Six jours

I see your point. The bike is copied from a 1938 model which appears in a favorite book of mine and which has been on my mind for years. The saddle is an integral part of that vision, and is also a part of my "learning experience" - hopefully I have another few decades left in which to learn everything there is to know about bicycles.

Beyond that, though, the bike needs to earn its keep. If the saddle ends up working, it will stay. If not, it will join what is turning into an obnoxiously large pile of castoffs.

djb

Jours, first I am curious about the name six jours. As I live in the french speaking part of canada, I'm familiar with the actual words, but is it from a film or book title?

Re: bike. That's right, you did mention the 38 frame. I have only a rudimentary knowledge of bike "looks" during various decades, or centuries for that matter. Have always been a history nut so one day will get into learning more about frame changes and whatnot. As a tinkerer with bikes, I find that you made that frame yourself rather impressive, must be a nice feeling seeing it through the stages to completion.
Again, knowing little of 30s bikes, it also must have been neat creating your vision of the bike from the book you mention.
Cheers again.

Six jours

I made a (poor) living racing six day events in Europe, a long time ago.

And yes, it is rewarding to build and ride my own frames, though it's also a huge pain in the hindquarters! I really am just in love with bicycles and want to experience many of the types used in the past.

Sixty Fiver

Plan to go on my first little tour of the year in a few weeks... will let me break in the new half step gearing.

djb

ahh merci for the explanation. Your comment about how you feel about bikes probably sums up most of us here and our love of cycling. It certainly is in my case, ever since I was four, and its nice to see that despite some ups and downs over the years with other interests, cycling can really be a life long activity from all kinds of angles.

I mentioned to Mr 65 recently that this is what is neat with this website, seeing and hearing about all kinds of bikes.
The bicycle is such a wonderful object, efficient, great physical excercise (and for the brain too), not too complicated so that most anyone if interested can do repairs and such; and also, an activity that one can do well into the latter part of ones life (hopefully!)

aroundoz

Well said and so true. I find the older I get (now 50), the more my passion for cycling grows. I am half way joking but I do and I don't quite understand the hook (neither does my wife) since after all, all we are doing is just rolling down the road on two wheels.

I like and use all of my bikes but in some ways, I miss the days when I only had one bike and did everything on it from long distance touring to long distance organized road rides. It was nice and simple and I thought more about the ride than the bike. Recently I was up to five bikes but now down to two with.....a custom tourer on the way which I am very much looking forward to posting a picture of when it is complete. Three will be it, unless.........

swix

what crankset are you running? looks like a massive gap between the two rings!

Jim Bangs

Hi Robert,
Your bike looks great. I have a Univega Gran tour bike that I bought new in 1980 and am looking to do the same kind upgrade you did with your bike. The frame on this bike fits me great but I want it to be a little more modern and easy riding with a drivetrain and rim upgrade. Did you do the work yourself and was it a challenge? I am an OK bike mechanic to keep my bikes tuned and running good but have never attempted something like this. Did you replace derailleaurs and brakes as part of your rebuild? If you have some time could you contact me, j.bangseplumber@beyondbb.com with some tips and details of the work you did? I appreciate any help with taking on this project. Thanks, Jim Bangs

RB1-luvr

finally did an overnighter on the Windsor. Got it a year ago and have only used it for errands.

Two friends accompanied me on a small camping trip to the shore for my bachelor night out (getting married in 4 days).

we had a lot of fun, and the hangover ride home the next morning was not so bad.






I weighed it too. Holy crap, that's a heavy bike for a one nighter:

[IMG]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7085/7394414622_3baccd869a_b.jpg[/IMG



68.06 lbs

pretzelkins

I have those same panniers. I love them. I use them on the bottom rungs of the Nitto "high-rider" front rack I have on my city bike. Perfect for a lock, some straps, saddle cover, tubes, and tool kit, with some space to spare for incidentals. I usually just use one of them on my daily commute and they also get use on S24Os in place of bigger bags. They were kinda pricey but so handsome and very handy.

transporterjr

This is my Fuji Touring Series IV, that I have had since 1984, but I bought it used - so 83 or 82 model? (Click on pic for better look). Yeah it has BioPace - That's the 3rd crankset I believe.

It's wearing the same Blackburn racks, front tailwind panniers used in my 1984 x-country ride. That Rhode Gear RackTrunk was bought from the LL Bean close-out corner back before the entire "Factory discount" store(s) arrived. It would have been a demo given to Bean to get them to carry the item-$15.00 long ago. The 50 deg sleeping bag on top is from 84 as well. Brrr!

This is loaded for a 2 1/4 day, 2 night Cape Cod tour. No cooking gear. Tent fly, cord, ground cloth, inflatable mattress, Mosquito net, titanium stakes and cord was the housing. Did carry a full beach towel which I guess guaranteed cold wind on beach day, so it came back home clean and un-used. Luckily, I packed a wind jacket, fleece jacket, long sleeve wool shirt for the evenings, and long underwear and a wool hat for sleeping in that marginal bag. Even better was the warm sunny day for the final day!

rodar y rodar

^^Nice setup, Transporter. I`m aiming towards that same general idea (small front panniers + roll on top out back), but every time I pare down the load I find something else to fill it back up again
Well, maybe one of these days...

https://sheldonbrown.com/gear-theory.html#halfstep
Now ask him why such HUGE wheels on that bike...

transporterjr

If I needed cook gear or a full tent, I would have needed to replace the rack trunk with big bag holding a tent, sleeping bag and some clothes. Also, that sleeping bag was actually inadequate for the first night (I sleep cold) I have ran 4 small panniers and that's a nice balanced set up, but every bag has it's own weight, so shaving 2 panniers saves a few pounds.

swix

i meant what brand/model crankset? do they make them still?

Sixty Fiver

There are three chain rings... 48/52 and a 28 tooth granny. This works well with blocks that are 5, 6, and 7 speed where you have larger ranges and bigger jumps between gears. I know I could build up some 8 or 9 speed wheels but where is the fun in that ?

My folding / separable touring bicycle also runs a half step with a 50/53 and a 40 tooth granny which gives it nearly the same range as the 26 inch wheel Cascade and it uses a custom 7 speed block.

Will be loading this bike up in a week for a little weekend adventure...


1973 Phillip's 20 custom touring bicycle.

Both drives offer me excellent range and nicely stepped gears but you do have to know how to shift a half step to get the maximum benefit... with the larger middle ring my cruising gears tend to sit in the middle of the freewheel and this makes the drive more efficient as you are engaging larger cogs.

Sixty Fiver

It is an older Deore cold forged crankset... they are as tough as they come and use these on 4 of my hardest working bicycles.

Sixty Fiver

Another note on half step gearing:

The range on my Cascade and P20 would not have been possible up until a few years ago as the rear derailleur has to have some massive take up and capacity to deal with a 14-30 free wheel and 28/48/52 crank set up... modern SRAM and Shimano mtb dérailleurs can handle this quite well and I like the way the SRAM X series works with friction bar end shifters.

Running the 6 and 7 speed wheels with 126mm dropout spacing also means that the wheels have less dish than an 8 or 9 speed wheel... the 7 speed on the folder is a Suntour Ultra 7 which is a closely spaced 7 speed that fits in a 126mm spacing. These are no longer made but I have a shop full of Suntour cogs and parts so I can build these up and service them as needed.

Sixty Fiver

I would not say that building my P20 was a pain but when a few people asked me how much it would cost for me to build them the same bike they were a little shocked... I could have bought a Bike Friday but there is a lot of satisfaction and joy in riding a bicycle you designed and built with your own hands. Since I could do the work and have the skills it did not cost me much in money but a lot of sweat and a little blood went into the build.

After the wheels, the biggest expense was the powder coating as this is not something I do (yet) and did cover the material expenses and time to strip, prep, and finish the frame... as we do this in house I get a pretty good rate but don't expect things like this to be free and am very pleased with the results.

transporterjr

I'm not sure how much I like my 1/2 step + granny - or even if it would be officially be called 1/2 step - 50/44/28. I only have a 6-speed cog on the rear. I'd favor a lower middle ring so I could avoid the granny except for the steep stuff. I wound up with this gearing because that was the crankset available at the LBS at the time of re-build before a tour. I can't remember the original gearing - but I think it was more typical cross over gearing (if I have that term right).

I remember the gear guru (decades ago) at Bicycling Magazine always touting the 1/2 step + granny, for years, so there were no dulpicated ratios. Then on tour to England he kept dropping his chain with the large drop to the granny, and said "I may have to re-think my gearing approach." My thoughts were "After touting this for years, you never really rode this combo????!"

Russcoles11

This is my 1966 Royal Enfield Revelation on a 900 mile tour from John O Groats to Bristol. It is upgraded to a 5 speed wide range hub and drum brakes. It surprised me how well this bike performed. The load is so low that it doesn't affect the handling of the bike at all, its only noticeable on hills that you have the extra load. I used a 17T rear sprocket on hilly days and a 14T sprocket on flat days. It might be nice to have more gears but the range provided by the XRD5(w) hub was good.

Singlespeed92

That's just dang neat!!! I'd love to see more pics of it

Tansy

If one were to look up my previous postings, in this thread, of this bike setup... one thing becomes apparent. It keeps getting -bigger-. Here is the fat goose, 10 months in.

pretzelkins

Whoa! Tansy! That is quite the load. Where was that taken? Looks like Nevada. Are you a field hydrologist or making a film or something?

I tend not to go for more than week-long tours (work) and mostly do S24Os and weekends. Here's my bike fully loaded, all I really need for a week long trip.

rodar y rodar

SS92 is right, it IS dang neat! Not many triangle framed 20 inchers around.

My turn to extened the current batch of little wheelers. Here`s my Bike Friday that I just took out for its first minitour. (All my tours are minis)

Russcoles11

As Requested

For more info about the bike: https://www.hadland.me.uk/revelation/revelation.htm