On a brighter note, I've fallen in love with the British "club" style bikes of the 1930s through 50s.



This is another of my "Ashdown" marques. This time I am trying the Sturmey-Archer "FM" internally geared hub, which is a medium-range four speed and apparently the choice of British club riders of the period. And I found a pair of "Made in England" Bluemels Club fenders on Ebay, which are the first plastic fenders I have tried. (They work, so far, but are inferior to the French style aluminum fenders, IMO.) And I also found an NOS Huret "Multito" belt driven odometer, which is entertaining.

This is also my first experience with the Challenge "Parigi-Roubaix" handmade clinchers, which come highly rated by Jan Heine/Bicycle Quarterly. They have so far been trouble free and seem to roll quite well. They (in combination with somewhat oversize Sun CR-18 rims) were the hardest clinchers to mount that I have ever seen, and I'm not looking forward to fixing flats on the road. Hopefully the "Puncture Protection System" lives up to its name.

I'm really enjoying the internally geared hub so far. It's obviously not as versatile as wide-range derailleur gears, but actually works quite well for anything short of real mountains. We have a flatish 200k brevet coming up, and I am planning on riding it with this bike.