Kids, Bikes, and a Good Mystery

When I was a kid, a bike was a total ticket to freedom in a way I can't imagine it being for A or any of her friends today.

We used to take off on our bikes and go to friends' houses, friends of friends houses, to the store to buy junk food, change our minds and go anywhere else we felt.  If something ever happened, I know for a fact that my parents wouldn't have the slightest idea what "route" I had taken.  I didn't even know myself until I was on it!

Seemed pretty normal "back in the day" but I know I wouldn't be able to breathe if I'd just sent A out into the wild suburbia for hours on end without any idea at all where she was.  And I seriously doubt any of her friends' moms would either.

Partly, I know suburbia is less "watched" than it was in the 1970's when parents and "empty nest" housewives were all over and keeping an eye on things.  But I also suspect it's partly also just a bigger awareness of what could happen that makes parents from 1980-ish onward a lot more careful/fearful.   Sarah Pryor would have been 35 this year--that thought alone is enough to make me want to tail A everywhere she goes from now right through to adulthood, possibly beyond.

Many of my favorite childhood books featured bike-riding heroines who got into adventures that made for good plots precisely because they were unwatched and free into the world on their bikes.

fenders? check! chainguard? check! basket? you bet!

Just wouldn't be such a good story if Trixie Belden suspected someone was the thief but her Mommy wouldn't let her near the crime scene, would it?


And it's not just our side of the Atlantic, either.  When I was in England in 1990, the kids I was in school with all regularly joked about the Famous Five book series, which, as I understand it, involved 4 kids and a dog getting into and out of scrapes often while dashing across the countryside on their bikes--refreshed afterward, of course, by "lashings of ginger beer."

I should probably try to Inter-library Loan those--I bet A would get a kick out of them.

The bike = freedom + adventure is obviously not just an American thing.  Wonder if Jamie Oliver would be working with such purpose on school lunches and school dinners if we still lived that way?

Nancy Drew was older, more sophisticated, and had her roadster, of course, but most other mystery series of this kind had some kind of bike adventure going on.

The Boxcar Children did (after they stopped being orphans alone in the world, of course)

The Bobbsey Twins did, too.

Encyclopedia Brown?  Yep.

Trixie has been republished and A loves the stories, but I suspect they feel a lot less possible, less reality based (given the right criminals lurking around, at least) to her than they did me at her age.

Books set in "olden times" still feature bikes, Molly (1940's) and Julie (1970's--cringe) from American Girl ride bikes and Samantha (1900's) learn to ride a bike as a metaphor for gaining some independence in a parallel for the changing rights of women in her time.

Right now, it seems like most popular new children's books (for kids 9-13, not talking picture books) are science fiction/fantasy.  Harry Potter's popularity obviously had a lot to do with that, but I wonder how much Harry Potter and the others gained popularity because for today's kids a real adventure requires a made-up setting?

Lucy has a Dynohub

The more I become obsessed over learn about older bikes, the more I notice about bikes "in the wild"

A and I were watching the DVD of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader the other evening and came across some nice WWII is British bikes in the beginning of the film.  We saw the movie in the theater when it first came out, but that was pre-Columbia Sports III and it didn't leave much of an impression at the time.  But now?

Take a look at some of the awesomeness recreated for the film (click for larger images):

All screencaps from www.homeofthenutty.com

Look at how cool those are!

And I could be wrong, but I think the chainwheel on the guy's bike on the left is the gorgeous Raleigh (heron) design:

from Bikeworks NYC chainwheel gallery

And Lucy herself has a cool old bike (or, I guess, not old but appropriate, given the WWII the setting):

And did you catch the hub on the front wheel in that first photo?

It's a Dynohub--"an exclusive Raleigh feature you can't afford to miss!"--as seen in this 1939 Raleigh Catalog (on Sheldon Brown's site):

It's a 12-volt generator that powers the headlight by using magnets in the hub to create AC current (and see, all those physics courses weren't entirely wasted, 20 years later I can understand a bike hub--obviously worth it all the time).

A loves the 1930's-40's era, she loves the costumes in this movie (the screencaps give her the chance to get a good look at them) and now the bikes, too.  And I'm loving that sweet Dynohub!

Smack it with a hammer

Astute readers will have noticed that when we were working on the handlebars yesterday they were still attached to the rest of the frame.

I had halfheartedly tried to remove them before I started by unscrewing the bolt that holds them on, but when they didn't pull out, I deemed it not-worth-any-effort and just cleaned them up still attached to the bike.

I did leave the bolt loose so I could get around it for better cleaning, but that was the extent of it.

(loose bolt)

But, with still more cleaning up to do on the handles and especially the stem, and at some point probably wanting to adjust the height to get a good fit for A, I figured it might be worth a little Googling to figure out what the trick was (beyond just giving it up, which isn't really much of a trick to begin with).

And I found this video (How to remove the stem and fork, from HowToFixBikes.ca--sounds about right doesn't it?) and it turns out the trick is...smack it with a hammer.

Turns out that's what's required to disengage the wedge that holds the handlebars in--once it's out you can see it but completely hidden until then, like some sort of secret handshake for the "I know what I'm doing" bike set.  So here's the wedge:

And here are the handlebars (looking like the Godfather's minions have struck):

And, now that that mystery's been solved, it's time to get more work done.

Handlebars

Scorcher today, but we were lucky enough to have a cool night last night and a passing thundershower this morning, so A and I took advantage and did a bit of work on the bike until it got too hot.

A finished up the rear wheel while I tackled the handlebars. 

Started by removing the break handles and shifter and loosening the handlebars from the stem by removing the bolt there (I could have gotten it all off, I suppose, if I removed the handle grips, but they were stuck well, which is how we want them, and really I just needed to be able to twist the handlebars and slide enough to get around them all the way).

They were looking kind of old and rusty, which am mounts to a whole lot of "no kidding" since the whole bike is old, and also kind of rusty:

See the small spot to the left of the stem--that's the shine of progress you see there!

But with our usual blend of aluminum foil and white vinegar, with a whole lot of rubbing, we ended up with finger ruining black sludge but also some better looking handlebars.

Right handlebar pretty much done:

 

Followed by left handlebar, also pretty much done:

There's still a little bit of rust on the left handlebar, but the sun is beating down now and, remembering that this is supposed to be a fun mom-and-daughter project not a chain gang, we called it done for today.

The whole thing is a bit cloudy, not cleaning up quite as shiny as the wheels did.  I may try the tinfoil a bit more or pick up some polishing compound and see if that helps, but either way at least it doesn't scream out "BEATER" the way the it used to--so it's unmelting next to the AC for now and shiny brite happiness just around the corner.  

It's a good look

Not much more to show for yesterday's work.  Spent some more time in the high heat scrubbing up the back wheel rim with foil and vinegar.  There is a very small amount of pitting, but you really have to get in good to see it--mostly it's really cleaning up nicely.

Unlike myself.

Finished for the day and put everything away in time to go to a team thing with A.  Unfortunately, I couldn't seem to get the tarnish residue out of my fingernails for love or money (not to mention for soap, scrub brushes, more soap, and that little pick thing that swings out from nail clippers).

The charming shot above is taken hours later.

But, hey, I don't mind and my husband couldn't care less, plus A thinks it's just fine with her (she's too busy gazing at that bike, anyway!).

Clean bike, grungy nails--I guess I should get used to this look.

Master Piece

Spent some time yesterday morning dealing with a "master".

 

Ok, not that (but double super bonus points if that last one even makes an ounce of sense to you).

Just trying to find a master link on the bike chain that will let me open up the chain and take it off the bike frame.

Google tells me (and, as everyone knows, if it's on the internet, it must be true) that vintage 3-speeds do have a master link that easily removes to separate the chain at that link and get that chain out of the bike frame (not the case with derailer bikes).

Looking the chain over a couple of days ago--well, ok, not just looking, more like wanting to get the stupid thing off the bike but not sure how since there are no visible clips and I don't have (and don't want to spend the money to buy) a chain tool to remove just any random link, I didn't find anything that looked very likely.

But, I did find this link (the internet kind) which talks about a different kind of master link that looks (to the untrained eye, at least--ask me how I know) pretty much like every other link but a bit more oval than hourglass-ish.

With that in mind, I took another look and found this:

Ta-da! a master link of the super-secret kind (and, yes, it does look pretty super obvious in this picture, but believe me it was harder before, honest!  Knowing what you're looking for does help a lot).

After that, it was pretty easy to gently push the link off with a screwdriver and take the open chain right off the bike:

The chain is pretty grungy:

And not necessarily worth saving--it's not some special size or shape or anything, just a standard BMX style 1/2" x 1/8" chain--but it does have the advantage of being already paid for and in my possession. So I soaked it in a bowl of degreaser (I've been using a supposedly safer biodegradable one) for the afternoon:

which actually looked kind of pretty for about 3 minutes until it started showing little flows of greasiness from the chain on out.

After it soaked, I went over it with the toothbrush and rubbed off everything with a couple of clean rags.

The chain looked much better:

but there are 6 links that are firmly stuck and just won't budge.  Not worth a whole lot more effort, but probably barely still worth a spritz or 2 of WD40 and time to soak in overnight to see if that did anything for it.

 

But while it did loosen up some of the links that were frozen, it didn't do them all so it will have to be a new chain before this thing is ready to ride. 

The future of America

The Columbia is in pieces and various stages of clean-up so last Sunday A and I took the-highschool-bike (Kent-brand road bike of slight disrepair) and the-after-college-bike (better fitting Trek mountain bike of the 90's) to a local school parking lot to take them for a spin.

Seeing how neither of them had been ridden in at least A's lifetime and the preceding 9 months, in the case of the Trek, and much longer, in the case of the Kent, I felt it was probably a good idea to try them out away from traffic before doing much else.

Surprisingly, the Kent (which was never that great to begin with) did just fine, but the Trek was having some gear shifting (or would that be gear not shifting?) problems.

But here's the good part:  while I was taking a look at the Trek to see if I could figure out anything intuitive to do with it, one of the 14ish-year-old skateboarders who were cruising around the school near dusk (town officials love that!) stops and asks us what the problem is and if we'd like him to take a look at it...

...he tells us he has his tools and whips out an Allan wrench set from his backpack.

(probably not this one but it might as well have been)

...tells his skateboard friend he'll just be a second and tries the shifting, tightens up a few things, tells me to give it a try and does a few more fixer kind of things.

A and I ride off into the sunset, as does 14ish-year-old skateboard kid and his similar age skateboard friend (or more towards the sunset since it was dusk).

Personally, (and consider this said in my best suburban mom tone) I though it was very cool of him.

No actual crystal ball in my possession, but I like the idea that kids like that are our future.  I guess everyone reads enough about screwed-up teens and "what's the world coming to?" stuff, but the kids I know are better than that and apparently so are at least some kids I don't even know.

Plus, some of them carry tools with them when they skateboard at local schools--who knew?

New Parts (or thanks, Mom and Dad!)

We have a running joke in our home that every time my parents give A a present it ends up costing us money--it isn't Grammy and Grampy's fault at all, if anything they're just too good at picking things A likes.

When she was little, they gave her a 6-week dance class--turns out she loved it and we ended up sending her to dance class for several more years.  Later she had swim lessons--yep, loved it, and so on, and so on.

So, when we were checking out the bike and the tires were flat enough to be falling off the wheels, Grammy and Grampy offered to get those wheels fixed (a little preemptive action on their part).

But, once I'd pushed them back on the rims and filled them with air, they looked to me like they might do ok for a while. 

But then I read Lovely Bicycle! Blog's review of her 3-speed Raleigh Sports and (in addition to feeling considerable envy) I also read this:

As a rule, you should always get new tires after purchasing a vintage bike with original tires....The reason for this, is that vintage tires have a tendency to explode after their second decade of life, even if they appear "fine". You don't want this to happen while you are cycling in traffic.

And, as much as I don't want this to happen when I'm cycling in traffic, I absolutely and totally don't what it to happen to A when she's cycling in traffic.

Ok, new tires it is.

Thanks, Mom and Dad! (and I bought some new tubes, too, since the rear one is leaky and it only made sense to me to take care of the other 38 year old tube while I already had the wheel and tire off).

And, since the break pad felt like stale bread and, even with pressure, slid across Formica like it was made of Teflon, Mom and Dad were kind enough to spring for 2 sets of those, too (one might almost get to think they like that girl):

Now to get the rest of the bike to a place where it's time to put all of this stuff on and go for a ride...but now, back to scrubbing chrome with wads of vinegar dipped foil.

Removing the Rear Wheel and: It's a Date!

Yesterday, armed with better Googling and after taking a nice good look at the bike itself, I took off the rear wheel with it's Strumey Archer 3-speed hub.

With actual information on my side, it was really fairly easy.

Looking at the wheel, it's fairly obvious that the geared hub is a real and true hub (with spokes attached), not something that attached to the hub--my choices were to either remove the spokes and later rebuild the wheel (not what I had in mind) or find out how the cable detaches from the hub, preferably without having to reassemble or recalibrate the hub mechanism.

And since this is a bike we're talking about here, and especially since removing the rear wheel is something that has to be done to, say, fix a flat tire and other basics like that, there must be a fairly sensible way, right?

The key for me was finding this sentence on this site, "If you have a Sturmey-Archer, put the shifter in high (3) gear position. Unscrew the cable from the tiny chain. Ignoring the little chain, you now loosen the axle nuts and remove the wheel."  Ok, I have the cable attached to a small chain, complete with what looks like grips to unscrew:

Took me a bit to figure out that the larger and smaller gripped pieces weren't one piece that unscrewed from the threaded part, but actually the larger one is a counter nut that holds the thinner piece where it's calibrated and it's the thinner piece that unscrews:

So, after that was taken care of, it was easy enough to remove the wheel with a wrench and get to work cleaning it.

The hub was not really tarnished, just completely covered with oil and/or grease and grit: 

Used some soapy water and a toothbrush for most of it (hub, nearby spokes, and external gear), which worked nicely, and followed up with a rag and again the toothbrush moistened with some degreaser (I was wary about the degreaser finding its way into the hub and messing everything up)--came out nice and shiny, really pretty!  Behold:

And, finally, I have a more solid date for this bike.  The hub is stamped 73 for 1973--and there we have it, a 1973 Columbia Sports III.

(yes, this 1973:

From Mr. Columbia's site

pretty cute in an early 1970's kind of way)

And while I was working on the hub, A was finishing up the front wheel:

which is now completely shiny and beautiful--still lots to do on the bike, but all and all a good day.

Step 1

Yesterday we began the process of fixing up the bike.

We figured starting with something we knew how to do would be an excellent beginning--I know how to remove bike wheels, I have a ratchet set (thank you, father-in-law!) and know how to use it, and I've googled enough to know that tinfoil, possibly dipped in a touch of vinegar, is a good tool to polish chrome (e.g. here).  Plus, we do have some experience scrubbing things in general, living in the world without Rosie the Robot as we do.

So, off came the front wheel and away we went.

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As you can see, it started off looking pretty grungy--remarkably true (in the tire shape-wonkiness way of meaning) but still exceedingly grungy:

A little close-up of the grunge (try to ignore the knobby knees):

Started by putting the kid to work with a toothbrush and some sudsy water (we rinsed well after--I'd read somewhere that dish detergent can leave corrosive salts if you don't--not sure if that's really true since my sink and dishes look pretty fine, but why take the chance?).

When A was little she used to pretend to be Cinderella a lot; the picture kind of makes it look like I'm putting her at it for real, poor dear, but at least she gets a bike out of it:

And, Cinderella does good work (which involved more back end of toothbrush scraping at crud than actual success with the bristles):

But really, the aluminum foil was by far the best tool for this--could be torn into small pieces to get in tight places and really did fast work on the gunk, leaving a lovely shine.  Occasionally we dipped it in vinegar to see if it worked better, but honestly I'm not convinced the vinegar really improved anything beyond plain water or soapy water and the foil (ETA--nope, not really--A was working on it again today and noticed it was much, much easier to get it looking nice with the vinegar--guess I had enough vinegar already on things that I was good to go by the time I tried it without):

And, ta-da--finished product with some grunge for comparison:

Oooooh--shiny!  And I have to say, I think it looks very nice.

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Next step will (most likely) be the rear wheel clean up, which, especially with the hub, can look pretty spectacular all shined up (e.g. here).

But despite Sheldon Brown's fine (and apparently famous in an internet old-bike community kind of way) texts on internal 3-speed hubs (e.g. here), to be honest, I do better seeing things done and I'm still a bit leery about taking off the wheel without having to detach the hub from the cable (i.e. instead separating the wheel from the hub), or however I'll need to get it done.  (ETA: those of you who know anything about them can stop laughing or crying, whichever--after I got another look at it I saw how impossible that really was (or at least how much more work that would have made for me)--no worries, I did discover the right way to do it before I took action!) Can't put it off forever, or can but shouldn't, so I will be biting that particular bullet soon.

Will it be simple and successful or a spectacular fail?  Stay tuned!