jonwvara 

Okay, I've described the bike in previous posts. Here, finally, are pictures of the mysterious Dawes Double Blue--early 60s vintage, maybe? Not sure how to add captions to the images, but I guess they're mostly self-explanatory. On the photo of the seat stay/seat tube cluster I'm not sure if that's rust under the paint or very sloppy brazing. Another photo shows what seems to be remnants of a decal--a Reynolds decal, maybe?--on the upper part of the seat tube.
I'd be delighted to answer any questions. The more I think about this bike, the more I sort of like it. Of course, it is winter, and projects alway start to seem very appealing about now, but still...
JV

dawes56

This frame is very similar to my 1971 Dawes Galaxy, although the crankset was different (Stronglight 99 I think). I don't think the campy components are original...my 71 had simplex front and rear. Sadly I no longer have that bike.

The tubing is most likely Reynolds 531 plain gauge main triangle only, as that was the tubing on my 71. I think late 60s is a good guess for the age of the frame.

They ride very nicely...my 71 went all over the world with me...well, California, Texas, Germany, and Maryland lol. Frankly, I enjoyed it more that the 72 Paramount P-15 I had at the same time..mainly cuz I was not afraid to get it dirty!

Clean her up and ride.

Pete

jonwvara 

You can't see it very well in the photos, but the chainstays are not dimpled or indented, or whatever the preferred term is--they're round-oval-round tapered. Might that be a clue to the tubing? I think Reynolds made that type of chainstay, but don't know about anyone else.
JV

Doohickie

Are there any date codes on the components? Maybe the insides of the cranks?

jonwvara 

Good question! No, no date codes, but I on the inside of the non-drive-side crank, right up near the spindle, theres a capital E and a capital N forged onto the steel--the E is smaller and vertically above the N.

On the bottom bracket shell, however, theres a small stamping that says "62 63." You can see it in one of the photos. Also, when looking at the cranks I noticed that the BB lockring says "T.D.C." and is stamped "Made in England." Except for the Campy stuff and the brakes, there aren't a lot of obviously branded components on the bike. The wheel rims, though, are stamped as Sturmey-Archer.
JV

luker

cool name for a bike. There should be a date code on the end of the rear derailleur...TDC was TD Cross and Sons. They were once as common in England as Shimano is nowadays.

jonwvara 

No date code on the derailleur that I can see.
JV

Oldpeddaller

Hi Jon, just got back from Hull and had a look at your photos straight away. Your Dawes is a 1960's model, most probably built around 63 or 64. It's definitely well worth restoring and won't cost much, but will take plenty of elbow grease (work). The frame is 531 and should be butted, most likely main tubes forks & stays rather than just main tubes only. You can get a replacement 531 sticker from Cyclomondo on ebay (Greg Softley in Australia, reasonable prices, superb products & service). The chain, tyres and inner cables should be replaced, no great expense involved there if you shop around. Can't really see the condition of the rims from your photos, but try cleaning & polishing them and grease the hub bearings - then decide whether to keep them. Check the spoke tension by squeezing the spokes together - they should not feel loose and check if the rims are true by looking for side to side movement when you spin them. Might be necessary to true and tune them up a bit with a spoke key. The bottom bracket is a British TDC made by TD Cross Limited and I'd be surprised if it needs anything more than to be stripped, thoroughly cleaned and re-greased. While you've got it out, check for scoring of the inside bearing surfaces of the cups and on the spindle. If it's OK you may as well replace the ball bearings with new ones - exactly the same goes for the head set. Ball bearings are cheap and they are the parts that should wear first. Check that the brake blocks haven't gone hard. If they have, put new ones on. Strip the brake callipers down and polish the arms and bolts, grease the pivots & replace. Put a tiny drop of grease on the contact points between the spring and brake arms. Same with the gears & levers, take them off, clean them up and lubricate pivots and jockey wheel bearings. Chainset looks like a Nicklin 3-bolt - that should polish up well, I used to have the same on a Claud Butler back in the day and it didn't seem to wear at all. Careful when you remove the cotter pins, they are not easy to get nowadays so try to save them. The rust all seems light surface staining so an oxalic acid wash then a good polish and a coat of car wax on the frame & chrome should make a big difference. A lovely classic tourer to be proud of! Must get to bed now, but if I can help at all please post or PM me. Best wishes and Happy Christmas, Stuart.

jonwvara 

Thanks, Stuart. Your plan for fixing the bike basically matches my own--I don't plan to replace anything that I don't absolutely have to. Even the freewheel seems to be in decent shape. I haven't seen any of the bearings yet, obviously, but I would hope that new grease and bearing balls would suffice--that will become clear when I see the state of the races. My only reservation concerns the wheels--spokes are old, obviously, and a bit slack. If I were to cut the old spokes I could soak and clean the rims--there is a fair amount of rust bleeding through the chrome--and relace with new spokes (assuming the races in the Normandy hubs are okay.) I'm leaning toward an electrolytic bath rather than oxalic acid to deal with the rust on frame and parts, but will do one or the other.
What's your opinion--is the Campy Nuovo Record gear original or a later upgrade? And if and when I put on a new Reynolds sticker, what flavor would be most appropriate? The "full monty" butted tubes, forks, and stays version, or the butted main tubes, plain gauge forks and stays version? I don't want to sail under false colors. Or rather, colours.
Again, my thanks. I'm glad you had a successful trip to Hull. I have friends in Hull, Massachusetts, and live about a day's bike ride southwest of Maidstone, Vermont. They don't call this place New England for nothing, I guess.
JV

Oldpeddaller

Hi Jon, by golly this Forum's really addictive, I meant to go to bed ages ago! Having driven 512 miles on British roads today with long delays at the Dartford River Crossing both ways, I should be more tired than this. On to more interesting things now.

I believe the NR rear is a "period upgrade" as the bike would have come with a chromed bronze "old Record" or similar Gran Sport rear mech if it was one of the originally Campag-equipped models at that time. The Nuovo Record rear is much nicer, works a little better and in my opinion is a totally legitimate item to keep on the bike. A few of my club mates in the early 70's with similar bikes swapped to Nuovo Record mechs as soon as they could afford them. They cost a whole week's wages in those days!

Rather than mess around with the rims, if there is rust coming through the chrome I'm afraid I don't think they'll ever amount to much. Keep them on as they are but try to find a pair of alloy rimmed wheels to replace them with. You will probably spend less and will have a better pair of wheels. In second hand wheels, look for Weinmann, Rigida or similar plain alloy rims on Normandy, Campag, Pelissier, Atom, Milremo, Maillard or similar hubs with stainless or chromed spokes - original chromed spokes are likely to be peeling by now though, so not such a good bet as stainless. You don't have to buy new wheels, the rest of the bike is over 40 years old after all!

However I think that some of your US discount internet stores (Nashbar, Performance et al) might have what you need at a reasonable price for new wheels. Check the axle width and try to get hubs to take a screw-on freewheel. OR rebuild on your original hubs with new rims & spokes - that's likely to cost more, so it's up to you. I bought a pair of used 27" X 1.25" Weinmann rims on Pelissier QR hubs with zinc-coated but sound spokes for Ł20 on fleabay, then found a pair of clearance alloy rims with stainless spokes on Quando QR hubs at a Halfords store at Ł6 for the pair, New Old Stock! Both are now in regular use and have proved to be reliable.

I believe it's more likely that your forks and stays are 531 based on the age of your frame - to the best of my knowledge I'm almost 100% certain that it was only much later models that had 531 main tubes only, so you can go for the Full Monty sticker with a pretty clear conscience. The "plain" droputs (no integrated derailleur hanger) date your frame pretty clearly.

By the way, whatever you do, keep that hanger bracket - I've just had an epic search to find one to fit a NR rear mech to my next build and they are extremely hard to find and therefore more expensive than you'd expect - mine is costing me Ł11, for a used bracket that most people threw away with the box!

I'm always intrigued by duplicate place names in New England and the "old version". A good historical connection between our two countries!

Please feel free to contact me if I can be of help as your restoration progresses - I'll try to answer any question, no matter how trivial or zany it sounds and will always try to indicate my degree of certainty. I still have a very clear memory of 60's and 70's British bikes from building, riding, racing and maintaining them back in the early 70's - and have been trying to recapture that "Golden Age" ever since! Hence my 1970 Holdsworth rebuild to period spec.

I think you're totally on the right track with this bike, it's a great find and not too difficult a restoration.

Stuart

luker

^^^the kind of posts that keep me reading.

" A few of my club mates in the early 70's with similar bikes swapped to Nuovo Record mechs as soon as they could afford them. They cost a whole week's wages in those days!"

A good grey market price for a new 11 speed super record derailleur is about $500. Sounds like an awful lot to me, but not a week's wages! Campy is actually getting cheaper?

Also nice to know about the derailleur adapter. We also threw away the boxes, and depending on the box these can cost more than $20, now...

Oldpeddaller

Hi Luker,

Food for thought, eh? ....If only Campy boxes had been as long lasting as the parts they contained! But then again, how many of us keep our Shimano boxes or blister packs now?

I have been looking through old 1935 to 1939 facsimile catalogues of bikes on the net looking for detail & inspiration for a forthcoming restoration. Some of the higher quality road bikes were then priced at around Ł17 - 17s -6d in pre-decimal Sterling - post decimal Ł17.75 - not sure what the current dollar exchange is now the rates have gone crazy, but that could be around $25.

I thought that didn't sound like much - until I found out that a working man in those days earned an average Ł1.52 per week (just over a dollar?) On this basis, that lightweight sports bike would have cost him a whole three months' earnings. Translate that back into modern wages and it's about Ł5,000 (maybe $7,000?). No wonder they were built to last! How many of us would really commit that much cash to a new bike purchase today? (Maybe that's why I like C&V - I'm a bit of a cheapskate!)

Just some ramblings of an insomniac - it might make more sense in daylight....

viscount

Makes plenty of sense Stuart

The real price of bicycles in the 30s is a sobering thought.
To buy a good machine then was a bit like buying a car now.
A big investment/major purchase.

And 50+ years later some of them are still around.
(Just like some of us)
Which is what fascinates me about preserving them.

nlerner

Just came across this 1978 Dawes Double Blue review on Robert Broderick's Wool Jersey pages:

https://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/v/...geViewsIndex=1

Neal

jonwvara 

There's an image of what looks like the crankset here: https://www.classiclightweights.co.uk...ification.html

It looks like a Williams C34, but perhaps is the Nicklin version alluded to at the end? If in fact Nicklin didn't begin making the cranks until the 70s it might perhaps be the Williams version? The "EN" marking on the inside of one crank would seem not to correspond with either the Williams or Nicklin markings as described. But it sure looks like the drawing. I'm confused.
JV

jonwvara 

Okay, having re-examined the crank and the Williams info on the Classic Lightweights site, my guess is that it is (as Oldpeddler noted) that it's Nicklin, probably an N34, which Nicklin seems to have made starting in 1964. They're specifically mentioned as having been a supplier to Dawes. That would seem to make sense and make the dates come out about right. There are no Willams markings on it.
JV

jonwvara 

Oops, sorry, Stuart, I meant "Oldpeddaller."
JV

Oldpeddaller

Jonwvara, to quote a female ex-colleague of mine who was once quite obviously instantly smitten with her new boss,

"Call me anything you like, but PLEASE call me !!!"

(It seems he did, as they now have a beautiful home and growing family!)

Didn't mean to confuse you with the chain set, the same pattern was produced under both the Williams and Nicklin brands for a while. I'm pretty sure yours is a Nicklin, as presumably original equipment on a Dawes. Either way it's basically the same chainset and I'd be really surprised if you can't get it shining like new again.

I wouldn't recommend this, but as an indicator of how tough they are, many years ago I fell off heavily on a long distance winter ride - in fact a few of us came off together in the same crash! My bike bounced across the road on its own and landed heavily on its drive side. When we had sorted ourselves out (no injuries but a few grazes and some severe embarrassment), I found that my chain was moving from side to side somewhere between a quarter and half an inch at the front, making the bike almost impossible to ride.

On the roadside I used a 6" adjustable spanner to bend the chain ring enough to correct this effect sufficiently to make it rideable and finished the trip. Later I found the BB axle was bent and so replaced it - I then had to bend the chain ring back into true. No problem, and the chrome on the chain ring didn't even split! The only other damage was a dented pedal cap, a tear in my right rear pannier bag and ripped bar tape, all easily sorted.

I'm not sure I'd even try that with a modern bike!

Best regards, Stuart

jonwvara 

No, the old bikes bend but don't break--my dad's old Raleigh Sports, circa 1966, had a tendency to fall off the kickstand onto the drive side with a might crash. Given its impressive weight a number of such falls bent the drive-side crank so it BARELY cleared the chainstay. When I inherited the bike I couldn't understand how the eccentric pedaling motion didn't drive him crazy--perhaps that was because it had happened incrementally so he had time to get used to it (as in the case of the legendary horse who was trained to eat sawdust). He just liked to ride, though, and didn't obsess about hardware.

Anyway, I simply bent it straight again and all has been well since.

Incidentally, that bike hung in a damp cellar for 20-plus years and had quite a bit of rust showing through the chrome rims as well, and they cleaned up well enough for me. May the same be true of the Dawes rims.

I've thought of soaking the rims in oxalic acid solution to clean them by standing them upright in a container and rotating them periodically to immerse all of the rim but not the aluminum hub. But I'm not sure how the spoke nipples, which are presumably brass, would withstand that. Would that be a problem, do you think?

javal

Great thread! Fantastic reading when doing my cant-sleep-need-sandwich-pronto in the middle of the night. By the way, the bike looks great and you´ve got Oldpeddaler on your side...its a knockout! I feel the Dawesmania

viscount

Fantastic thread.
It's what BF is/should be about.
Really cool to see Dawes machines being found and fixed.
Lot of them do deserve it and the Double Blue is a genuine 'find'.
Pics of a recent find of mine, but belonging to a friend who wouldn't sell it, (but did sell me a couple of nice, vintage Claud Butlers! I think) are here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bikesruz/page5/
The pale green one is a early double blue I believe.
As this one here.

I will get it eventually.

Oldpeddaller

Hi Viscount, hope you had a good Christmas! The Dawes looks good. That rear mech is definitely a Svelto, but as you say, wouldn't have been the original. Quite a rare mech nowadays, which is surprising given the thousands in use in the 70's and the fact that they seemed indestructible then!

Have been busy (and still am), collecting bits for the CB build but still need to get the frame repaired when everyone opens again. The split actually extends as a hairline crack under the paint halfway around the stay, but I should think the chance of finding a matching stay to replace it will be tiny. However, it seems a very straightforward brazing job so if all else fails, I might have a go myself. I picked up a gas torch and silver brazing rods today to fix a rear rack, so if that goes OK I might try brazing up the split and then brazing a lamp bracket over the top to stabilise both sides. It will probably take a while but I'm really looking forward to putting it all together. Will keep you updated. I guess you've probably been wearing out that lovely Mercian? Best regards, Stuart

jonwvara 

Okay, if you're accepting yankees then I will be joining the Dawes forum.
Jon

Oldpeddaller

Jon, you're the Founder Member!

Hope you had good Holidays,

Best regards.

javal

Viscount, about the link; really great pics of light green Dawes and other bikes. But hey! Then theres a Volvo 121 -67! I´ve had two myself, one estate. Great bikes, great cars...you´re on a winning streak!