gster

That looks to be a 21" frame w/ 26" wheels.
A smaller bike can be quite comfortable if you raise the seat and bars,'
English made, likely a Raleigh sub brand.

gster

Doohickie

True. My 24" frame DL-1 was much better when I moved the seat up. A few pics from Friday's ride (about 20 miles)


Grand opening of a new coffee shop



Houston Street, downtown Fort Worth


This sculpture recreates the final picture of the Hole in the Wall Gang before Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kit left for Bolivia. (The real picture was taken here in Fort Worth)

scale

Are the cheap 20" fenders on epay workable on a Raleigh Twenty? Has anyone tried them? I have a twenty that needs fenders and i am thinking these will fit nicely. It is hard to find 20 inch fenders. These run about $20 per set so they cant be great but really.....its a muguard/fender.

gster

Your bike is tall to start with!
Here's a 21" Hercules that I worked on a couple of years ago with a high seat and bars.
A good city bike and curb jumper.....

Buellster

that's beautiful! I'd love to fix this one up and have something unique, but I'm 6' 2".
I know the seat and bars could be moved but I fear I'd be pushing it. If its within reason I dont mind putting a tall stem and jacking the seat post up though.

Buellster

I'll be picking up one of these I'm posting about in the next few days and then I'll be posting about repairs and such like this thread is meant for. I dont mean to spam all your lovely posts with appraisals, but I dont want to get something I regret since I only have room for one more bike so its gotta be a good one. This will be my last appraisal post as I'm down to these 3.
Anyway...
First I found an AMF Hercules 3 speed with dyno lights and tail light. Its 23" according to seller and between this and the Armstrong posted above I'd lean towards the armstrong. With only an inch of difference I just like the character of the Armstrong more. That one inch could be a big a difference though.
I also found a bike on the taller end. It is a swedish 3 speed and I frankly dont like the sound of that given the price and rarity of swedish bottom brackets and quills. I know crescent has a bad reputation in the road biking community for being heavy, but that's not the worst thing for a 3 speed.
seller says its a 25" frame, which may even be too tall for me.
what was the reputation of crescent for 3 speeds? He only wants 35 dollars and if it would be a good starter bike I'd be happy to ride it around, but I fear is be biting off a lot to chew.


23\" AMF


MCB Crescent 3 speed

BigChief 

I'm 6' tall and I made a 21" frame work for me by using a Sunlite Touring stem. It's a good 3 1/2" longer than the Raleigh stem and is available in 22.2mm to fit the Raleigh fork. It also has a longer neck than the Raleigh stem which makes up for the loss of reach you get from raising the bars higher. It does have a 1" clamp so you need a 1/32" or so shim to hold the 15/16" Raleigh handle bars. And you need to make all new custom length cables. Here's mine.

Buellster

good to know!
as it stands I'm looking to check out and likley get the Armstrong tommrow. I just found the two above and wanted to ask about them just to have some comparison points.
did you ever have any luck with your dyno hub?

Buellster

Ouch... Armstrong sold.
looks like its between the herc and the crescent

BigChief 

I sent away for the LED bulbs and the xgen2 regulator. Wow, expensive. At least I'm in love with the bike. Everything in the circuitry is working and with solid continuity. Now I can tell that the switch is left/on middle and right/off. The 3rd position must be for the battery pack option they offered back then. One last bug to fix. The plastic lens on the tail light won't thread securely into the shell. The threads don't look too bad. Can plastic shrink? For whatever reason it won't hold. It had a bit of falling off electrical tape on it. Lucky it diddn't get lost. So now I need to devise some method of securing the lens onto the shell.

Buellster

yeah they aren't cheap but from what everyone says it's quite worth it.
as for the lens a little trick I've used on plastic covers is to wrap electrical tape around the ridges. The tape compresses and fills the threads while pushing up on the raised points. A few layers, maybe even just one, is sometimes enough to get the threads to work with each other. Sometimes it stays in good as gold, but it's good to check on it because if it's more of a compression fit than a threaded one itll pop off on bumps.
also the electrical tape isn't conductive so it wont burn up.

Lawrence_S

I'm sniping these photos from the Craigslist ad. Unfortunately, I'm the last person that would know about such esoteric things, being such a Noob. However the seller said in his ad the bike was fitted with front and rear drum brakes and I assumed he had it wrong and they were rod brakes, but I'm not seeing any brake stirrups. Could the headlamp have been totally battery powered at some point? He says the headlamp works. Such a thing as dynamo hub with drums? So much to learn...

gster

I'd opt for the Hercules.
I had a Crescent through here a couple of years ago and didn't care for
the bottom bracket. It also had a bent frame so that project was abandoned.
https://threespeedmania.wordpress.co...another-bitsa/
At 6'2" I think you should hold out for a taller bike.
They're out there, you just have to find one.

Buellster

thanks!
bottom bracket is my biggest concern with the Crescent.
I think a 24" is just right. So i may be able to swing the 23". But its likley a good idea to hold out...

BigChief 

I think at 6'2" a 23" Sports would have enough adjustment in the standard seat post and handlebar stem to fit you. With the stem, you can raise it until the expander is just below the threaded section of the fork tube. These fork tubes don't have a keyway cut into them so they are quite strong. The seat post is even less fussy, plenty of adjustment there. There's plenty of 23" roadsters out there and you can spot them in the ad photo easily.

ascherer 

Another admirer. I love mt Sports, but I would like to make me one of these from a Super Course or Gran(d) Sport(s) or even a Fuji S10 or S12.

Cute Boy Horse

Ahaha I should've spotted that was a drum brake! Saw the handlebar rods, didn't bother to follow my eyes down.

I know Raleigh had some headlights with bottle dynamos built in, early on, as a complete unit. I think this might be one of those, but I've never seen one before. It'd explain the looks.

BigChief 

Looks like this bike may have a KB hub. I'd love to have one of those to tinker with. Here's a shot of the 1934 catalog.

Lawrence_S

It can be yours, BigChief! It's for sale on the Charleston Craigslist (not my ad, not my bike.) See my link to the sale in the initial post about this bike. Very pricey though. I've asked the seller for the approx. age, but he's not responded.

Lawrence_S

I guess that's what the extended vertical covers coming out the bottom are for? Hides the dynamo traction wheel?

Lawrence_S

Interesting the K.B. shows what looks like a cable actuator, while the craigslist bike looks like it's rod operated from the original rod brake mechanism. An early retrofit?

BigChief 

I don't have much experience with these older Raleighs. Only because I don't think many were imported here before the war, so in all my years of hunting old bikes I've never run across any. Judging from the quadrant shifter and the flattened fork dropouts I see this looks to be from sometime in the 1930s. Most every pre war bike I've found was American, single speed, coaster brake, usually too small and not much fun to ride so they never came home with me.

Johno59

I been trying to assess the age of a Rudge left in a loft by a returned WW2 US veteran on another thread. The bike looks brand new. One of Rudge's marketing slogans was "Rustless Rudge" - nobody can deny looking at that specimen.

Anyways my 1934 Raleigh has a no date SA hub like the Rudge but what was has that got to do with your LED purchase I hear you ask?

Unbeknown to me ​​​​​​my front hub is a 1936 12 volt Dynohub. The funny no buttons twist and go spoke lacing flagged the possibility. I don't know whether it's recommended but my LED bulb is permanently on and I've ridden it twice a day for 2 months with 12 volts thru it and no problems - like I said earlier, it flashes but I prefer that.

BigChief 

12 volt? That's interesting. Usually, 12 volt is associated with more modern electronics. We'll see how my Dynohub works when the LED bulbs come in. Right now it is wired correctly and all the contacts are good but the 6v .5amp bulb is quite dull. I'm hoping that the .3amps out of spec is my whole problem. Rudge? Other thread? gotta check this out before I get back to work.