I received two interesting tools in the past few days, and will share my experiences. Photos below, and links.
(A) I saw this on Facebook on one of my rare visits there; from a company called Alpine Extreme, their TrueTrack Alignment tool for handlebars. It clips onto the center of the bars, and shines a laser light on the front tire. No more guessing if you have the bars at 90º to the front wheel or not! Easy to use, and you’ll see in the photo my front wheel alignment was a whisker off, and I could correct it. Also, you can flip it around and check that your saddle is perfectly in line or not, although I do not think I’ve been having that problem. Notes: (1) Ships from China, takes a long time to arrive; in my case someone I presume was a U.S. handler mixed things up and we got a small vacuum cleaner instead. Getting a response took time, but they reshipped and I got the tool perhaps two months after ordering. Alas, there was a “bonus, if you order” of a F/R light set, which I intend for the wife’s bike, that did not show up… I am confident will happen… eventually. (2) Spring-loaded clamp for the bars, straightforward enough, but I am think would be happier on larger dimeter modern bars than the vintage stuff. I found the tool drooped a bit, making it hard to photograph. A very small woodworking clamp sufficed to add extra pressure and it stays where placed (or perhaps some scrap Tressostar on the insides of the clamp?). (3) I wanted a tool to do this and figured I’d have to fabricate something. I bought (from eBay) one of those old Schwinn tools that clips onto the handlebars to set the location of the brake levers; then I was going to attach two turnbuckle tension rods for a screen door, in a triangle, so that could be lowered to touch the front tire — hopefully on the centerline. The TrueTrack should be far more accurate.
(B) It was here on C&V BF that I heard of Stein Tools, and I bookmarked their site some time ago. With just about every one of y bikes being somewhat of a FrankenBike, and I was usually guessing on the chainline and/or using a length of thread to compare chainrings to sprockets. So, I ordered a Stein Chainline Checker; it took a while to contact him, but seems a nice enough guy and said he’d get right on it. Basically it a section of angle aluminum and two specialized clamps to hold it onto the chainring, aiming at the sprockets. I found installation fiddly and on a 50T ring, only one place I could get it mounted as you can see in the photo, the knobs to tighten the clamps only fit at the extreme forward end of one slot and the extreme rear of the other. This meant I could not get the rear of the bar all the way back to the sprockets. You’re suppose to use the included metal scale to measure offset between the bar and the outside of the innermost sprocket. I could not do that but could lay the scale inline from the inner surface of the bar, and compare to the sprockets. The instructions give info on taking measurements on double and triple chainrings — but not single chainrings as on my 1961 Gitane. That said, I could see that the outside surface of the sharing is about 2mm outboard of the outside of the 3rd (center) sprocket. That implies mounting a 2mm spacer behind the freewheel, but I realize the chainring is thicker and thus more material to the centerline of the teeth; so, it’s time to break out the micrometer and see if I’m closer than 2mm — and hopefully not spend hours getting the Simpex 543 derailleur to shift perfectly again. On a more conventional bike, I suspect this tool is easier to use, presuming I can figure out how to slide the bar further back so the rear is near the sprockets.
For someone who works on a lot of bikes, I would recommend either of these tools.
TrueTrack
Oddly, doesn't want that second link here so I'll put it in post #2.
