And So It Begins
 

61 years old (hoping to make 62), retired, used to work for the city fire
department, been riding pretty regularly since the early 70's (with some
long periods off for illness and injury.) The bike I ride the most is probably
a Raleigh Sports utility 3 speed, set up with giant wire mesh baskets
and Schwalbe tires on alloy MB rims. My friend Mel says that it will still
be rolling after the bombs have dropped. I hope he's right.

I'm relatively sophisticated mechanically, worked for a while as a blacksmith
in a living history park in Green Bay, WI, and live in Sacramento, CA in the
heart of California's Great Central Valley (where food comes from). I grew
up in Washington, D.C., went to Catholic schools through high school, currently
have no association at all with organized religion (unless you count Sunday
worship services at the church of produce, i.e. the local farmer's market), and
took Pat Buchanan's sister Bay to the junior prom (my one brush with fame
and politics).

I have already used the information gleaned here on using a drill press vise
to extract cotter pins and a really handy fixed cup removal procedure (using
a standard fixed cup wrench -in itself a useless POS- and a short hex bolt
with a couple of washers) with great success, and thank the respective
contributors for their ingenuity and generosity. I hope, before my inevitable
demise, to contribute as much to the general fund of mechanical knowledge.

It is unfortunate about the vulgarity policy in the rules, because those are
pretty much the only jokes I know -- except for the one about the pig with
the wooden leg. But enough about me.

Respectfully,
Michael Larmer

Postscript: By request, some recent photos of the Retroraleigh Postapocalyptic
Transportation Module. Note the carefully cultivated antitheft patina, the prototype
Chris King headset, the "alloy cranks! We don' need no steenkin' alloy cranks"
crankset, and of course, the CalOSHA approved official red fire service water
bottle cage. As you can probably tell, I really love this bike. As we used to say
in the upper midwest: "She's a good runner, and knee deep in rubber."

Welcome Michael. Glad you found us.
I can't be much help with older bikes. C&V and Bike Mechanics can probably help.
Stop by the 50+ forum and say hello to the old timers. I'm one of them. I'm 65, 66 next month. :beer:

Welcome. Now how 'bout some pics of that Raleigh?

Pictures posted as requested