Martin Rattler
Retro Guru
P1010199 by JuanM58, on Flickr
P1010197 by JuanM58, on FlickrI have, it has been suggested by some, ‘too many’ bicycles so I wasn’t really looking for another project but I don’t have a single speed machine and this looked as if it would fit the bill. I was visiting a V-CC club member who had kindly collected my Pat Hanlon after I had been forced to abandon it at the lunch stop after a crash which fractured my shoulder blade. I spotted this in a collection of stuff destined for his next jumble and intercepted it en route. It is a lugless frame with chrome plated forks and as the photos show the forks are provided with fishplates for mudguard stays but the frame has mudguard eyes on the dropouts. The frame and forks have matching numbers, those on the forks appear to have been applied pre-plating so I assume that this anomaly is just down to post-war component availability. The frame was refinished by Mario Vaz a while ago and came to me with a BW bottom bracket, seatpost clamp and some, or perhaps most of a Lytalloy headset. The seller thought that it was a Criterium model but some brief research suggests that with its 1” top tube it is more likely to a Super Course.
As I mentioned I intend to set this up as a single speed machine and obtained an Airlite 40 hole fixed/free LF hub from Ebay. From other sources I got hold of some Weinmann rims an Airlite hubbed front wheel in need of a rebuild. I had assumed that this was a 32 hole hub but on closer inspection it turned out to be a 28, so I will build the wheels as 40/28 and hope that it doesn’t look too odd.
My next mistaken assumption was that the frame was built for 27” wheels. Well it certainly looked like it to me but when I came to offer up the Hidiminium callipers I had chosen there was no way that they were going to be suitable, the drop being far too great. So it looks as if it was built for 26” wheels with generous clearances, which given its age makes sense as I would likely have been used as a general purpose machine. Due to the scarcity of 26” wheels or 40 hole 700c rims I decided to persevere with my plan for 27” wheels. Offering up a set of Weinmann 500 callipers gave me some encouragement but I would prefer parts from the correct era. The Hidiminium callipers were swapped with a set of Universal Model 51s from my Gillott Continental but the drop of these proved to be a smidgen too deep at the front and rather more at the rear; a radical solution was required. After a bit of thought I decided to machine an eccentric brake mount for front calliper and a plate to fit the rear calliper above the rear brake mount. The picture shows the Mk1 effort which was turned on a three-jaw chuck, it was difficult to turn this with any accuracy but it has provided an additional 5mm or so of reach. I got a 4-jaw chuck for Christmas, so the Mk2 version should be better and I will use some 6mm rod rather than stud to reduce wear on the alloy calliper. As no vintage parts were harmed in the making of this arrangement I can easily return everything to its original state should I come across some more suitable wheels in the future
FB Mount by JuanM58, on Flickr
Hobbs FB by JuanM58, on Flickr
Hobbs RB by JuanM58, on FlickrMore soon.
