Leather Saddle Bag for the Scorcher

Today I received the leather saddle bag I ordered from The Leather Bug.  This bag is handmade by Hein Olivier in Australia,  I have no financial interest in endorsing this product.  The workmanship is first class and all the fittings are quality stainless steel.  He has other bicycle products listed on his web site from handlebar bags to panniers.  Shipping took 10 business days to reach VA.

I've been searching for a unique Black leather bag that would suit the character of the Scorcher project bike.  I wanted something small to carry phone, keys, wallet, etc.  This bag is just large enough for carrying these items with some room left over for patch kit, tools etc.

Here it is loaded with phone, wallet, and keys.

The Leather Bug

Coffeeneuring - Ride 7 of 7 - The End

The last ride if the 2013 Coffeeneuring Challenge was completed today.  I used the recently completed bike from the Scorcher Project (see earlier posts) for this ride.  Rode to old town Leesburg, VA. on the W&OD trail to visit "Shoes, Cup and Cork", a converted shoe shop that served customers for 100 years.  Total trip length 10.1 miles.

This was my favorite coffee shop visited during the Challenge.  I ordered an Americano and a white chocolate/raspberry scone.

Unclaimed shoes hanging from the ceiling.

Weekend entertainment.

Outside garden.

The Scorcher Project bike.

Some final thoughts on the Coffeeneuring Challenge.  I would like to thank Mary at Chasing Mailboxes D.C. for this event.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the write-ups and pictures from the many participants. This has been a great incentive to get out and enjoy the splendid Fall weather and exercise some Classic Three Speeds. Thank you so very much.

Coffeeneuring - Ride 5 of 7

Completed ride 5 of the Coffeeneuring Challenge this morning.  I had all intentions of using the recently completed bike from the Scorcher Project, but...

Scorcher Project

because of the morning rain and wet pavement, I opted to use a bike with fenders.  I chose the 1953 Raleigh Sports Tourist, it has fenders and the added bonus of an enclosed chaincase.  This is the same bike I used for the first Challenge ride.  I chose the Vino 9 Market for today's ride.  Located on Route 9 about a 1/4 mile from the W&OD at Paeonian Springs, VA. it has been recently refurbished and now includes a nice patio, and speakeasy type bar (The Blind Pig) under the store.  On Saturday's they have entertainment on the stage in the patio.  The ride there was wet, cool and somber, I was looking forward to a hot cup of coffee on arrival.

  

Front entrance, patio is in the back.

Patio entrance.

1953 Raleigh Sports, the fenders were a good choice today.  Drip coffee tasted extra good.

More patio

Entertainment stage.

Bottle cap table.

Today's ride was 4.4 miles.  On the way home I was thinking about the nice pot of Chipotle Chili I was going to make to brighten the day, but now as I'm writing this the Sun has come out.  Although; the simmering Chili does smell good.

Scorcher Project - The End is Near...

 

 

Scorcher - A fast, reckless cyclist who scares horses and old folks.  This term was current in the late 19th century.

---Sheldon Brown

 

The Scorcher Project for the most part is now completed.  I spent yesterday installing the chain, seat, shifter cable, handle bar grips, and headbadge  I took it for a quick shake-down ride to try the 5-speed hub, and top tube shifter.  It also gave me an opportunity to set the initial seat and handlebar height,  and just get a feel how it rides with the unusual handlebar setup.

I was impressed with how nice it shifted and the very useable gear range of the 5-speed hub.  The jury is still out on the handlebar.  I had trouble keeping the bar from rotating in the clamp.  I kept tightening up on the bolt but stopped for fear of stripping it.  I will need to shim it with something.  I've used aluminum duct tape before on another bike and it did the trick.  The overall riding position felt comfortable, but your hand position is lower then on a typical Sports, giving a more racy feel.  The coaster brake took some getting use to, I haven't had these on a bike since I was a kid; however, it did stop nicely.  I do like the bike's clean look without having all the brake hardware and cables attached.

These are the shifter parts that came with the hub.  The long thing in the middle is a fulcrum lever, with its plastic cover above.  The bottom part is a pulley that the toggle chain runs on.  I really didn't want to put these modern plastic parts on a Raleigh "All Steel" bike, so I used an old school axle nut with window instead.  Seems to be working OK.

That's better

One thing I noticed about using this hub on a 3-speed Sports frame was that the coaster brake lever did not align properly with the left chain stay.  When I installed the brake arm clamp on the chain stay it pulled the brake arm lever inward causing the hub to tighten up.  I used an old AW hub axle spacer and some washers to position the arm outward and this fixed the problem.  I need to make a proper sized spacer in the future.  

Brake arm and clamp.

Spacers to move arm outward.

I had removed the headbadge when the frame was powder coated.  I was able to source some #0, 1/8" drive screws to re-install the badge.  The headbadge shown is from the 1953 Sports, not the one I installed which is the original 1970 badge.

#0, 1/8" drive screws.

Original 1970 headbadge re-installed.

Brooks B-17

I had this two legged stand in the extra parts bin, so I installed it just to have a stand.  Not sure if it will stay, I do have the original, but its in sorry condition.

This is the "Scorcher" before going on its first shake down ride.

Please share your comments.

Scorcher Project - Wheels

I laced the wheels for the Scorcher project yesterday.  When the frame was powder coated I also had the rims finished.  These are alloy Sun CR-18, 26 x 1-3/8" rims.  I also ordered black spokes for the wheels.

The spokes are 2 mm straight gauge DT Swiss.  The rear length is 257 mm and the fronts are 284 mm.  I was originally going to use 3 cross (3X) lacing for both the front and rear; however, the spoke length calculator suggested a 2X pattern for the rear because of the extreme spoke angle caused by the large flange hub.

Rear wheel laced.

Add some rim tape, then mount the tire.

Before I mounted the tires I wanted to remove the reflective tape on the sidewall of the tires.  I won't be riding this bike a night, and I thought the tire would look better on this type of build without the tape.  It was fairly easy to peel it off.

Rear wheel completed, next is the front. 

I'll be using the original Raleigh front hub from the 1970 Sports.  Instead of cutting the hub out of the original rim I wanted to save the spokes, so I disassembled the wheel.  This takes longer, but is necessary if the spokes are to be saved.

I cleaned and buff the hub, replaced the bearings and repacked the the races with new grease.  The hub can now be laced to the black rims.

Mount the tire and install on the bike.  I'm using some vintage wing nuts for the front.

Here's  the bike with both wheels mounted.  Finally starting to look like a bike again; excuse me, I mean faux Scorcher!

Scorcher Project - Preparing the Strumey-Archer X-RC5(W) Hub

I will be using a modern (Sun Race) Sturmey-Archer hub, X-RC5(W) for this project.

This is a 5-speed, coaster brake, wide ratio hub.  I'm using a coaster brake model to eliminate all of the brakes and cables, giving the Scorcher a clean, minimalistic, appearance.  In this hub third gear is direct drive (1.0 ratio), with two lower gears, .75 and .625 reductions respectively, and two higher gears of 1.33 and 1.6.  The three middle gear ratios are very close to those of a classic Sturmey-Archer 3-speed AW hub.  The hub came from the factory with a 3/32", 18 tooth cog.  Since I will be using it with the original 1970 Sports 48 tooth chain wheel which is made for a 1/8" wide chain, I replaced the cog with a 1/8", 22 tooth, which will provide a lower overall gear range, with the middle three gear ratios similar to what I'm use to when riding a 22 tooth AW hub.  

1/8" 22 tooth cog

This hub has a over-the-locknut distance (O.L.D.), of 127 mm.  This is much wider then the original 110 mm AW that came with the Sports frame.  The use of the wider hub required spreading the rear drop outs to accommodate the increased width of the 127 mm hub.  This was accomplished before sending the frame to be powder coated.  The frame was also modified to accept a Sturmey-Archer indexed shift lever by having friend John braze a shifter boss to the top tube, again this was performed before powder coating.

I knew the wider hub would require adjustments to the chain line on the Sports frame.  Using the method described in my July 2013 post "Adjusting Chain line on the Sturmey-Archer AW hub".  I calculated the front chain line to be 41.3 mm.  Using the hub as configured from the factory I measured the hub and calculated the rear chain line to be 48.5 mm., resulting in a chain line difference of 7 mm.

Since there is really no way to adjust the front chain line with the Raleigh bottom bracket and crank/chain wheel, I would need to move the rear hub chain line to the left.  Unfortunately; this new hub does not have as many adjustment opportunities as a classic AW.  There are no cog spacers or additional spacers on the hub axle that could be re-configured.  It does use a dished cog that can be flipped, but it was already positioned to the inside.  There was a large 5.5 mm thick cone lock-nut on the left brake side of the hub, I replaced it with a standard lock-nut from a AW hub which is only 3 mm thick.  I also added a 3 mm washer to the right side under the cone lock-nut.  Together these adjustments moved the rear chain line to the left by approximately 3.5 mm, but did not significantly change the O.L.D. of the hub so it would still fit within the expanded dropout spacing.  Not perfect but better then the original 7 mm difference.

Original 5.5 mm thick left side lock-nut (top) replaced by thinner AW lock-nut below. 

   

3 mm washer added on right side below lock-nut.

Next step in the Scorcher project will be wheel lacing.

I've been experiencing some problems with this Blog and interaction with Google+ when commenting and replying.  If someone could please send me a test comment I would appreciate it!  You should be able to comment without having a Google+ profile.