Hey Shannon, check out the Soma lauterwasser handlebars, they are excellent.

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/bik...908308060.html

I am thinking this frame may be a bit later than 1949. It has a newer badge. The very nice catalogue photograph nlerner provided has the old style badge. I'd estimate this to be a 1950s bike. And yes, looks like a Kestrel frame with original paint and some graphics left. It is well-preserved. It was a sporty frame in its day with good tubing and lugs.

Wheels can be a tricky thing with these bikes. Unless you want to go all-original, I would avoid EA1 / 597mm rims because the tire selection now is poor. I would consider going one size up or one size down with rims. If you opt for 36-hole drilling, you have some additional options for wheels and hubs. But some people like to stick to 40 / 32 drilling because it was so much a part of the vintage, English system of building bikes.

A typical upgrade for a bike like this would be a medium-ratio AM or FM rear hub, for a sportier ride. A Hercules wide ratio three speed or a Sturmey AW would be more available in terms of hubs and parts on the market today. The Sturmey FW four speed gives you an extra low gear if you need more climbing power. The FW can also be converted to a 5-speed with a few changes.

It's a nice frame and a fine project.

I like this idea of an updated version bike with more modern components. The first bike below, with new(er) components, which I love the color-scheme on, and I'd think about the look of a set of Northroad bars, flipped, as in the 2nd bike, since you set out to avoid drop bars.

It's not so much that I'm avoiding drop bars, as it is that I want this bike to be delightfully weird, and that pretty much requires weird bars that delight me.

Flipped cheap-o aluminum North-Road-ish bars, (or even those Schwinn ones that get raved about around here... if they're as good as their rep, somebody not named Shannon should get somebody named Nitto to make them in aluminum,) are probably where I'm going to start.

--Shannon

Looks like they're NLA, but the Sparrow looks interesting.

--Shannon

Velo Orange has the Tourist bars in aluminum for $46. Modern Bike has Sunlite Northroads in aluminum for $57. And Soma has the Sparrow bar, but I'm unsure of the price. Perhaps it is dependent on width, since it is offed in three widths.

Bar-wise, I'll probably start with the Dimension N/Rs on my GT Karakoram, (which I think I'm gonna sell,) once it gets out of storage jail in Eureka. Because, you know... broke.

--Shannon

Seeing this sent me back to the Internet. While I can't find a 1951 catalog for the Kestrel Club, by '52 the 'Polychromatic Gold' seems to have been dropped. And I did find the page for the '51 Kestrel Senior Club, which was green. The new head badge looks to be a 1950 introduction... made it the main cover image, even.

So, in the absence of any actual evidence, I'm calling it a 1950. Which is rad.

--Shannon

1950 catalog page:


1951:

I think nlerner has your page - looks to be a 1950 frame.

Interesting to me that the 1950 drawing shows a 3-speed rear block and “Heraileur gear.” Copy of Cyclo?

Thanks, Homie!!

1950 it is, I'd say. And will say from now on.

By (three, sequentially employed,) online calculators, (1950 - 2017 system conversion, 2017-2026 GBP inflation, GBP --> USD,) I come up with $948.56 as single-speed, plus whatever the AW would have added. Which seems about right, given what its close equivalents cost these days.

--Shannon

I stopped by the BikeTopia co-op in Berkeley this evening to see if they had anything for the project. They didn't have much, but they did have a 1962 AW hub:




It's missing its oil port fitting, and it's a 40-hole, but at worst I'll get the experience of rebuilding this one... I've never had one before. If I can find a 36-hole one, awesome. If not, 40-hole 650b rims are a thing. An over-a-hundred-bucks thing, but it are what it are.

--Shannon

American Cyclery in San Francisco is having their 'Sidewalk Sale' inside their legendary shop this weekend, so I decided to swing by and see if I could find anything interesting for the Kestrel.

I was mostly looking for three things:

A high-rise stem that wouldn't took too stupid on this frame.
Some kind of handlebar that was headed in the same 'weirdo mid-century 3-speed gravel bike' direction that I'm going.
A 40, or even better, a 38-toothed, 128 millimeter BCD-having chainring.

Guess which 2/3s came home with me?

(If the chainring is one of your two guesses, well, as my boot camp Company Commander was so fond of saying, "You are wrong.")

80 mm Kalloy dirt drop stem and some kind of chrome steel 'all-rounder' bend bars. 20 bucks.

With the B17N on the looks-wrong-but-fits Kalloy at about the same height as the Raleigh and the stem at the line, we get this:


The bars dropped some rust flakes when I pulled the (reusable) grips, so they're getting a vinegar soak. Followed up with the baking-soda-volcano treatment. (It works great on grotty drains, so why not?)

With the 80 mm stem, I get about 1cm less reach than the Raleigh, which is exactly what you'd expect, given the same top tube lengths on both bikes. Looks like, even with a longer stem, forward-going bars are going to be the way. I sure don't think I'd want more back-reach.

I'd kept the OG GB bars from the Raliegh, so as I was writing this very post, right after I wrote the above paragraph, the gnomes from the Cave of Bad Ideas sent one up into my brain: "Hey, I wonder what drops would look / measure like?"

They look like this:

I get about the same reach, give or take different bars, and about 3/4-ish cm more saddle drop. Obviously, with that short head tube, full drops are not going to be the Way, at least not with this stem.

I'm nowhere near building her up, so it's fun to play around as I accumulate parts. It's all interesting... the way the details in my head change as I stick various parts on the frame, but still staying within the scope of the initial inspiration.

--Shannon

I would say yes. I put the internals from a late 60’s AW into a mid 50’s Hercules hub.

More parts, more test fittings, more pondering... more pictures.

I went today to visit the wonderful mammals at Street Level Cycles. (Who are awesome, and to whom you should give money.) Poking around in the bins, I came across another, longer, taller, Kalloy dirt-drop-ish stem. This one's a 100mm, of unknown model. (95-11 is the only stamping that might be a model #.) I didn't find much else in the bin-o-bars that interested me, except a set of Scott AT-2 LF ultra-light MTB bars. (Which wouldn't probably look right on the Herc, but I figured I might need 'em, at least at first, and they were 5 bucks, so I bit.)

I did some mocking up, and... big diff!

With All-Rounders:



With drops:



And, just for fun, with the AT2s:



Cockpit views of each:





Much-a mo' betta!

I also found a 95mm OLD, 36-hole Normandie front hub... looks to be a 'Schwinn Approved' one.


It needs some love, but it's going to rain the next few days, and I haven't pulled a hub apart in many years... looking forward to it!

--Shannon

Now I'm thinking about dirt drops... On One Midges, maybe Nitto RM-03.

Once I get my stuff back from storage, I'll pull the cheapo north road-ish bars off the GT Karakoram, which I'm going to sell. Then I'll mock those up too, and take dumb pictures, and add them to this self-indulgent build thread.

--Shannon

First cut of my first attempt at polishing a bike part. (And I do mean 1st attempt. In 40 years of riding and working on bikes, I've not ever done any restoration-type stuff. It's looking like being fun.)

The Schwinn-Approved Normandy Sport front hub as found:



After disassembly and one round of Mother's. Going to do one more and see what I get.


All the steel bits are soaking in vinegar. I just ordered the 3/16" G25 bearings, so rebuild should be tomorrow.
I also got some 1/8" balls for the BSA-style headset, so that'll get done while it's all rainy and stuff.

--Shannon

You're entertaining me, so it's not entirely self-indulgent.

You can use some 0000 steel wool on the hub shell, and then Mothers. Will make it much shinier. While you are at it, you might as well see if you can polish the running surface on the cones. Normandy cones weren't ground or polished. Put them on the axle and chuck it up in your drill press if you have one, then use a 3M polishing wheel in a hand drill to shine them up. I've done that to lots of irreplaceable or otherwise not useable cones. Bob Freeman

I'd thought about that. Only way to do it would be in a wheel... I live in an apartment. Alone, so I can wash bike parts in the dishwasher and stuff, but there'd be no room for a drill press, even could I afford one. (Or use it without serious personal injury.)

What I'd do would be to pack the hub with polishing goop and then, I dunno... sit in front of the tube and spin it in the fork? Ride it around the block a couple of times?

The parts look decent as is, so I probably won't bother, but thanks for the tip. It'll come in handy fo' sho'.

--Shannon

I need a little help in order to help Shannon out.

I'm donating this 1949 SA AW IGA to his Hercules project, but before I unlace the hub from the rusty Schwinn rim, he'd like for me to remove the sprocket. I've not had a chance to go digging through the internet for the answer. How is the sprocket unthreaded from the hub? Thanks for the guidance.

The pics not quite clear to me. If it has a circlip, then two small screwdivers can be used to prise the retaining clip out of the slot and the cog slips off. A threaded driver/cog is fussier. You can dismantle the assembly, clamp the driver in a bench vise, then use heat and chain whip.
OP, maybe a 50's hub without the threaded driver is a better option if you want to swap cogs?

Unfortunately, there is no circlip and it is definitely a threaded driver. I'll post a better picture today. I was hoping against a hub disassembly.

The appeal of this hub is it is 36H instead of the more ordinary 40H. However, I do have 40H Sun CR18 rims I can also supply.