Rolling on

After much unscrewing, greasing, cursing, banging and "Where the hell was this thing supposed to go??", Helen's bike is now in one piece again and back in action.

I realised two things working on this bike: firstly, that you can only do so much in the workshop without actually taking the bike out for a ride, especially if you are still getting to grips with how bikes work. Something may look terrible but feel fine when you are on the bike, or it may look fine but feel completely wrong. The tactical experience riding the bike may highlight things you hadn't even begun to think about. Example: I thought we were close to finishing when I took the bike for its first test ride, but once I got on it was immediately apparent that the left hand crank was bent, which felt very strange indeed. Luckily, my boyfriend is an apprentice metal worker, so he took the crank to work and hammered it roughly back in to shape.

Still a little bent though.... might need to do it again. Sigh.

Secondly, it occurred to me that restoration is entirely a question of what you find acceptable and how much work you can be bothered doing. You may be a perfectionist who will send a frame off to be powdercoated at the slightest sign of rust, or you may not care so long as the rust is not actually damaging anything. You may want a bike that can perform well at high speeds, or you might just want something that rolls down the street without falling apart.

On this bike, for instance, both the front and back wheels had rusty and buckled rims, but the front was worse than the back. The front wheel could easily be replaced for another, but the back wheel had a coaster brake hub we didn't want to lose. We could have kept the back hub, discarded the rim and spokes, hunted down a new 40-spoke rim (which would have been very hard to find) and re-built the wheel..... but instead we bought some electrical tape and covered up, as best we could, the rusty bits which might have punctured the tube; then bent the kinks back in to shape with pliers. Not perfect, but ride-able.

To give you an idea of the kind of work involved in restoring an old bike to this standard, here's a list of all the stuff we did to it:

- Replace the front wheel with a new one
- Tightening the spoke tension on the back wheel to try and correct some of the kinks
- Bending out the remaining kinks on the back wheel rim with pliers
- Re-greasing the bearings in the new wheel and re-oiling the hub in the old back wheel.
- Taking apart the bottom bracket (where the pedals are) and re-greasing the bearings there.
- Taking apart the headset (where the handlebars sit) and re-greasing the bearings on the top and bottom
- Banging back in to shape the left hand crank that was bent
- Replacing the chain with a new one
- Taping all over the rust on the back rim with electrical tape
- Replacing both tyre tubes
- Raising the handlebars and seat to make it a better size for Helen
- Adjusting the front calliper brakes once everything was back together

Some of these jobs were easier than others. Getting the pedals off so we could take apart the bottom bracket was a bit of a drama: bikes of this age have cotters - small tapering pegs with a nut on one side that you hammer in to secure the cranks. Like so:

If they haven't been serviced in a few years they are likely to be difficult to bang out again, as we discovered. We ended up completely destroying one while trying to get it out, and had to saw it off then find a new one.

Thankfully all the volunteer mechanics at Mechanical Tempest really know their stuff. They also have a great attitude of 'salvage if possible', rather than 'sell them a new one if possible' as you would get from (some) bike shops. Highly, highly recommended! So much I'm going to link them again.

And also, my bike and I are now slightly famous.

A belated update: slippers and bikes

It's been an eventful few weeks, what with this small matter taking over my life...

Somehow I found the time to experiment with making felted slippers. Unfortunately, the first couple of tries did not go as planned and left me frustrated, red faced and covered in soap and wool. Hey, we all have DIY failures every so often - this was the lumpy, misshapen result:


Eventually I decided to bite the bullet and ask the internet what to do. I ended up following this tutorial and it worked brilliantly...

But by that point I was exhausted and running out of time so I only made one. I'll put up a more detailed post when I find time to make the other.

In other news, my flatmate Helen recently got given her grandmother's old bike. According to legendary and eccentric bicycle expert Sheldon Brown, it's seriously old: the brand is BSA or Birmingham Small Arms, which got bought out by Raleigh in 1957.

It's remarkably similar to Isobel's Raleigh Lady's Sports in terms of shape and style - step through frame, coaster brake on the back hub, 26" wheels and North Road handlebars. The kind of bike made for a time when normal people rode bikes.
I took it apart before taking any photos, but here's the frame:

Some beautiful lugwork detail that would move a vintage bike nerd to tears:

And a quirky touch on the front mudguard:

The bad news is that the wheel rims are both heavily buckled and rusty...

... double bad news, in fact, because one of the many quirks of these old bikes is that the front wheel has 32 spokes and the back wheel has 40, neither of which are standard anymore for 26" wheels. In a matter of hours we're going to head down to the community bicycle workshop Mechanical Tempest at 128 Abel Smith Street and see if there are any old wheels we can cannibalise. Fingers crossed we can get this old beauty back on the road, and get Helen on some wheels!

How to make a bat costume out of an umbrella.

The title says it all.
If there are any more windy, rainy days in between now and Halloween, chances are you could pick up a bung umbrella from a rubbish bin. If you're ok with taking stuff from rubbish bins. Or just recycle your own when it breaks, as it inevitably will in Wellington.
I got this via coolmelbourne.

Willowy whimsy

A couple of months ago my mum gave me some cuttings of basket willow - a species that has been bred to produce the long, straight shoots needed for basket weaving. She assured me that if I put them in the ground they would happily sprout leaves and roots. I was somewhat skeptical but am happy to report the cuttings have taken to their new homes with vigour.

You can make all kinds of things from thin and flexible living willow rods, like domes and tunnels. I'd seen pictures of living willow fences and thought one of these would make a great wind break for my main vege patch. It's a little wonky but does the trick.

I criss-crossed the stakes and tied them together with willow shoots:


They're happily sprouting leaves, which should fill the structure out a bit more and make it more effective as a wind break. As new shoots grow off the main stakes you can weave them back in to the structure.


I also planted some short stumps with the aim of harvesting the shoots to make baskets. You're supposed to coppice them (i.e. cut off all the new growth) in late autumn to prevent them branching out.


I had some leftover willow ties so I put them in a jar of water, whereupon they enthusiastically started growing. I'm not quite sure what to do with them....

Raincoats that keep you dry!

It's certainly been wet this week in Wellington! I hate taking the bus, but biking in the rain can be dangerous with old steel rims. As well as getting that seen to, I'm considering one of these gorgeous rain ponchos from Amsterdam. Then there'd be no problem taking the bike every day!

A proper old lady

My plans to have a beautiful stable of restored vintage bicycles has begun!



Here's my first acquisition, a classic three speed Raleigh Lady's Sports.



She came from TradeMe, all packed up in a box.



The Sturmney Archer hub says that she's from 1963, but this doesn't seem to match up with the list that Sheldon Brown provides (see here for the definitive word on classic Raleigh bikes).




Also, the distinctive 'arrow' paint job seems to be a classic feature of the Sports models that come up for sale in NZ. This makes me wonder whether this kind are somehow unique to NZ, and does make me doubt the 'Made in England' declaration... There were import restrictions on bicycles from the 1960s to 1980s, during which time Raleighs were made in NZ from NZ steel. Apparently a similar thing happened with Fender amplifiers. Due to import restrictions on whole amps, they were assembled in NZ with a combination of local and imported parts - yet still marked 'Made in USA'! I have a lot of questions about the manufacture of bicycles in NZ and I intend to get to the bottom of it. Watch this space!



Original tyres, which will need to be replaced. Possibly with cream ones?



And just in case you weren't sure what to do with your tyres...



Mattress saddles were a feature of some of the cheaper models. Look, you can see the horsehair underneath!



She needs a bit of work, but these bicycles were solid machines designed to be repaired at home. I'll post the restoration process up here; hopefully it will be helpful to people considering buying a vintage bicycle! I'm going to derust the chrome, touch up the paint, repack the front hub, take a good look at those cables and connect up the three speed hub to the right wirey bit.



My plan is to ride the old lady while I'm doing up my main transportation bike, a 1970s Morrison Concorde. I look forward to getting her ready to ride so I can go for a spin! First up, polishing the metal.

The Christchurch Bicycle Band

"Christchurch even boasted a band that played on bikes. Set up by brothers Fred and Joshua Painter in 1895, the Christchurch Bicycle Band played brass instruments while cycling in formation. They entertained the public, on the stage as well as the streets, for about 25 years – initially on penny-farthings."

From Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/bicycles/1