Recent content by Nabeaquam

Yes, they need a lot of attention. If they toco out they’ll never stay straight, they go back to bent in the same place, stubborn. So keep em true. New ones I tension and true them, release the tension and true them again and then every day until they stay put. Generally about a week. They...

Watch the spoke tension. They’ll get soft as the washers slowly sink into the wood from spoke pul. Even carbon lined ones do this. Stutzman wood rims are built around an aluminum rim so spoke tension says. In my experience, either this fall or over the winter the spokes will get too loose for...

Yeah, that’s what I’d do. I forgot I did this in 1975 on a French bike my brother in law crashed. I straightened the frame and replaced the fork. I don’t remember how I did that as the bike had smaller diameter tubing. Perhaps the head tube was big enough, don’t recall. I replaced the stem and...

Or, you can go to extreme measures and have a frame builder replace the head tube so a modern headset fits. I had that done on his bike. It was worth it because he had to do a lot of other work, filling dents, replace the steerer, replace the drops and do a track alignment.

The bike ridden by a skeleton?

Awesome looking machine. The tires aren’t even dirty

There is no way I could ride an aero bike. I did a 12 hour time trial and watched the guys with bikes that weighed like an empty beer can, laying down, shifters on the far end of lay out bars. They had on weird helmets and shoe covers. I used 4 different bikes to get saddle and a little riding...

I love to slap my blubber guts with my knees.

All them fancy scientists with their degrees can’t even figure out what a radish is good for. They tried but found nothing useful for you when you eat a radish. I like the taste, good enough for me.

Those Phillips brakes work well. Better than a lot of modern rim brakes.

I don’t have a bucket of them but I have a few. Real vintage ones are rare and expensive. I put a real one on the late 1920s Gloria frame I built up as a gift for my sons birthday. You can make a reasonable facsimile thereof with a steering strut for an RC vehicle, around $6 each. I drill out...

I’ve tried retro fitting brake springs and such. Didn’t work as well as the original. Spring steel has a mind of its own. A po welder might be able to TIG weld a bridge. He would know if the heat would cause it to get too brittle or soften the spring temper. TIG has a little less heat spread...