Here are a few shots of a recent project - a 1951 New Hudson Silver Arrow. This bike came in last year having been gone over and ridden by another collector recently. Much of the dirty work had already been done. This was from the era where New Hudson was a BSA brand. This bike came as a drop bar single speed with a flip-flop freewheel and fixed gear hub. I built up a second set of wheels for it: a three speed wheel set using Dunlop club style rims (26 x 1-1/4 597mm). I swapped the drop bars to north road bars and replaced the road saddle with a Brooks 66. The brake levers are from a 1950s er ..read more

  I've had pretty good luck so far this spring locating the kinds of parts one usually needs to rebuild a derelict, old three speed. Some parts, such as 1930s-50s Schwinn parts, or pre-war Raleigh parts, are harder to find. So I was happy to locate some good parts at reasonable prices this spring.      These include a pre-war Raleigh fender reflector, a set of very nice "Schwinn Built" brake calipers from a late 1940s Schwinn three speed, Scwhinn frame cable clamps from the same 1940s era bike, and a bundle of very nice Sturmey Archer quadrant shifters from the 1930s-40 ..read more

  When I first rebuilt and tested this 1959 Schwinn (it arrived here as a bike core and I built it up), I used a set of Schwinn New World tourist style bars from the late 1940s or early 1950s. I recently acquire a couple nice sets of Schwinn "north road style" bars, which are more appropriate for a 1950s or early 60s era Traveler. One of these sets came off a scrapped 1962 Traveler, a closer match for this 1959 bike. Handlebars for Schwinn three speeds are trickier to get right than those for a Raleigh. The reason is that Raleigh handlebar stems generally have more range of adjustment t ..read more

 Couple nice shots of the solar eclipse from earlier this afternoon that I took ..read more

I periodically do status checks on the values of three speed bikes in the market. For many years, the more common models have tended to be somewhat undervalued when you consider the quality, durability, and practicality of these bikes.  There was a Copake bicycle auction just a few days ago featuring a number of three speed bikes, so let's take a look at the values rolling in... (these prices do not include buyer's premium, which should not be all that large considering these bikes are pretty affordable) Lot 86 is an early Raleigh Sports model for the US market. This is a pre-WWII bike (I ..read more

I finally did a proper shakedown ride on the 1957 Schwinn Traveler bike. This is an unusual tall frame bike from an era when Schwinn was not building many full-sized bikes of this sort. Adult cyclists in the United States were a rare thing in the late 1950s, as the late Sheldon Brown once noted.    I was generally happy with the way the bike rode. The stem and swept-back Schwinn handlebars are comfortable and all the mechanical aspects ran smoothly. The bike fits an adult rider nicely, being a 23-24 inch frame. The understated graphics for that time have a surprisingly modern look ..read more

In the early 1950s, the three speed and similar Schwinn lightweight/utility bikes had reached a cross roads. Schwinn's push in the late 1930s and into the 1940s to market British-style, Made-in-USA touring and utility bikes with to adults in the US had hit the market wall that was the late 1940s and early 1950s automotive boom. It was in this environment in the early 1950s that Schwinn revised its era three speed and utility bike offerings as well as the way it marketed those bikes. The  New World and unusual post-war Superior (not to be confused with the upscale "Superior" made before WW ..read more

If you have more than a couple old bicycles, perhaps you could benefit from a service history chart. A detailed chart can keep track of when each major system was serviced on the bike. Here is an example of the chart I use, which is meant specifically for old-style bikes with internal gear hubs. I use Microsoft Excel or Apache Open Office to build my charts. They both are equally effective for this task. Open Office has the advantage of being relatively simple, and free to download. Different types of bikes have different charts. But the gist is the same: mark down the date each of the major ..read more

 Here is a a recent re-build: a classic 1947 Schwinn Continental three speed.    This project started as a incomplete bike that was still in nice condition. I worked off-and-on for about two months on the tear down and rebuild. I tend to work slowly in the winter, only spending a couple hours per week. Before:    After:   This style of Continental is not to be confused with the later, 10-speed Continentals of the 1960s and 70s. These early 1940s-50s Continentals were hand-built (fillet brazed) from cro-moly steel. The bike is lighter than a typical, welded s ..read more

Quite awhile back I discussed my recommendations for oiling vintage Sturmey Archer hubs. These are the old style hubs with oil caps, which allow the user to periodically put oil in the hub.    Modern Sturmey Archer hubs, some of which are mechanically similar to old hubs, use a semi-fluid (called NLGI #00 grade) grease rather than light oil for lubrication.     In fact, semi-fluid NLGI #00 grease can be used in vintage Sturmey Archer hubs as well. The trade-off is that in order to properly grease the hub, you need to open up the hub, break it down, clean it, and the ..read more