Many moons ago I visited Mr Senior of this parish. Unfortunately he was
not in but a rather fetching young lass (why is he moving to Paris?)
took the box and note I had for him and led me to the sacrificial lamb
in the shape of a Ralegh Arena 5 speed that brought back copious
memories of childhood.
Having retrieved said velocipede it lay undisturbed in a corner of thee
garage (best I can do for a shedde) awaiting its turn at the altar of
mechanical mayhem. Many months passed and the bicycle was feeling
forgotten. Strange flames had flashed and burnt in the distance and all
had gone quiet.
It was a cold, starry winters night. Cold is cold enough to freeze the
pond so the kids could happily bounce bricks off it wihtout cracking
the ice. And I ventured into the garage and unearthed the bike.
It was hung, the cables were drawn out and rear brake and derailleur
removed. I had previously brazed up a free hub for the intended purpose
(ibid. passim) which was still laced in an old MTB wheel. Being of the
somewhat lazy and rather frozen state of mind, I adjusted the spacing
OLN to sufficient to squeeze it into the frame, added the Uniglide
sprockets and set the chain to an appropriate length.
All is looking good. It needs tyres, pedals and rim tape.
Rim tape is eas to bodge with a roll of insulting tape. A few curses
and minor put downs led to it being wrapped several times around the
nice shiny chromed rim and a tyre (Vredestein Spider, 26x 1.9"😉 being
induced to fit into the frame. Just. There is a smidgn of clearance
each side. Its even worse than that. I only had one wheel nut as the
ones on the old bike are a different thread so the rear wheel is held
on by a spare cone.
So that is the rear wheel sorted. The front has had a bad attack of
some sort of solvent. The trye is craked, and has residue on the rim
and the tyre. It holds pressure and the forks are too narrow for a
modern wheel, so on it went.
The pedals prevously rejected from the tandem went on next, into the
steel cottered cranks. These have bearings that are gasping their last,
and they screw so far through the crank that the end of the threads
just scrapes the chainstays.
And so there it is. A fixie, sort of. Having not ridden a fixed since I
was about 7, this was going to be an interesting experience. I have
ridden it the length of the garage (enough for a pedal stroke or two)
and found the experience different. There was absolutely no way I was
going to put lights on it and go out into the frost. I'll save that
silliness for another day. It also needs new tyres front and rear, and
something sorted on the pedals front to reduce the interaction between
pedal and chainstay.
So I have finally got it to a sort of rideable state. Have to see what
it is like outside over the weekend.
...d