Originally Posted by
pandorapi
Thank you for all your replies! I managed to get round to rechecking what I actually have on my bike.
1. My current bike is a three speed Raleigh Caprice (and my previous had been a three speed Peugeot city bike) which I mentioned to give you an idea of the simple set-up I am used to. The thought of too many gears and two gear shifters is quite daunting to me! The bike I have just bought to fix up and I am asking about is a very old Reynolds Falcon. Photos below.
2. The ring on the crankset looks like it is not a single piece with the crank arm, but I do not have the right tool at the moment to try and take it apart. So I guess I could see about just getting a ring, or a double ring. I am not quite sure about the rest of the stuff mentioned, I am only now learning about all of this stuff!
3. I completely miscounted the amount of sprockets I have at the back! It turns out they are only five. The biggest is 28 and the smallest 14. Due to the age of the bike I assume its a freewheel. I don't quite understand how you can tell from looking at it.
Now that I realise I have 5 gears at the back, I am re-thinking things. Should I just get a classic double crankset for the front, even though that would mean adding a second gear shifter and getting hold of an vintage old-school style one might be very difficult? Or should I go for a smaller (so many proposals!) single crankset in front and add some more sprockets at the back. I am assuming that freewheel means you can add single sprockets as needed since they are not a joined block.
I've fixed/upgraded so many vintage bikes that I can really relate to the Falcon. I like to run a single chainring in the front also. It's simple and eliminates shifting and/or chain rubbing issues. Looks good too, imo.
It so happens that my current project is an English 531 bike also, with a Williams 48/52 crankset (smallest chainring available is 46 I think, and that's if I could even source one). I paired this with a 6-speed 14-32, and put it on the train to San Francisco. First hill I hit it was obvious how wrong/insufficient that 48T was. Had to get off and walk and that's no good, and no fun. I'm currently putting together a compact crank 46/34T for that bike.
So, the easy fix for you, imo, would be to go with a smaller chainring in the range of 38-40, and a larger 5-speed freewheel, like 14-32 (or 13-32 if you can find it). It is possible, however, that the smaller chainring would require a long-cage rear derailleur to take up the excess chain length. But start out by cutting your chain length to the new length dictated by your new range gears. You may get lucky and not have to mess with chain length or rear derailleur. I've been lucky many times with my vintage bike tinkering.
If it were my bike, I'd reset the rear dropouts to 126mm, and use a slightly more modern wheel with a 6 speed freewheel. I've done this half a dozen times at least, and my latest Peugeot got reset to 130mm which allows me to use modern wheels and cassettes. One big advantage is closer spaced gears. But you'd have to buy/replace the chainring, wheel (126mm), and maybe freewheel, chain and rear derailleur. I do some subset of this all the time, but I try to minimize it as much as possible.
My best advice for you however, would be to find a shop that works on vintage bikes, and discuss reasonable upgrades with them, within your budget and with what you're trying to accomplish.
Good luck with it!