Raleigh Sprite Detour, or: 'A Short Study in Compromise'

There comes a time in every man's life when he realizes that the dreams of his youth will not be fulfilled...

For some, this juncture passes with little conscious notice. As the great Waters once put it:

Tired of lying in the sun
Staying home to watch the rain
But you are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run;
You missed the starting gun.

In the realm of vintage bike restoration, compromise begins with a slight dread of finishing the sanding job to prepare the frame for paint. It deepens as one realizes that perhaps one purchased the wrong wheels on E-bay-- at a great price, but wrong nonetheless. Soon, effortlessly, the idea of 'settling' develops from being distasteful and demeaning to being 'the practical thing'. If one adopts a certain face-to-the-wind, stoical attitude, the acceptance of "life as it really is" becomes almost enobling. One imagines oneself growing old, having given up greater dreams in exchange for "the middle way". And perhaps one looks back, calmly and steady-eyed, at a life of solidity and function....

No, I tell you! No! Bike restoration is a romantic undertaking, one which calls forth every fibre of impracticality one posesses! There is risk; there is uncertainty; there is the possibility of failure. If not here, then when? Tell me! In what part of life may we put it on the line and shout, "I will live to the utmost of my ideals! I will put aside all duplicity and doubt: I will make this bike perfect, if it costs me my fortune and my life!"

[All that to say, I found a Raleigh--a heretical, 1979, not-made-in-England Raleigh, but still a Raleigh--that is perfectly functional for all of Meghan's current transportational needs. It was a great price on Craigs, so I grabbed it. It will serve as surrogate until I finish the True Article. Incidentally, it has an internal three-speed Sturmey-Archer hub, which both Megs and I really like. So I'll probably do some sort of internal hub for the '76 Raleigh.]

Anyway, the Raleigh Sprite will continue its journey to perfection, but Megs and I will be able to ride together in the interim. (Enjoy the cameo: a special treat for my readers. Both of you.)

Raleigh Sprite, Day 4: "Raleigh Proprietary Threading"

Verdict: Raleigh-specific threading.
Reaction: "I was born ready."


Man hours: 2ish
Project hours to-date: 7.5

Here's the gist of how it went down...


1. Raleigh is a very old bicycle company (118 years now, I think). Back when they started making bicycles, there really weren't standards for part-matching, etc. Also, Raleigh made all their own parts &mdash they didn't just make a frame and shop around for the component mix to put on the bike. The upshot*: they made stuff how they wanted, and everything worked together nicely. One of the particularities was: Raleigh bikes had 26 TPI (threads per inch) threading on their bottom brackets and their headsets. "Big whoop." I hear you say. Well, round about the 70's, things started getting more reg'ulurized. I don't know that there wasn't some sort of guvment innerference. Be that as it may, the "standard English threading", or "ISO" (which is different than Raleigh specific) became the standard threading, and it measured... wait.... 24 TPI. So, you can't screw normal, post-1975 parts into a "Raleigh-specific" bike. So, after weeks of anticipation, I finally had the opportunity (after removing the bottom bracket as described below) to measure the threads on the Sprite's bottom bracket and it is, in fact, Raleigh proprietary threading. There are workarounds to enable modern componetry on a Raleigh-specific bike, but I will outline those when the time comes.
* Odd word, this. Looking up now... OED says that it originated from an English term for the last shot taken in an archery match. Pretty early on it acquired its analogous meaning of 'the result or conclusion of something'. Which confirms my suspicion that archery is an unusually productive source of borrowings, as far as martial sports go.
2. The real triumph of the day was the removal of the bottom bracket retaining cup without the proper tools. In short: I used Sheldon's already jimmy-rigged method of screwing a bolt + washers through the spindle hole, and added to the mix some additional hackery. Sheldon's method: you stick a big bolt through, add some washer and a nut, tighten 'em down real good, and then you can use that friction grip to unscrew the cup. Well, after bloodying my hand again using Visegrips to no avail, I thought I'd give his method a try. The problem: I had no nuts or bolts. And... it had just crossed the magic threshold of 11pm when Fred Meyer closes. But wait... there in my top storage bin was that excrement of vintage bikes: a kickstand! I had removed it from the Sprite when I first started disassembling it. It was held on by a thick bolt. No nut though; the bolt just threaded directly into the kickstand housing. Which, incidentally, turned out perfectly as I had no second large wrench to use. I stacked up the washers, tightened the bolt and kickstand as much as I could, and gave it a go. Even with all that force, the large washers dispersed the pressure enough that they slipped and effectively hampered applying the torque to the bottom bracket cup. Final solution: super-gluing all the washers together, and then tightening the bolt even more. After letting it sit for a half hour, it finally caved. (Another factor: despite indications to the contrary by Sheldon and the LBS, the side I was working on was reverse threading.)
3. There is an imprint of a figure in robes in the middle of the spindle (close up photo). I think it's a code, and my spindle might be worth a very lot of money.

A sunny Friday bonus post.

There's a Beauty in Suburbia

There's a beauty in suburbia
Encapsulated in
The concrete dappled symmetry
Of rain-wet streets.

March is optimistic, raining
Clean, wet truths.
Glistening on buckled driveways:
Hope, faith, love.

(It was 1955, and they
And their dreams were young.)

Raleigh Sprite, Day 3

Man hours: 2
Hours to Date: 5.5
$0.00

Removing cottered cranks off of a 32 year old bike is no trivial matter.

I carefully read the venerable Sheldon Brown's instructions on the removal of cottered cranks. (Cottered cranks are an older style of crank that is secured to the crank spindle by means of a tapered metal dowel [cotter] that is wedged into a hole through the spindle and crank arm.) I was able to remove the cranks without much difficulty after rigging up a contraption of 2x4's and firewood to act as a support for the bottom bracket cup. Sheldon suggests using a length of pipe, but, having none at hand, I placed the firewood directly under the bottom of the cotter as I prepared to bludgeon it with my framing hammer. Since the firewood was relatively soft, it accepted the struck cotter to a depth of about a quarter inch—just enough to loosen its bonds and allow me to remove the wood and give the cotter a final smack to remove it.



Removing the cranks aided in my sanding, and I finished removing the majority of the paint from the planar surfaces. I will have to attack the smaller crevices by hand. I'm considering using aircraft stripper or somesuch, but I have a strange attachment to a.) the lining of my lungs and b.) my state of malignancy-free health. So we'll see. Regardless, I think I'm going to be ready to paint next weekend—the Saturday of which is supposed to be 80 degrees and sunny: perfect painting weather, and I have no lack of faith in Google weather.

In other news:
I have wrapped (after re-cabling/housing) the starboard handlebar on my Felt racing bike. For Michael A.'s sake, I must say that it is perfect. Without the aid of lowbrow electrician's tape, it emerges as it were by generation from the bar itself—like a carbon fiber vine sprouting at the perfect distal interval from the stem, and winding its sinuous way round the hoods and drops in loops too symmetrical to be of human origin.





Another notable achievement: I had my first official success BBQing chicken. I was grilling up some breasts to be sliced for chicken caesar salad, and they actually turned out great (I've been through some chicken fiascos in the past): 6 hours in a basic herb marinade, and then I added a healthy dose of Shiraz to the plastic bag and sloshed everything around. I basted the upward side with the marinade whilst they cooked.

Stay tuned for Saturday's birthday BBQ for Josiah, when I attempt a Jack Daniels/pepper/garlic salmon feast. I think the marinade is going to go something like:
1/2 Cup Jack Daniels
1/2 Olive oil
1/2 Brown sugar (packed)
Like, 1/4 cup chopped up garlic
Some good shakings of Tabasco. Smoked Tabasco if I remember to grab it.
One half of a lemon, all mashed up and squeezed out into the bag.
Lots of peppercorn
A bit of garlic salt
[Whatever else strike me while I'm putting stuff into the marinade bag... maybe some halved grapes? Maybe some sauteed mushrooms?]

So, marinade for about 2 or 3 hours (since it's fish), lie by the pool, toss the frisbee... and then heat the grill up to high for 10 minutes to get it nice and hot. Then about four minutes each side, basting with the marinade.

Dedication: for Mike Arzie, with much love.

This was not premeditated.

Exhibit A: Notes/doodles from a more positive phone conference.


We notice in this piece a representative sampling of some of the typical ingredients of a Watsonion phone-doodle from the Software Sales Period. Most notable is the repetitive-generative pattern emerging along bi-symmetrical lines. As the pattern reaches the extremities of its extension, the initial propogation becomes obscurred and the fractal devolves into chaos. One senses the Ego seeking order amidst the blind and inexorable forces to which it is subject.




Exhibit B, "Phone Conference in Which Frustrating Things Happen in Regard to Prospective Client P_______ M________" is an aberrent work in which the mathematical precision of a typical Watsonion is left behind in pursuit of sub-concious emotional primacy. Linear symmetry gives way to a radial-pointillistic style that draws the observer in while punctuating its hypnosis with bursts of angst. One commentator has described the donut-like shapes as "Naked eyes-- stretching to infinitude-- that simultaneously rage against Fate and petition it for mercy."