oldveloman

This one feels at home on small winding roads - and we have plenty of them over here...

Peter

jackbombay

A friend of mine in Salt Lake City has a 350, rides really nice, but the backwards shifting/rear brake is just so wrong!

gster

It's quite natural once you get used to it.
Nice bike

jackbombay

Do you swap back and forth between control patterns? I could get used to it if I were to never ride a "right foot rear brake" bike ever again, but I've spent too much time on motorcycles, dirt bikes in particular where rear brake control is critical, to feel that my left foot could ever apply the rear brake as accurately as my right foot currently does. Shifting with my right foot was ok, but modulation of the brake with my left foot felt fairly grotesque :-/

gster

I honestly haven't really ridden a motorbike for a while.
I still have my BSA 650 (waiting for a battery)
But for a while I rode the BSA and a Suzuki 750.

I've had this bike since 1988 or so and I bought it from a very meticulous guy who lived at home with his mother. Looking back I suspect he had Asbergers.
I recall the price around $1200.00 which was a stretch at the time. Sadly, Toronto as a city has grown so much it takes forever to find some nice roads now.
The truth is, I find bicycles more practical.
I can ride anywhere and park it
I don't have to wear a leather jacket/boots/ helmet etc.
I can fix them....
They don't smell (much)
As much as I like my BSA I still don't trust it......

W.L.SOON

Does it break down often? I have no experience with British motorcycles. My Dad used to ride Norton 500 back in his younger days,in the 60s. I have been using the same Honda C70 cub for over 20 years.....the contact breaker points tend to give trouble once in a while.......😁

jackbombay

I don't think I could get used to doing that, at least not to the point where I'd feel the controls on each bike were totally intuitive.

YES!!!

I have a couple motorcycles and they are pretty easy to romanticise, bicycles are just so much nicer in the ways you list.

gster

Not known for reliability..
The 1969 Honda 750 pretty much killed the British Motorcycle industry.
Honda = guaranteed to start

clubman 

That's so iconic. At 16, I wanted the 350 Four as much as anything, within reason.
I got to ride my friends clone of that Lightning and it was a torque monster. It let you know you were alive. For the moment.

W.L.SOON

😁👍

oldveloman

That' s a very nice one. Mine is the military version. While both are BSA B40 models, they have not a lot in common, apart from most engine parts...
Right hand gear change comes from the days motorcycles had hand-gearchange. When most manufacturers started to use foot-gearchange, they simply modified their gearboxes, so, in fact, right hand gearchange is the most “natural" way...
In my 40 year + motorcycling “carreer", I' ve had many bikes at the same time, both left and right gearchange and never had problems. Hope I can keep it that way

Peter

gster

Still out there
A couple of recent Kijiji, Toronto listings

Raleigh Sports @ $35.00

Triumph 3 speed @ $100

threespeedmafia

Hercules Popular "L" with SA K5 hub (or K6)

Hercules Popular "L" with SA K hub barrel shifter

threespeedmafia

50s era Humber Sports - original trigger shifter was shot so my son added a quadrant shifter.

50s era Humber Sports

50s era Humber Sports - original trigger shifter was shot so my son added a quadrant shifter.

50s era Humber Sports

jackbombay

threespeedmafia I love that chain guard with the exposed chainring!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

And chrome fenders will always hold a special place in my heart!

gster

Another Raleigh Oddball
Branded a Canadiana, I'm not sure who these were made for.
I suspect small hardware stores.

This one appears to be a 1973 or so model.

gster

Interesting routing for the shifter cable.
Double pulleys!

Narhay

I drove to Aurora to see the $35 sports. Rims were quite bad, flaking chrome, rust everywhere. If I had a spare set of wheels i would have considered it but it just wasnt worth my time even at $35.

gster

It's hard to tell from photos the true condition.
I've got this hercules for sale
The rims are great
https://www.kijiji.ca/v-view-details...dId=1507673970

It's currently out on a movie shoot but should be back on the w/e
I'm in Parkdale

threespeedmafia

The local bike co-op had pulled this bike into a pile deemed "too much work." It was missing fenders (or mudguards) and the shifter was broken and the whole bike was covered in rust. $45 USD and it was mine. I could not pass up duplex forks, a full chain case, and the dancing men chainring. I'm guessing it was in a damp environment but not sitting out in the weather because the decals are still there. So I found some inexpensive chrome fenders that looked the part and I am quite happy with them myself. And I just couldn't cover up the chainring.

threespeedmafia

Ah, the double pulleys. We had used this configuration on our Hercules Popular step thru at a friend's suggestion sand it worked really well to maintain just the right tension with the barrel shifter so my son went the same route with the quadrant shifter on this Humber. And it seems to work well enough. I was going to install a trigger shifter but he really wanted to use a quadrant and what dad is going to tell his son, who is working on an old bike with his dad, that he can't use a quadrant shifter and then tell him he can't route the cable around two pulleys?

As an aside, I have noticed similar cable routing on old photos of loop frames and step-thrus.

cudak888 

Out of curiosity, how'd you handle that part? Looks like quite a bit of the surface rust came off. Oxalic acid bath?

-Kurt

threespeedmafia

Here are a couple of shots of my son's 73-74 Sports turned Superbe. It started life as a Sports with a 3 speed coaster brake hub. He added a twist grip shifter to replace the trigger just because. I picked up a later model Superbe step-thru and he transferred wheels, brakes, chain guard, lights, and presstube rack. The only thing he tried to change but couldn't was the locking fork. We did not realize the steering tubes were different lengths from diamond frame to step-thru. I built him a shelf and it now hangs in his bedroom, easily accessible to head out for a ride.


.

threespeedmafia

Kurt, hello, big fan of yours.

I have not tried an oxalic acid bath as of yet. And I know I will probably catch some flack, but I used a brand new S.O.S. steel wool soap pad and a water hose and lightly scoured the entire surface making sure i had plenty of soap and water. I never really rubbed too hard and I worked around the decals. I then went over it with some Turtle Wax rubbing compound but there wasn't a lot it could do. Interestingly, there was a small bit of British Racing Green that could be detected down close to the bottom bracket. Once I assembled it all, I tried a little paste wax to see what it would do. Pretty much nothing. So I took some Bick LP leather preserver and hand wiped the frame and chain case making sure to get a good coating. I left it in my attic for a few days to a week and it basically baked on there. Is it perfect, no. Does it look better than it did? Without a doubt.

Normally, I never use steel wool because of the metal fibers that come loose and are left to rust but this time I did.

gster

Somewhat OT
I'm working on a Canadian made bike for my neighbour
that's been sitting unused for a very long time.
The spindle is badly distorted and the drive side crank shows sign of
repair....


I've never seen a spindle warped like this.
Metal fatigue?
Accident?
Both ends seem to be bent equal and opposite.



Bike was purchased new from Western Tire in 1964 or so.