Breaking down my Dawes Realmrider
 

While I haven't addressed yet the freewheel issue noted here, http://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...l#post19603450, I am well into stripping down the Realmrider I am refurbing for my wife to use for errands and such. Here is what I have found so far:

-- The frame is in pretty good shape. Minor rust, decals mostly intact.
--Milremo stem and unnamed bars (I assume also Milremo) could do with polishing but I think should clean up.
-- Simplex deraiileurs front and rear need work. The bakelite faceplate on the FD is cracked in two and the cage is missing. I got lucky and found a similar Simplex derailleur at my local coop for $5.00 so between the two I should have a functional derailleur. The rear derailleur is salvageable but I may need to replace the jockey wheels; the bushings are pretty corroded and the wheels don't turn freely.
-- Wheels are Sturmey Archer steel rims (I didn't know Sturmey Archer made rims) on Milremo hubs
-- TDC bottom bracket, at least thats what the cups say. The spindle is stamped "Superior B.W.T 2C, Made in Great Britain".
--Weimann 610/750 brakes
-- Steel cotter pin cranks. no name (TDC?)
-- No name steel seatpost and no saddle. I have a used Brooks B72 headed my way from ebay that I will use.

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Is headset floating u-race type? These take 1/8" ball. Both T.D. Cross and Brampton offered them.

Bottom bracket spindle marking - B.W.T is Bayliss Wiley. T may stand for company location Tyseley (Birmingham), or "type." 2C is model number.
There is some company history here: http://www.ebykr.com/2007/11/03/bayl...tent-presence/

Is the Delrin on the Simplex bits white? This is a dating aid. Delrin started in 1962 and was white for the first few years, then went to black.

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Classy early Dawes. Any idea of the vintage? The Milremo components are most likely from the 60s. Good luck with the build. I'm sure your lady will enjoy the end product.

By-the-way, is that a Frenchie in the picture?
Cheers,

Van

The headset does in fact use 1/8 inch balls. Very tiny.

Thanks for the info on BWT

The shift levers are white; the FD body and broken face plate are black (center front of pic). The replacement I found with a metal plate is to the right (later vintage; different model?). Also, the Simplex logo on the original FD is black; the replacement is red (as can be seen in the pic).

Best guess right now is early 60s.

Yes that is a Frenchie. She has since passed, but was a good dog (well as good as a bull dog is capable of being, anyway).

Thanks for the response and photo. I think the BB uses 11 1/4" balls per side rather than 1/8". Suspect we are in the 1965-1967 time here.

Headset is T.D. Cross.

Our Randy had a gents Realmrider in this colour from about five years later -

http://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpe...ull_Side_1.jpg

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Regarding chainset -

You mention that it is unmarked. Realmriders of this time typically came with a Williams C34 pattern chainset, seen in photo below beside a red Realmrider frame. When made by Williams they are nearly always marked. They were also produced by Nicklin, which are not always marked. The usual Nicklin marking, when present, is a letter N in an oval recess on the back side of the arm up near the spindle hole.

Oops, type-o, I was thinking about BB while writing about headset. Indeed the 1/8" balls are in the headset. The BB takes 1/4".

Mine is similar; the rings look a little different but otherwise the two cranks look the same. And there is an N on the backside of the crankarms, which I discovered after my original post, so thanks for that info on Nicklin.

Yep, same paint and similar looking components. I even have the wing nuts for the front hub. The FD looks a bit different -- with metal face plate -- as do the shift levers. Interestingly, I took the silver decals on the seat tube to be after market because they were peeling off, had been poorly/unevenly applied, and covered over significant part of the gold panel. So I peeled them off. Also, the medallion decal in the middle of the seat tube is gone on mine (although clearly it had been there at one point).

The shift levers on Randy's example launched ~1971 so I doubt it earlier. Randy's may be the final year for the S-A hubs. IIRC they began coming through with Normandy Sport in 1972. Randy's chainset is NERVAR model 133. Randy's lugset appears to be BOCAMA pattern 20-II, is this what is on your example?

Your MILREMO stem looks to be a Philippe product.



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Awesome, Bulldogs and Dawes in the same post!

I have some differences on my frame. The lugs at the BB shell and the fork crown are the same, although the fork crown lug is outlined with gold paint. But my headset lugs and the lug at the junction between the top tube and seatbtube are different on my bike and my headset lugs are also outlined.

Headbadge

I am increasingly convinced that the bike dates from betweem 1966 and 1969 for two reasons.

1. Based on various pics I have found on line, the Simplex prestige rear derailleur I have dates from the late 1960s. In the pic, the derailleur on the left is the one from my bike, note the smaller non hex bolts. These seem to have been the norm in the late 60s. By the early 70s, hex bolts like on the derailleur on tne right was the norm as far as I can surmise.

2. My headbadge is all gold on a gray background, which seems to be a late 60s design. In tne early 70s, it seems the falmes of the torch were painted red.

A couple of additional clues are the headset that uses 1/8" bearings and the Bayliss/Willey BB spindle. Seems by 70s, 5/32" bearings was more the norm and seems early 70s would be kind of late to be finding BW spindles in Bottom Brackets. But I am less sure of these last two issues.

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Fine detective work!

One limiter going forward is the presence of the white Delrin shift levers. The Juy experts will know their final year. Beginning ~1969 they went to an alloy lever which was only used for ~two years.

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All three forks posted thus far exhibit the Vagner DP crown.

Some folks appear to consider the Realmrider "a pearl of great price" -

http://staging.xstation.webfactional...wes-realmrider

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Yeah, I have seen a number f variations of realmriders and the crown seems consistent. I have not seen any other example with the same HT lugs as the ones on mine. Perhaps the arguably more ornate ones on mine were unique to the step thru lady's version?

Your head lugs were widely employed by Dawes over a long period. They were found on models such as Galaxy and Double Blue when one goes back a bit.

There was a different pattern of cutout lug employed for Galaxy when we get into the 1970's. Here it is on another bike from Randy:

http://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpe...FullTQSide.jpg

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