Last Build

Two more pics:

It weighs about 26 lbs in this form, with mudguards but no spares or pump.

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It Wasn't the Last

In 2011 I was loaned the V-CC's BSA light roadster which originally belonged to Marcel Planes (google if you don't know about him). This proved to be a much more rideable machine than one would have expected (it dates from 1913), and I have hankered after owning my own roadster which would not need to be treated so carefully as Marcel's historic machine which I was custodian of, rather than owner.
This whole project may seem crazy, but what I want to do is to re-create a little bit of the golden age of cycle touring pre world war one. I do realise that having the bike will not enable me to roll up at a country pub and expect to get a pint of beer and bread and cheese for 3d. - I'll just have to imagine that bit!

I quickly found what I expected to be the most difficult components - a pair of n.o.s. 26 x 1.25" Westwood rims. Now I needed a suitable frame with rod brakes - I thought this would be easy but it has proved to be really difficult to find. Raleigh ( including badge engineered varieties of same) were no good to me because I'm fussy about the width of my bottom bracket spindle (the 'tread') and the relatively recent Raleigh frames which are available need Raleigh BB bearings (different thread/width). The problem seemed to be that I was looking for something old which no one else was interested in - this type of bike was once so common that when they started to become old no one thought it was worth bothering to preserve them.

Eventually I came across a Sunbeam - a basic model, which I am pretty sure is a BSA built 'war grade ' machine. It's a 23" which is bigger than I would choose, but it had never been ridden much and it had most of what I needed (except paint which had nearly all fallen off).

To strip and rebuild with my kit has proved to be a long job, but today it had its first road test and I can report that its ride quality is similar to Marcel's BSA.

In the form shown below (with mudguards but no pump, spares or rack) it weighs just over 30 lbs, so 'light' roadster has to taken with a pinch of salt. It's geared 44 x 18 (63") with AW Sturmey giving 47" bottom and 84" top. After today's test I am confident that it will be fine for my annual London Oxford ride (see A.G. Duckett thread).

Photos
These are not as good as I had hoped, but I can't do any more this evening. If anyone is interested in this story, I'll do some more tomorrow. Note the unfussy 'cockpit'.

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