Here's an 1939 raleigh bike I restored last year. The bike was found as so:
After deciding what was original (it amazingly had cable brakes, one of the first) I stripped it down. The Idea was to make it into a sprint bike in the style of a 1920's board racer, a style I adore. The frame was stripped and repainted, as were the wheels. Period brakes were sourced from taiwan and other parts were from a very hard to find store, which sells almost entirely new old stock or second hand parts. Tyres are schwalbe puncture protects painted with a tin of 1930's white wall paint.
The restoration begins:
The parts were hard to source as the bike had custom wheels and spokes supplied by the chap who wrote richards guide to cycling. The spokes were all made to size for me and I had to lace them myself, a suprisingly easy job. The wheel size is 26 1 1/4. Interestingly the chap who gave me the bike, his grandfather developed the tapered tubes in bike forks. Once finished, the bike proved amazingly fast with the three gears (we have big hills where i live) and always catches an eye. The handlebars are not as uncomfortable as they look!
Heres my other machinary, a 1970's dawes racer, and a 1954 raleigh tourer which has scince recieved numberplates and a motorised rear wheel from the 50's. Sadly anthing with an engine gets taxed in the UK but not if its this old!
After deciding what was original (it amazingly had cable brakes, one of the first) I stripped it down. The Idea was to make it into a sprint bike in the style of a 1920's board racer, a style I adore. The frame was stripped and repainted, as were the wheels. Period brakes were sourced from taiwan and other parts were from a very hard to find store, which sells almost entirely new old stock or second hand parts. Tyres are schwalbe puncture protects painted with a tin of 1930's white wall paint.
The restoration begins:
The parts were hard to source as the bike had custom wheels and spokes supplied by the chap who wrote richards guide to cycling. The spokes were all made to size for me and I had to lace them myself, a suprisingly easy job. The wheel size is 26 1 1/4. Interestingly the chap who gave me the bike, his grandfather developed the tapered tubes in bike forks. Once finished, the bike proved amazingly fast with the three gears (we have big hills where i live) and always catches an eye. The handlebars are not as uncomfortable as they look!
Heres my other machinary, a 1970's dawes racer, and a 1954 raleigh tourer which has scince recieved numberplates and a motorised rear wheel from the 50's. Sadly anthing with an engine gets taxed in the UK but not if its this old!
