Some of you may recall the 60’s Raleigh “Superbe” I picked up for a flip a while ago. The seller was a big lanky lad who had purchased it from an old blue-haired lady at a garage sale a few weeks prior. At first glance, it looked like a pre-70’s bike with a few changed parts, but given his garage sale asking price, I looked no further.



Once I got it home, I checked it a bit more thoroughly: Is the seat post stuck? Does the stem move? - No problems there, but there were some other things that seemed very wrong for a 60’s bike. E.g., the clip-on handlebar stem, axle wing nuts, and EA1 rims.





“Why would anyone retrofit these antique bits onto a 60’s Superbe?” I asked myself. Consulting bike forums, I soon had my answer: The “8” on my Sturmey Archer “AW-8” hub meant it was manufactured in 1938 – not 1968 - but the slack frame geometry was still all wrong for a Superbe (-assuming you disregard the head tube angle, which, as it turned out, had been tweaked!).

Kurt cudak888 made a positive ID based on the presence of the two vestigial fender mounts on the seat stays –



It was a ’38 Golden Arrow!

“Whoa.” I said to myself. “Wasn’t I just salivating over those Golden Arrows just days earlier? – The thread in which I plainly stated that I'd like to be the next to snag one?”

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...1#post12655069

“Me and my big prescient mouth” I said to myself. Now I had a major and expensive restoration job ahead of me!

The first stop was a round trip to see Doc cudak888, and his Park Tool HTS-1 :



Meanwhile, I went in search some parts to restore my “new” Golden Arrow. The Northroads had to go – and Lauterwasser bars (pronounced Law-tuh-woss-uh after the English racer Jack Lauterwasser) were a must-have, but I soon learned that real Lauterwassers are practically unobtanium – so I opted for a Soma Fabrications clone instead. Unfortunately, this meant I would have to compromise on the stem as well, since the Soma bars required a stem with a larger, modern clamp – another eBay purchase. These two items were just the first of many such purchases that seemed to nickel and dime me to death.



I had a lot to do to get it road worthy again: Grips, quadrant shifter, SA pulley and bearings, English cotters, etc. I opted to build new EA3 wheels, since the rusty EA1 wheels were unoriginal, and laced incorrectly to boot. I fabricated a new SA cable, and ended up doing the same for the brakes, which required double-ended stops.





- And when it was done, I realized that I had committed every C&V faux pas in the book! This was not a true restoration at all. Many of the original parts were lost long ago, and I had made many compromises due to cost and/or availability. The old steel fenders for instance, were put back on instead of the original white Bluemels, and those shiny new wheels were alloy, with Japanese tires on them.

Nevertheless, I was happy with the outcome, and it was fun to ride.

As I stood back admiring my new steed, I cracked the obligatory celebratory beer. This is something I am inclined to do whenever I complete the build of a new bike – any bike. I then decided that if I could celebrate the completion of a Schwinn Sprint with a beer, this Golden Arrow was worth two.

After my sixth beer, I reasoned that it would be a good idea to call the seller. I still had his number, and it was still early enough (about 1:00 AM on a Tuesday morning) to call.

A young woman picked up the phone. “Hello. May I speak with your husband please?”
“Who is this?” she countered. “This is officer Auchen – may I speak with your husband please.”

(My assumption that the young lady was married to the seller was a good one, and though I know the “officer” bit was a stretch, I did work in an office once, and it does greatly reduce the possibility of getting disconnected late at night after a few brewskis.)

Soon the lanky lad was on the phone. I asked him if he had met a man at a gas station a few weeks prior to sell a black Raleigh bicycle. He readily admitted that he did, and he asked me if it was stolen. Recalling the purchase price, I had to say “yes”. He said he just could not believe the blue haired lady was a dirty bike-thief. “That’s for a jury to decide, son - I just need the facts. Will you work with me?” I asked.

“Oh yes!” he replied, and I soon had a full description of the blue-haired lady, as well as the general location of her light blue house near the lake. The next morning, after the effects of my celebratory beers had worn off; I resolved to go have a look for myself. I struck out toward the lake, to find that blue-haired lady’s house on my newly rehabbed Golden Arrow.

Round about noon, I turned down the street that the lanky lad had described, and the house loomed large before me. – It was a stately manor house facing the lake, painted in the most incongruous of baby blues – with a light blue Cadillac parked in the circular drive. I noted there was no garage at all, but a large double carriage house – with an upper story large enough to serve as living quarters. I lingered in the street for a time, and by and by, a lady came to collect the mail curbside: It was the blue-haired lady! She stared at me – or at my bike rather. “Good day” she called out to me. I responded in kind. “I couldn’t help but notice your bicycle, sir - It looks so like one I knew as a child,” she said, with decidedly upper-crust British accent.

“Oh?” I replied incredulously, with a quizzical look. (I find that this simple device invariably elicits more information than an interrogation with a rubber hose.)

“Yes indeed!” She exclaimed. “It’s very much like the one that my father rode as a young man. Those are Lauterwasser bars.”

I was flabbergasted. How could this old dame know anything about Lauterwasser bars? Then she explained. “My father rode with Jack Lauterwasser back in England. Father gave up riding for business though, and the bike was passed down to us kids when we were big enough. Mother insisted that it have proper lights on it for safety’s sake, but that did not stop me from T-boning a Packard. I wrecked the front wheel and the front fork - and one more thing –”

Thereupon, she removed her bridge and smiled broadly, revealing a huge gap where her two front teeth once were spat out. “M’am, this is your old bike!” I exclaimed spontaneously – and went on to detail everything about how I had come upon it, how I rebuilt it, finally offering to sell it back to her for my original purchase price, if she wanted it. – But she refused it – saying that she had been parting with many, many things of late, in clearing out the old homestead to move in with her sister way down south, adding that she could not be happier that at least her dad’s old bike would have a fresh start too.

…I thought her choice of words was most peculiar – “A fresh start too” – but perhaps entirely appropriate for this old bike, and maybe for the old dame too. - That is, until I saw her picture weeks later on America’s Most Wanted, and learned that she was wanted for six bank heists.