Squeeeeeeeeeeee with excitment

[Arch]

Plenty of mainly flat here which is not that far away from "here" and some lovely routes to follow.

If your 'here' is near the New Forest, then it's quite a long way from my 'here'. (and anyway, I'm now back in York)

This is all very cryptic...

Anyway, for the moment the saddle stays, if I do replace it, it would probably to put on a nice leather one instead of vinyl, but to try and keep a period look. If I do keep the vinyl saddle, I might look for a white vinyl saddle back of some sort.

Thinking about it, the bike's not much younger than me, if it's early 70's. I know SA 3spd hubs have a date on them, but I haven't had a chance to clean up the SS hub to see if it does.

As for being a girlie-girl. I spent a nice evening yesterday watching films about heavy haulage from the 50's, and I have a hankering for a Scammell Mechanical Horse. Another bike is rather more practical!

 

[ufkacbln]

I have put the saddle up on this thread - you might not get an offer though

 

[Arch]

I have put the saddle up on this thread - you might not get an offer though

Cheeky!

 

[HelenD123]

That's a very sweet bike Arch. Don't listen to the others. Keep the white saddle and grips .

 

[MacB]

Forget anything MacShallow says, the white saddle is soooo 70s - it's stays put.

If you change the grips and saddle, you'll have spent more than the bike cost. I had to by £7.99 grips for my £40 Mountain bike, that's 19.975% of my original purchase price - crazy money!

and there was me thinking we hadn't met

 

[ufkacbln]

Cheeky!

My humble apologies - only that thread was being so serious, and I couldn't resist!

 

[TheDoctor]

Nice bike!!
Looking at that chainset, we were quite near a place called Cottered today.

I'm sure you could get the freewheel off, get a fixed cog on and give Teh Fixedness a go.

 

[funnymummy]

I love the colours & the saddle is so retro it's positivley chic dahling - i think she's Fabulous xx

 

[asterix]

It reminds of something.. What can it be??

Ah yes, rhubarb and custard!

(Might even be a 60's bike? Any earlier I think it'd have rod brakes, talking of which if those are steel rims then braking in the wet is best done nice and early. Altho' I have a vague idea there are special brake blocks for steel?)

 

[Speicher]

I tidied up my garage yesterday, so if you wanted to keep your bike "here" you could, and I would look after it for you, when you aren't here. It is a lovely bike, and lovely colour.

 

[4F]

Nice find, exactly the same colours as my first proper bike bought as a reward by my parents back in the 70's for being able to swim 50 metres non stop. Probably circa 1973.

 

[goo_mason]

Cracking wee bike there, Arch!

You really have to keep the original colours to maintain the retro look - just ignore the rest of 'em!

 

[yello]

I like it too. I think it would have had me reaching for the hard earned as well.

Personally, I'd not concern myself with making in period authentic or anything like that, just serviceable and not to out of character to look at. It's such a lovely looking bike that I'd not want to risk spoiling that.

You know, I'm a bit sad and I like cable hangers. That bike looks as though it could have a good one!

 

[asterix]

Cracking wee bike there, Arch!

You really have to keep the original colours to maintain the retro look - just ignore the rest of 'em!

Whaddaya mean? I like rhubarb and custard..

It's very cycledelic.

 

[Arch]

(Might even be a 60's bike? Any earlier I think it'd have rod brakes, talking of which if those are steel rims then braking in the wet is best done nice and early. Altho' I have a vague idea there are special brake blocks for steel?)

There are I think, they have a leather strip embedded in them for gripping wet steel. But I'll be using her with care anyway.

There was one chap there who said it might be 60's, but a couple of other folk said they'd had one in the 70's and the couple I found on Ebay are also 70's. I will be checking the rear hub to see if it has any sort of date stamp.

There;'s a frame number of course, that might even shed some light.

Which reminds me. Walked past a trendy clothes shop on Saturday, whose window display consisted of racks and racks on which were mounted old Singer sewing machines. A friend told me a while back that you can look up the number stamped on a plate on the base (I have one myself), and find out where and when it was built. I wanted to look up every one of them! There were about 100 of them. (what a waste, I bet they'd all work, or be fixable, think of the projects in developing countries that could use hand cranked machines)