BigChief 

Lookin' good! I know you've had a tough time with the chaincase, but this bike has tons of charm. Even more since you added the saddle and bag.

DQRider 

I know it's not a 3-speed, but here is my friend Ian's vintage Raleigh Sprite 5-speed. This bike gets ridden a LOT - and Ian's 69 years old.



(He gave me permission to use his portrait here.) We did a 35 mile ice cream run today - a nice ride with lots of rolling hills in and around the St. Croix River Valley.



This was my ride today: A Fuji Royale with Sturmey Archer AW power:

BigChief 

I'm a fan of these S5 Sprites. In a way, it's still a 3 speed. Just two 3 speed hubs in one since it doesn't shift seamlessly through 5 different ratios. With the left side bellcrank disengaged, it's a medium ratio 3 speed. When you engage the bellcrank, which takes some finesse, you have a extra wide ratio 3 speed.

gster

Thank you for the encouragement. I think this one will end up more of a show bike.

dumpsterhuffy

Hello all english 3 speed fans. This is my first time posting here, but ive been lurking for some time. Ive not been "into" bikes since childhood, when the majority of my summer time was tied up in crashing and dismantling my mountain bso. After that, i briefly had a 15 speed huffy road bike, which ended up sitting in my parents garage until very recently, when i brought it out while visiting them.

Upon attempting to ride this monstrosity and finding it quite lacking, i started looking for a good bike to ride to work, the grocery, and for short recreational rides. Somehow or another I happened upon an old AMF Hercules on CL, and wound up driving 2 hours to pick it up. Not sure why it struck me as such a beautiful bike, but the lines just looked danged cool, and I had to have it. 2 days after recieving the bike, I stumbled upon this thread while trying to sort out some gear change problems it was having. I found the info I needed, and way more besides. The Herc has been ridden almost every day, from a 25 mile camping trip on its 4th day with me (on original tires, original brake pads, no seat or handlebar adjustment. I dont sweat the small stuff when I'm excited) to the short commute to work, as well as many grocery trips and joyrides. Now, it's been joined in the stable by its bigger, heavier brother, the DL-1. Suffice to say ive jumped down the rabbit hole just as fast as my wallet could carry me, and I see many of these beautiful bikes in my future. I know this wall of text would be useless without pictures, so here you go




Edited to add: pardon the NDS of the DL-1. It has the hockey stick chain guard with goofy late60s/early 70s italics, and a '70 dated Sturmey AW hub.

gster

I've put a bit of work into this one today with the intention of selling it. The previous owner had removed all the rods and levers and replaced the braking system with a simple Shimano coaster brake. I already have a nice, complete one.

BigChief 

Great bikes! Welcome to the club. I have fallen in love with DL-1 roadsters. Just came in from a glorious 2 hour ride on my latest one. This was a rescue case and it's turning out to be my favorite ride. For years I rode them with the front brakes mounted incorrectly, like they almost always are. Just recently, thanks to this thread, I learned that the front pads should be leading the stirrup, not trailing it. If you look at period catalog pictures, you can see that they were indeed mounted this way and they do work much better when mounted correctly. Notice on the restored picture I have new salmon kool stops mounted leading the stirrup.
72DL1asfound.jpg

72roadsterA.jpg

BigChief 

A better picture. I knew it was somewhere.
brake001.JPG

dumpsterhuffy

Thanks for bringing that up, Chief. But im a bit confused, i took "leading" to mean out front of the stirrup. Youre saying the pads should be mounted behind the stirrup, right in front and inside of the fork arms? Pardon the confusion, my computer it gakked and awaiting a repair so the pictures you showed were too small to see. Im glsd you brought it up though,I'm happy to try anything to improve the front braking action.

Another question for the DL-1 guys- is there anyone in the US who still sells Schwalbe Delta Cruisers in 40-635? The Local places I went asking couldn't order them for me. One gentleman did show me how to operate and rebuild the phillips frame pump that came on the tourist, which was great as I'm a young enough guy to never have seen one of the old ones in use.

dumpsterhuffy

Perfect! You must have posted it while I was typing. I'll have to go futz with mine and get them straightened out. Somewhere in this thread or in one of the tourist buildul threads someone said their brakes were "little more than a polite exception". I couldnt agree more. Still, the bike has tons of charm and I'm quite happy to suffer its little faults.

gster

Very nice work on the rescue.

BigChief 

@gster Thanks, it was a fun project. I bring up the brakes because I rode my 73 for years with the old pads trailing the stirrup (in the direction of the wheel rotation) for years and they are terrible. When I was working on this project, the correct way to mount the pads was pointed out to me here on this thread. I had a set of new salmon Kool Stop inserts so I experimented by mounting them both ways. Leading is better. So right now, between the new Kool Stops and the leading mount, the 72 brakes much, much better than my, yet to be fixed 73.
DL1b.jpg

gster

Good advice re: brake set up.
I'll have another look at my Tourist (and my Indian built Windsor) to see how they're aligned.
The Three Amigos

BigChief 

It's worth doing. Rod brakes need all the help they can get. I was determined to get the best performance out of them possible. Spent a long time getting the wheels as true as I could. Yellow Jersey sells Fibrax roadster pads, but 40 dollars is more than I spent on the bike. Even the Kool Stop inserts were almost 30. I was impressed with the way the salmon Kool Stops worked on my steel wheeled Sprite, so I figured I'd save a few bucks and give them a try. You just drive the old pads out with a punch and press the new ones in with the bench vice. Not a problem. Then, I set them up carefully. You have to take into account that the stirrups work as return springs, so the pads move in as they move up. You sync these by moving the stirrup supports up or down on the fork leg. You also want the pads to contact the rim evenly. Mine didn't. I took a strip of sandpaper, emery cloth works better, held it on the rim, added light pressure to the brake lever and moved the wheel so the sandpaper would dress off the taller pad until they contacted the rim evenly. All this really paid off well. If you compare my two roadsters, you can tell that the rod brakes went from being truly awful to down right adequate.

agmetal

I haven't had the chance to post these pictures yet, but this is something I did a few weeks ago. I was visiting my grandparents in South Carolina in July, and while I was there I got to go through a ton of old bike stuff - my grandfather is 86, and has been riding road bikes for most of his life (and still does), and has had somewhat expensive taste in bikes and parts. My grandmother (just turned 87) hasn't gone for a ride in probably 30ish years, and her 1966 Raleigh Sports has been hanging from the rafters in the basement of their house since they moved there about 26 years ago. We pulled it down, and I had it shipped up to the shop where I work in the Boston area, and did a bit of restoration work. I knew it would clean up nicely, but didn't expect it to need quite as much work as it did. My grandfather removed the axle and bearings from the front wheel and packed them in a bag for shipping so that the wheel would fit the box better (he also had an old wheel of his and a pair of NOS Fiamme rims in the box), and I ended up overhauling the pedals and headset in addition to front hub.

Anyway, here are the before/after pictures, starting with the bike as "found":







Here's how it arrived in Boston, with a little bit of shipping damage:

agmetal

....continued:

agmetal

...and after 9-10 hours worth of work, we have this bike, which, other than the fork being a bit tweaked (doesn't appear to be shipping damage, more likely something that happened in the intervening 50 years), rides like a new bike!

clubman 

Nice work agmetal. Good for another century.

BigChief 

+1 Excellent preservation work. Well done. I love to see things like this happen. Thanks for sharing.

DQRider 

What a beauty! Green always looks right on English bicycles. Not to mention old sportscars and motorbikes. I know it takes a lot of skill to preserve a bike like that. Well done!

DQRider 

It's been awhile since I've posted ride pics with my DL-1, but we had an excellent ride this morning, so I thought I would share.

Here is the trailhead for the Hardwood Creek Trail out of Hugo, MN.:



A little further down the trail we rode through oceans of corn:



A rustic polebarn always makes a good backdrop:



...as does this bright blue building:



But the best backdrop of today's ride, hands down, was this old feed mill:





I've mentioned this before, but I am still amazed by the ride quality of this heavy old beast. Once up to speed, pedaling on level ground feels like going slightly downhill. I believe that if I had to sell all but one of my bicycles, I would keep this old Raleigh over any of the others. It's that special.

Doohickie

Solo Labor Day ride on the Old Gentleman to and around Downtown Fort Worth. 30 miles of increasingly HOT riding. Had a blowout at mile 2; the tires were a little soft and I think when I pumped up the front the tire came off the bead. VERY loud bang. My CO2 cartridge nozzle was busted so I actually used the ancient frame pump. It got the tire pumped up enough to walk the bike over to an oil change place and they let me use their air hose.


This fountain commemorates one of Fort Worth's nicknames of "Panther City." (It comes from a story told of a lawyer that came from Dallas and said Fort Worth was such a sleepy little town that a panther slept on Main Street. The locals adopted the intended snub with pride as a new name for the city.)


Sundance Square- the recently built central plaza in downtown


Bridges over the Trinity River


Almost home, on the edge of the Suburban Sprawl

BigChief 

Wow, more beautiful roadster pictures! It's always fun checking in here. @DQRider Yes, there is something special about these bikes. I'm sure it's a matter of taste, but I find myself becoming more of a DL-1 guy the more I ride them.

gster

I had my coaster brake DL-1 out yesterday and really enjoyed it. Not suitable for long distance or city riding as the Westrick front rim prevents the mounting of a front caliper...

gster

Suitable cycling attire circa 1972.