Recent content by jim haseltine

Even after the 1950s too. One cone (the righthand I think) usually had no spanner flats and was screwed down to butt against a step on the axle, the other cone had spanner flats for adjustment. Fitment method was to lock up the right track nut, nip up the left track nut with fingers, adjust the...

A series 1 - I always preferred the text on the cap to the later ones with the Cinelli logo.

Yep, I still do that with my quill stems. They aren't loose by any stretch of the imagination though as even with the front wheel gripped between my knees it takes a fair bit of strength to move them. I fully intended to use the torque setting listed by 3TTT for my Evol stem (20Nm) but on...

Not a problem. In my experience the issue is (sometimes) trying to get a 22.2 into a French steerer. I've always preferred expanders over wedges but the heavy-handed can end up distorting a steerer tube with them.

"A timing light? What's one of them?" "It's one of those, locked in the display cabinet behind you." "Oh. Is that what it's called then? I've never sold one of those." I had a similar conversation (except for the display cabinet part) with a young lad in the only LBS in my parent's town when I...

I fix things myself if I can and will continue to do so while I'm able. If a job requires a special tool I weigh up it's cost against how much I'll be charged by a professional, so that means I've got a garage bench covered with specialist tools, mostly for use on VAG vehicles.

Given the current state of the market you'll be lucky to find a buyer who wants the exact spec of a used bike. I gave up trying to sell a couple last year and broke them to components - inside a couple of months all I was left with was the frames, freewheels and wheel rims and had realised more...

It probably came about because steel seat pillars for utility frames back in the day were usually rather short. Maybe 6-8" at most which gave you only a maximum of 2-4" adjustment once you'd fitted the saddle clip and had a reasonable amount in the seat tube - not that too many people bothered...

Falcon built a couple of copper plated bikes for the 1980 Milan Cycle Show. A road bike and track bike, both 531 and fully-kitted throughout with Super Record. I saw them in the factory showroom before they were packed for transport and pointed out what nobody else had seen - the left pedal on...

Yes, built (well, assembled) by Falcon and bloody awful things they were too. I saw a costing sheet for one of the better models in 1980 and the bottom line was a touch over £10. The frames were imported in bulk from the Far East and over the years production of the head badges had been...

When I was in my teen years the general rule of thumb was that a frame should be 10" smaller than the rider's inside leg measurement which put a lot of lads onto 23-24" frames. I used to ride 24" or 25" frames (I seem to recall I had a 26" Woodrup at one point) until I switched to continental...

There was a French downhill skier (his name escapes my memory for the moment) who during summer months would train in the Alps on a bike without seat pin and saddle.

Not something I'd want to do but if I had to I'd sleeve the joint too.

True, but clues like a coaster hub, kick stand and Schrader valves suggest to me that it's on the west side of the Atlantic.

That's because Flandria and it's parent company went bust in the 1980s, was bought by other companies which also went bust in turn by the end of that decade. The Flandria name was bought by an English family sometime in the first years of this century which is why the steel frames are built in...