The Backup Happy Little Three Speed Bicycle

 Some of you may know, mainly Shawn, but there may be some others out there, that I am trying to focus in on a few possessions this year.  I am calling it the Singular Year Writing Project.  What it has taught me so far is that I have singular interests, and it is difficult sticking to a single material item within those interests.  I believe, for example, that I have gone on to use almost every single film camera I own this year, and it is only July.

I tried to make my selections at the beginning of the year on practical grounds, and with practical considerations in mind, I started off the year using my custom Rivendell, (circa 2000, Joe Starck built).  It's the only bike I have that has a Schmidt Dynohub, which is easily the best lighting system, and I ride up to work in the dark much of the year.  It's already pre-dawn when we leave at 6:00 a.m. these days, though the sun is soon to peak above the ridgelines of the Sangre de Cristo's.

But after a few months, I fell back on riding the Happy Little Three Speed, with its Busch and Muller Dymotec 6 sidewall dynamo.  I just love the three speeds.  Occasionally, I'll ride the Raleigh, but the HLTS is my go to bike.

In flagrant betrayal of my Singular Year Writing Project, I bought a backup Happy Little Three Speed today:

    It is a Panasonic Tourist 3.  The gentleman I purchased it from said that it belonged to his brother, and it even came with the original instructions.  The Craigslist listing looked a little like this photo, (though with a nicer background).  I thought it might be one of those barely ridden, pristine bicycles, but on close inspection, it has all the nicks you would expect from an old bicycle, and that makes me feel less like I'm treading on eggshells when I ride it.  The chrome on the cranks is a little pitted, though I'm sure it will polish back up nicely.  There are some dents and scratches on the fenders, and a few scrapes and scratches on the bike itself.  It rides, however, beautifully, and the hub behaves as 3-speed hubs should.

There is, of course, no lighting system whatsoever.  I was lucky with the Raleigh that it had the generator hub.  I'll try not to begin daydreaming about buying a Schmidt Dynohub for this bike.  There's nothing wrong, I have to tell myself, with just slapping that give-away headlight from the bike advocacy event on the handlebars.

The hub is a Shimano 3CC, with an interesting little pushrod system for changing gears.  It also has a coaster brake.  I have not had a bicycle with a coaster brake since I was a little kid with a Schwann Stingray.  I do not know, of course, how worn down the brake shoes are without taking the hub apart.  That is in the plans, but maybe not until the interior of our house cools down.  There's nothing quite as frustrating as dealing with small hub parts while pouring sweat on a summer afternoon, especially when you are an occasional mechanic.  I have a feeling that it would not be as easy to find brake shoes for a Shimano hub as it is for the Sturmey Archers.  There just is not a great deal of information out there, particularly compared to British 3-speeds.  One of the few blog entries about the Panasonic Tourist 3 I have found was written, or course, by Shawn for Urban Adventure League. Since it wasn't his bike, he did not really go into disassembly.

I did note, before buying it, that the early Shimano 3-speed hubs do not have a particularly good reputation.  You find accounts that read along the lines of "often the pawls break off and the parts go on to chew up the rest of the hub."  One has to wonder if that "often" means it happened to one or two people, (notably to Sheldon Brown - I was wrong there, I noted this morning that bit is written by John  Allen), and the story ballooned out from there.  I also saw it reported that the hubs got better as the years went on, but the damage to their reputation was already done.  I have not looked too far into the 3CC yet, but I will over the next few months.  It shifts fine now, and I wish that I were the type of person simply to leave well enough alone and get it out on the street and ride it without disassembling and relying everything.  I have a love/hate relationship with maintenance.  If I were less busy, I think it would be a lovely way to spend an afternoon.  As it is, I'm still about ten years away from full retirement age, so there's no pottering away on lazy afternoons, day after day.  But, I'll do it.  The front wheel isn't crunching, or anything like that, but it is not spinning as freely as it should.  The rear hub is shifting, but what does it look like in there?  The instruction manual that came with the bike says to add oil to the "oil cup", but there is no apparent "oil cup" that I can see.  Some research is in order.

The fact that the vinyl seat is relatively pristine, makes me think that it was not ridden heavily, or parked outside of someone's work place in all weather.  I could probably feel free to simply ride it.

There are some advantages to this bicycle that I felt made it worth buying.  It has a kickstand plate.  I am always paranoid about those chain stay sandwiches, and I watched a mechanic at our local bike shop completely pancake the chain stays on my wife's new Long Haul Trucker a few years ago, when we asked the shop to install the kickstand.  Mine are always coming loose, because I'm being so careful not to over tighten.  This guy kept cranking and cranking until I shouted "Stop!"  It was too late.  Unfortunately, this is my usual experience with my local bike shops.  And as for working on old 3-speed hubs, or finding parts, even shoved in a cardboard box somewhere in the back of the store, forget it.  I'm on my own here.

The rear dropout is also better designed for a 3-speed hub.  The Schwinn Super Le Tour has a horizontal dropout, so the Sturmey Archer hub goes on OK, but the spacing is a little wider than optimal, so I'm always squeezing the rear triangle together a little bit when I tighten those bolts on the hub.  It's nice to have a frame that's designed as a three speed.  Unfortunately, that pushrod is on the left side, which is opposite to the setup for a Sturmey Archer, so if I ever had to put an AW hub in there, I would have to improvise cable stops on the right side.

Finally, it is also just a little bit bigger than the Happy Little Three Speed, so I do have the sense that it fits me better.  One interesting fact, at least the way that I remember it, is that I think Panasonic made the Japanese made frames for Schwinn in the mid-seventies.  The Happy Little Three Speed is a 1978 Schwinn Super Le Tour that was made in Japan.  The guy who sold me this Panasonic told me a friend of his looked up the frame number and said that this Tourist 3 was made in 1978.  So the Happy Little Three Speed, and this backup Tourist 3, are practically siblings.

So that makes three three speed bicycles for me.  There seems to be a certain symmetry in that, and maybe I should stay off Craigslist.