1938/39 Parkes Lightweight

[Jonny69]

Believe it or not I still have this and it’s about to go back into daily service. I’ve not ridden it at all in the last year because the tubs are shot and I was actually struggling to find any in 25mm wide when I last looked. I had another look last night and hopefully got some Vittoria Rally tanwalls on their way. Not the best tubs, but that’s all I could justify.

Why is it going into daily use? I split most of my commuting duty between two bikes: the yellow Hobbs I built last winter and a 1980s Soviet track bike which I’ve never posted about on here. The CHOPT has been in daily use since ~2013 and I do the bulk of my miles on it. I repainted it in 2018 but it’s looking decidedly past it best again and it is now time for a professional repaint:



So, logistics-wise, this leaves me with no fixed gear bike to ride. The purple Makino was supposed to take over while the CHOPT was repainted, but I haven’t figured out a suitable brake situation for it yet. I may as well press the Parkes into daily service. It just needs a pair of new tubs and I’ll swap on the CHOPT’s SPDs since I’m going to be commuting on it. The Unicanitor has also come off the CHOPT because the original one on this ended up on the Hobbs and the Wrights is on the Herse.

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

A great story and bicycle

 

[Jonny69]

New tubs and SPDs fitted. Saddle adjusted and it’s ready to go. I even gave the chromework a polish!

 

[Jonny69]

The weather looks like it’s going to be cack for the next five-six days but the local roads are going to be absolute chaos for commuting next week. Combination of schools going back and the key road out of here is closed for seven days for works. It’s going to be a mess. I normally commute 2-3 days by bike and drive the rest because these days it’s 14 miles each way, but I think next week I’m going to be doing the lot by bike.

Rule 5 and Rule 9.

 

[Jonny69]

I haven’t been Rule 9’ing on this bike. Decided tubs, no mudguards and weak brake weren’t compatible with the wet weather so I’ve been commuting on the Hobbs.

We got a break in the weather yesterday though, so I got a chance to do a shakedown ride/commute. Here it is down by the Thames:



Despite the general rise in unpleasant behaviour from people since the schools went back, overall it was an enjoyable day in the saddle. Down by the river there I spoke to a fella who had been touring the rivers in quite a small sailing boat while in between work. For the actual riding it was quite amusing being clipped in. I’ve only ever ridden this bike in leather shoes with toe clips and being able to hack it around and skid stop was a novelty.

 

[Jonny69]

I've had a couple of braking near misses and decided to see about improving the brake. Handful of the usual commuting-related stuff with drivers not looking, but also been brake-checked a couple of times and the brake on this is not up to the job. I don't want to change too much if I don't have to, so first to change are the brake blocks. It had some really vintage Sturmey Archer blocks which were actually a little too deep for the rims:



You can see they're past their best, but they also had a nasty habit of trapping debris which you can see stuck in the surface and makes a right mess of my old rims.

I've swapped them for these 1990s style Shimano ones from the single pivot BR-1050 era:



They've always served me well and are quite soft, so they work well with older calipers. Immediately noticeable difference (good) and I had to fully put them to the test on Tuesday morning. I don't think I can improve the existing setup any more though. The system has a lot of flex in it, which I used to put down to the pull ratio of the Resilion brake lever, but the flex is almost all in the Weinmann 500 caliper. I tweaked the caliper arms so that everything is as square as possible and the pads land on the rims as flat as I could get them. I'll see how I get on. If I have to do too many more bum-twitcher emergency stops I'll have to think about changing the caliper.

Aside from that, I treated it to a nipple on the cable...



...and was repaid in turn with a p*ncture on Tuesday evening. I had a spare tub on me but I was only a couple of miles away from work. That would have meant doing around 12 miles on an unglued tub with not much pressure in it, so I decided to swing back there to put it on properly with some tape and so I could put decent pressure into it. 18 miles to get home that night.

However, I am currently DESTROYING our work Cycle September stats on 75-85 year old bikes. Currently sitting at 549km and should be just under 650km by the end of September.