Hi everyone,
Mrs. Ged and I took out the '50s Raleighs for a good old-fashioned three-speed tour. The National Capital Commission closed the Rockcliffe Parkway to car traffic, and so I thought what a good opportunity to get these bikes out together under the sun. I ran an experiment with the hubs. Mine is a '50 AG, and hers is a '72 AW wheel in a '56 frame (the original wheel has a '56 SW hub laced into it, and the hub doesn't work well). I put blue label 3-in-1 oil in hers, and synthetic 0W-20 oil in mine. The pawls in my hub are very quiet, and they tick quite noticeably in hers. I put it down to the different oils and the lesser quality of the machined parts in the later hubs. Of course, her AW works perfectly. My '53 FW four-speed hub I use with my Peugeot is also quieter than the '72 AW. I nerd out a lot about these details and she is amused by it. We seem to start all of our rides at Maman, the giant spider near the National Art Gallery:
IMG-20200516-WA0005 by
Benjamin Poirier, on Flickr
Then we headed east to the river parkway / paths and stopped some time later for a snack and cold tea. I'm finding a piece for her kickstand, and I have some cork grips coming to replace the tacky ones. My Superbe still has the original rubber grips, and I try to be careful with them. We're using MKS pedals.
IMG-20200519-WA0001 by
Benjamin Poirier, on Flickr
IMG-20200519-WA0003 by
Benjamin Poirier, on Flickr
IMG-20200519-WA0004 by
Benjamin Poirier, on Flickr
IMG-20200519-WA0005 by
Benjamin Poirier, on Flickr