How Did I Get Here?

So, here I am with a 1952 Raleigh Superbe Sport Tourist, almost completely disassembled.  You should see my office!  My desk, which was originally a table made for the writer Charles Bell, with whom I worked, is completely covered in old bearings, bits of headset, the crank, fixed cup and adjustable cup, jars of mineral spirits and Evaporust, and various wrenches, ratchets, and other tools.

The great mystery is why am I standing here, with a 67 year old bicycle frame, fully intending to put it into use as a commuter and recreational bicycle, once I get it back into something resembling a bicycle.  Why am I not out on Old Las Vegas Highway, this very minute, hammering along on a carbon fiber frame in brightly patterned Lycra?  (Those clothes you see me wearing - those are my cycling clothes.  I do own a jersey and some bike shorts, and I will wear them on a century, though there is just as even a chance that I'll be wearing khakis, as long as I did not have an unfortunate episode of a brass zipper rubbing in precisely the wrong place for an unbearable length of time in the previous few months).

The answers to that question can never be fully known, even to me.  We could call it karma and get on with our lives, but I like the question, and I enjoy trying to answer parts of it.

I think that the short answer to why I'm not doing something brazenly athletic is that I grew up with terrible asthma.  I was the kid who often had a note to sit out from P.E.  When I did play sports, I walked back and forth in the middle of whatever field or court the sport was being played on, vaguely following the pattern of the far faster movements of the other players.  My sense of romanticism, therefore, was shaped by books rather than an aspiration to excellence in traditional athletic forms.  As a teenager, I enjoyed, as many teens who discover them do, the beat writers, and I liked Kerouac's description of Japhy and his English bicycle in The Dharma Bums.  I did not, however, at any point think to myself, "I need to get an English bicycle."  As a teenager, in the mid-eighties, I thought to myself "I need to learn as much as I can about Buddhism and drink more of that cheap red wine."  Rereading that book last year, with the wisdom of reaching the age of 52 relatively unscathed, I find the red wine part deeply sad, in light of Kerouac's alcoholism and early death.  I do, however, still enjoy a glass of red wine at the end of the day, usually out of a box, the influence of the afore-mentioned Charles Bell, who thought the Almaden boxed wine made a fine every day wine, and he used the boxes to store his manuscripts.  (We worked on his autobiography, Millenial Harvest, published by Lumen Books, among other things).

My lifetime bicycle arch, told in a rather fast, staccato fashion, goes like this - I had, like most small boys in the early seventies, a Schwinn Sting Ray.  I spent most of my time riding it, in spite of my asthma.  In fact, I do not remember bicycling setting off my asthma, as much as say, running after a football did.  I don't think I knew much about taking care of it, and I think it eventually simply dissolved after thousands and thousands of miles of riding, including some 25 mile trips to the zoo,when I was supposed to be in well defined radius near my house.  I started riding motorcycles in my teens, but in college, I bought an old Triumph 10 speed bicycle from a local bike shop.  I couldn't afford a Triumph motorcycle, but I wanted to get back to bicycling any way, so a Triumph bicycle seemed just the ticket.  It was damaged beyond repair while it was left on the college bike rack while I took a year off from school.  I bought an old Cannondale mountain bike because it matched the one on the cover of a book on bicycle touring we sold at the backpacking store I worked for in college after my return.  The components on that bicycle wore out, and all the local bike shops said there was no way to get replacements for those components.  This was early internet time, so I didn't think to look online for components.  Even then, though, I think the workers at the bike shop were lying, and it began a period of mistrust of my local bike shops that continues to this day.  Sad, in a way, because I really believe in supporting your local businesses.

My wife had bought a new bike near that time, and I thought, maybe it is time for me to buy something wholly new.  (I just remembered somewhere in there I had a new Schwinn hybrid bike, but I didn't like it because I thought it flexed too much.  I believe the Cannondale was a replacement for it.)  At that point in time, right around the year 2000, my notion of what made a good bicycle came directly from Eugene Sloan's The Complete Book of Bicycling.  The pinnacle of those bicycles was his Alex Singer.  So, armed with a vision of a touring bike with integrated lights, fenders, and racks, I went to my local bike shop.  There, I found racing bikes and mountain bikes.  There were also a few hybrids.  Hearing what I wanted, they told me the closest thing available was a hybrid, so I rolled out with a hybrid Cannondale (brand loyalty), but after a day of riding it, I knew it was not what I wanted in the least.  The LBS would not let me return it, for any percentage of a refund, nor would they let me consign it with them.  I was stuck riding (and disliking) it.  At that point, I turned to the internet.  Searching under "what makes a good commuter bike",I discovered a web page by someone whose last name, I believe, was Vaughan.  I can't find it anymore.  He reinforced my notion that a touring bike made the best commuting bike.  Plus, he had a link to Rivendell Bicycle Works.  Rivendell was making bikes that approximated what Eugene Sloane had put into my mind as something I wanted.  I had never owned a custom bike, but damnit, I deserved one because I bicycled everywhere.  So, in spite of being relatively lower middle class, I ordered a custom Rivendell.  Thanks Eugene Sloane; thanks Mr. Vaughan.

That was, of course, supposed to be my final, ultimate bicycle.  In fact, it was several bicycles ago.  I bought a Miyata 710 from the thrift store for $15 and put some moustache bars on it.  It was a phenomenal bicycle in terms of ride, but it didn't have room for fenders.  When the kids came along, we bought a used Bike Friday Tandem, and eventually a Bike Friday Triple.  (We were dedicated to being carfree at the time).  I bought a Ryan recumbent tandem at the thrift store for $85, and my wife and I rode the century with it, going well over 50 mph on the down-mountain side south of Madrid, NM.  When I started beekeeping, I built an Xtracycle out of a free 1984 Trek 830 from the Chainbreaker Collective.  I used to haul my entire Farmer's Market outfit with it and a Bikes at Work trailer.  I even moved some bee hives around with the same setup. Since I loved that 1984 Trek Xtracycle so much, when I found a 1984 Trek 520 on Craigslist, I bought that, though it too, has the drawback of not having room for fenders.  It also has the dreaded Helicomatic hub, which is prone to failure, so it lives hanging from the ceiling of the office, not being ridden, and I occasionally think about selling it, but it is in almost like-new condition.  It's a nice piece of touring history.

The origins of the Happy Little Three Speed, I have told elsewhere on this blog.  Suffice it to say, I enjoy it best of all in some ways.  I do not worry about leaving it at bike racks as much as I do the Rivendell.  If you do not have enough money to replace a custom bike, if it is stolen, and your main intention is to use it for everyday riding, you should probably not buy a custom bike in the first place.  (I have to say, even though it feels petty, that aesthetically, I don't like the slight upslope to the Rivendell top tube.  I like my top tubes parallel to the ground, and that is probably also something that got embedded in my psyche from Sloane's book.)

I started thinking about buying an older hub to play around with because I like that they have an oil port on them.  It looks like something designed to be taken care of for years.  Sheldon talks about how the quality peaked in the 1950s.  "Boy," I thought, "wouldn't it be neat to get ahold of a 1950s hub."  I also wanted a chaincase, mainly because the Buildings and Grounds crew, at the college where I work, regularly comes by with the leaf blowers, and blows sand all over my, (and everyone else's), bike chains, usually right after I lube it.  I've looked at the Hebie Chain Glider for the Happy Little Three Speed, but I've remained unsure about it.

I'm a sucker, too, for claims about quality and durability, and the 1950s Raleighs seem to rank high on both.  I did, however, hesitate when I saw the Raleigh I bought on Craigslist.  I have a three speed.  It makes me happy.  There is no chain case on the Raleigh on Craigslist.

However, Shawn Grafton pointed out that was a generator on the hub back there, not brakes as I had assumed.  I also realized, when I went to look at it, that it was, indeed, a Raleigh Superbe of some sort, because it had the locking fork.

With those two things in mind, and with the visions I brought back from Italy of city bicycles being happily ridden around convivial streets, I decided $120 was a good deal.

That was, of course, the price before I started working on it.

At any rate, that's how I ended up standing there in the photograph, holding a frame whose parts are all being cleaned, replaced, relaced, and regreased.  I even have a chaincase on the way from British eBay.

The frame builder, Charlie O'Leary, is going to help me get the gaps on the rear dropouts back down to 8mm.  I may also have him powdercoat the chaincase.  We'll see.  I think the rest of the touchup I'll do by hand with some Testers model paint or some nail polish.

I do intend to press it back into regular service rather than hang it on the ceiling next to the Trek 520.  Am I going to worry more about leaving out at bike racks all day while I'm at work?  Maybe.  And I don't think I'll ride it through the winter grit and slush the way I do the Happy Little Three Speed, though with the chain case, I think it may be more suited to such use.  It was designed to last a lifetime, but hasn't it already?  When and how do bicycles wear out?  Still, it seems solid, and it seems good, and while it won't be restored to its original state, it will be rebuilt and road worthy when I get done.