about all things vintage and suddenly realized how much time I'd taken up for the mere $10 I spent.

[rkelsen]

Bets I made on bargains haven't paid off. I find myself desperately looking for someone in the vicinity who can drill my French threaded cranks out to accept standard pedals.

Glad I'm not the only who's lost that kind of bet!

I recently purchased some pedal taps to do exactly that same thing. You don't need to drill the holes out, you just tap the new thread. The French 14mm size is slightly smaller than 9/16".

Probably doesn't help, but if you were in Melbourne I'd loan them to you.

[feelthewheel]

G'day Robert
Are you heading anywhere towards London (I know you're currently "up North liyke")? The best vintage bicycle shop in the UK is Sargent & Co (http://www.sargentandco.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) 0207 359 7642, they can assist with rethreading. The shop is is Arsenal (Finsbury Park). If you're not heading back South any time soon, perhaps Rob could recommend someone in your area. Good luck!

Clicked on the link and 'wow'. I'd spend all day in that shop as would most of us. It's a wonder they get any work done.
I recently spent far too long in a retro type bike shop just chatting about all things vintage and suddenly realized how much time I'd taken up for the mere $10 I spent.

The shop is indeed as amazing and atmospheric as the website hints at. It's like stepping back in time - in a good way. Gobsmacking amount of vintage bicycle bling dripping from the walls, hanging from the ceiling and stored in the cellar. Rob is a very accommodating guy, so many people (like me on this occasion) come from overseas just to visit, not purchase. For example as I was taking some photos (which Rob kindly allowed) this uber-rich Japanese businessman came in (dragging his obviously bored wife along), explaining in very bad English that he flown all the way to London just to visit the shop and showed us countless pictures of his vintage randonneur! He was so excited ...

Sadly my camera was stolen in Germany and I lost all the pictures will have to go back

[hiflange]

I given up the idea of getting the cranks tapped and bought french threaded pedals. Fingers crossed for a speedy delivery!

[hiflange]

All obstacles overcome! For now anyway.
French threaded pedals arrived today. Broke a spoke whilst truing the front wheel but got a replacement (and some spares) locally. Took it for a short ride in the rain that started up this arvo and made some minor adjustments to the derailleurs. It's far from perfect but I reckon it'll be fine to get me 20k out of town tomorrow afternoon and Sunday morning




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[Typhoon Ken]

Congrats, good job

[hiflange]

Well the shakedown ride was a circuitous 22km + return from Harrogate to the Blubberhouses climb to watch stage two of the TdF come through. Beautiful cool cloudy English summer day.
Got a few problems, it's to be expected.
The inexpensive wheel set rolls beautifully but the front is still out of true. It really needs rebuilding as the spokes are rusty and I already broke one truing it a couple of days ago.

Brakes were a bit grabby heading out. The back brakes came good after a while so I assume it was just new pads bedding in. Front one remains grabby after 40 k and plenty of use, could it be related to out of true rim?

Gearing is up the proverbial. Got a corn cob at the back 14-15-16-17-18, again a part of the inexpensive wheelset. And 40-50 up front. A bit crap for hilly country.

The problem is compounded by the rear derailleur. It's the first campy I've owned and I'm not that familiar with them. As far as I can figure out there are two sprung parts that manage chain tension, the jockey cage and the body. The jockey cage takes up chain slack properly but the body wants to spring forward, seems to me that it should push backward right?

I organised the chain length with the minimum links to work with the 50/14 combo. As I shift down to the 40 front ring the RD doesn't pull up the slack. I couldn't ride at all in 40/17 or 40/18 and in 40/16 the chain jumps as soon as I'm out of the saddle. Love to hear from anybody who has an idea of what's happening with the RD - it's a campag Gran Sport 1012
Thanks, Rob



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[Clydesdale Scot]

Robert,
only suggestion is to make sure the chain path is correct and the chain length is correct. The same period Simplex TDF had clear instructions because many seemed to get it wrong.
I would have thought that the big ring/big tooth as photographed the RD would be positioned more horizontally.
Might be worth comparing your positioning with the closeups like this
From SpeedBicycles

and there are some notes in this Bike Quarterly article

and the early RDs were very limiting with the capacity. Are you asking too much of it with the rather large teeth difference on the chainrings.
There is a note on p7 of this link where the option of spring setting for increasing the capacity.

good luck

[hiflange]

Thanks, I think I just hadn't wound the cage up enough; I pulled the chain out yesterday afternoon and put another turn on the derailleur cage. Chain tension on the small ring is fine now.

My exposure to vintage derailleurs is quite limited. It's the first time I've set up a gran sport and my naivety has cost me some chain length, which means I'm limited to top gear on the big ring until I put a longer chain on. Not a big problem in Yorkshire as you either seem to be going very much up a hill or very much down one.

Going up hills is still an issue. The biggest cog at the back is a mere 18 teeth. The bad news is that I can't get the derailleur to stick in gear 1 or 2. Is it the campy shifter? I'm going to pull it to bits in the morning to clean and sand what seem to be polyurethane bits that control friction. I'm not confident that that will fix the problem though. There does seem to be quote a bit of tension on the RD cable.... as always I'd be happy to hear from anyone who has successfully set up a campy gran sport and campy shift lever.

Anyway I managed to put in 60k on the Allin today - west from Harrogate then out past Pateley Bridge and back home via Ripley. Beautiful country, a mix of hilly lanes, moors and river valleys. Only had to walk up three hills!

[hiflange]

I think I've got to the bottom of my shifting woes. I dismantled the RD lever mech and cleaned and lightly sanded the poly control surfaces. This resulted in being able to hold the two low gears for most of a 66 km ride. I believe this has eliminated the RD as the source of the problem (though I'm still surprised at the amount of tension on the cable in 1st gear).

The issue is almost certainly that Campag lever is incompatible with the frame's braze on boss. The outer bush of the lever assembly has a slot designed to mate with an oblong end of a shift lever boss. This eliminates the tendency of the bush to rotate with every up shift, undoing the thumbscrew that controls friction by applying pressure to the whole assembly.

The boss on this frame is round and short enough that it doesn't make contact with the outer bush. So I need to find a more appropriate shift lever. Most of the bikes from around 1960 on Classic Lightweights appear to have campag levers, a few have Cyclo.

[Typhoon Ken]

You'll be a fully qualified bike mechanic by the time you come home

[hiflange]

With limited knowledge of a small subset of half century old bikes I think I'll only be partially qualified

[Typhoon Ken]

A specialist in your chosen field

[yugyug]

Better to be a specialist than a generalist?

Awesome thread btw.

[WyvernRH]

The boss on this frame is round and short enough that it doesn't make contact with the outer bush. So I need to find a more appropriate shift lever. Most of the bikes from around 1960 on Classic Lightweights appear to have campag levers, a few have Cyclo.

From looking at the type of braze-on boss. can I suggest that a 50's/ early 60's Simplex or Cyclo/Benelux alloy lever might fit and work better on that clamp? It looks like a Simplex/Cyclo braze-on.
Something like this or the later mazak and chrome version



Cheers
Richard

[hiflange]

Thanks Richard, (and Phil for your pm).
I'm heading back home tomorrow. The bike is staying here. I hope to be able to ride it in L'Eroica Britannia next year. I'll have to figure out my options from afar, but I guess a band-on left right pair of levers would be a pretty good fall back. I feel a bit of a dill for not having something of that nature with me this trip.