Coventry Eagle

"D.M. Procida" <[email hidden]> wrote in
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Quoted message said:

Someone appears to have dumped a Coventry Eagle women's bike with a
Sturmey Archer hub in the lane behind the house. The frame seems OK - is
such a bike worth anything, or worth saving for someone who likes such
things?

Daniele

I've just bought a Coventry Eagle ladies frame to build a tourer for my wife
.... if the one you have is dumped I might be interested to pirate some parts
...... whereabouts are you?

Rob

D.M. Procida said:

Someone appears to have dumped a Coventry Eagle women's bike with a
Sturmey Archer hub in the lane behind the house. The frame seems OK - is
such a bike worth anything, or worth saving for someone who likes such
things?

The SA hub is probably OK. They rarely go wrong.

D.M. Procida said:

Someone appears to have dumped a Coventry Eagle women's bike with a
Sturmey Archer hub in the lane behind the house. The frame seems OK - is
such a bike worth anything, or worth saving for someone who likes such
things?

Depends how old it is... there are Coventry Eagles and there are
Coventry Eagles. When it was an independent firm they built some quite
good stuff. If the S-A hub is original it will tell you how old the
bike is (if it's not it will just tell you how old the hub is).
Assuming it's a post-war machine, you should find numbers for the month
and year stamped on the hub shell. Other C-E features to look for are
'claw' seat stays and the eagle's silhouettes in the chain wheel.

--
Andrew

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 17:13:52 +0100,

(D.M. Procida) said:

Someone appears to have dumped a Coventry Eagle women's bike with a
Sturmey Archer hub in the lane behind the house. The frame seems OK - is
such a bike worth anything, or worth saving for someone who likes such
things?

Daniele

Coventry Eagle , pah ! a pale imitation of the Nottingham Duck !

Having said that,all British bikes of that vintage should be lovingly
restored for future generations to marvel at.
In 100 years time when bike frames are made of some space-age candy
floss material and weigh the same as a bag of crisps we shall need
examples of the old steel-frame bicycles to back-up our "Four
Yorkshiremen" style claims of cycling duress.

Response to D.M. Procida:

Quoted message said:

Someone appears to have dumped a Coventry Eagle women's bike with a
Sturmey Archer hub in the lane behind the house. The frame seems OK - is
such a bike worth anything, or worth saving for someone who likes such
things?

Funnily enough, I was just wondering along similar lines: somebody's
dumped an old Falcon in a stream round behind my house. Looks like a
classic of its kind: downtube shifters, suicide levers, milled steel rims
and all. The frame has lost a lot of paint and is pretty rusty,
otherwise I'd be inclined to rescue it - it's my size, which is unusual
(yes, I measured it <blush>😉. How bad does a frame have to be before I'm
not at least tempted?

--
Mark, UK

"I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up
something else."

Mark McNeill said:

Funnily enough, I was just wondering along similar lines: somebody's
dumped an old Falcon in a stream round behind my house. Looks like a
classic of its kind: downtube shifters, suicide levers, milled steel rims
and all. The frame has lost a lot of paint and is pretty rusty,
otherwise I'd be inclined to rescue it - it's my size, which is unusual
(yes, I measured it <blush>😉. How bad does a frame have to be before I'm
not at least tempted?

Does it have horizontal dropouts? I bet it does. Sounds like an ideal
fixed wheel conversion.

Tim

Response to Tim Hall:

Quoted message said:

Does it have horizontal dropouts? I bet it does. Sounds like an ideal
fixed wheel conversion.

I *wish* you hadn't said that! It does.

But I think at my age my knees might not take a fixie, even if I had the
time and money to spare. :-(

--
Mark, UK

"A wartime Minister of Information is compelled, in the national
interest, to such continuous acts of duplicity that even his natural hair
must grow to resemble a wig."

Mark McNeill said:

Response to Tim Hall:

Quoted message said:

Does it have horizontal dropouts? I bet it does. Sounds like an ideal
fixed wheel conversion.

I *wish* you hadn't said that! It does.

But I think at my age my knees might not take a fixie, even if I had the
time and money to spare. :-(

It shouldn't be that expensive.

My fixer went like this:

Given bike by mate.

Bought 17 tooth sprocket.

Unscrewed 6 speed freewheel.

Screwed on sprocket.

Fiddled around with chainline using old cup and cone BBs various from
bits box. Flipped sprocket over as well.

Got given s/h front wheel by LBS.

Got rear wheel re dished by LBS.

Rode bike.

Later I bought a new front wheel and got a single colour respray.

Tim

Tim Hall said:

Mark McNeill said:

[...] somebody's dumped an old Falcon in a stream round behind my
house. [...] How bad does a frame have to be before I'm not at least
tempted?

Does it have horizontal dropouts? I bet it does. Sounds like an ideal
fixed wheel conversion.

I can confirm that an early 70s Falcon makes a nice fixie. Rust is less
important than frame soundness. You want to check that the frame isn't
cracked, and that it doesn't have any sign of buckling around where the
head tube joins the down tube. Any buckling there might be a sign of an
earlier crash, and you'd expect the forks to be bent too in that
situation. It might be worth checking that the rear triangle is properly
aligned too.

You can always spot a bit of oil over any rust to help prevent further
flaking, and the resulting bike will be less appealing to thieves.
Alternatively, if the original enamel can't be salvaged and the material
is a very nice metal, it might be worth taking a wire brush/wool to it
and have it powder-coated or re-enamelled.

--
Andrew Chadwick

A friend of mine rescued an old ladies bike, made in Coventry in the
1880s (I didn't type that wrong!). It continued to function with no
more than an oily rag for a great many years (I believe it is in
Coventry Motor Museum now - they have a fabulous range of historic
bicycles, despite the name), so such things do work. It had beaded edge
tyres (still available from Holland), its original wheels with spokes
wired and soldered together where they cross, the front brake pressed
down on the front tyre and the chain had no rollers. It was wonderful
and imposed a steady but modest gait on any rider.

Now where did I come in?

Graham.