Well friends, I have taken it upon myself to renovate the above - a 1956 Raleigh Sports bicycle. It was my great-uncle's, who presumably rode it around Seattle (the bike license is a good clue... plus the fact he lived in Seattle). It then appeared in my mom's garage, from which I plucked it out of obscurity a few weeks ago. After taking up space in my apartment, I took it out this weekend and cleaned it up some.
As you can see, there is nearly 56 years of gunk caked upon this vehicle, and slowly, with many a steel wool pad and copious amounts of my mom's degreaser, it is being shed.
Now, it should be noted that I did very little in terms of mechanical improvement, aside from putting on new brake pads and new tires. I did not touch the incredibly confusing looking three speed hub, with this silly cable connected by a pulley to the handlebar. I figured, "eh, what the hell? - it worked fine around the block." Of course, the logical conclusion is to jump from around the block to my 20 mile round trip commute to work.
Which I did.
My first indication of a problem should have been less than a mile from my apartment, when as I was going down the road, the gear gave out (similar to the chain falling off), which of course caused me to nearly fall of the bike, which in turn, caused me to bash my knee on the handlebars. The thought crossed my mind to go home and ride my other bike. But I am not a quitter.
Nine miles later, as I finally sputtered into work with aching knees and in constant fear of the gear self imploding - needless to say, I rethought my original decision.
I'm happy to say the ride home was slightly better. I got the thing up to a fairly high speed - I'd guess about 18 mph, which I think is pretty good for a 56 year old bike. The hub also started making a horrendous squeaking noise, similar to what I'd imagine an engine sounds right before it explodes for lack of oil. So, there's that - and the constant fear of having the gear give out.
But hey, that can be fixed, right? I can figure that out.
