Cork Grips and Shellac

[caption id="attachment_71" align="aligncenter" width="558" caption="Raleigh DL-1 with shellacked cork grips"][/caption]

This past week I decided to follow the trend I’ve seen on some vintage bike blogs, notably on Velo Orange and on Lovely Bike, of shellacking my cork grips. Really, nothing to it. Just pulled the grips off the bike before they had a chance to get dirty and grimy, and put a couple of coats of amber shellac on them, letting each coat dry for around 30 minutes to an hour between coats.

If there was anything the least bit challenging about doing this, it was finding a can of amber shellac. I’d paid a grand total of $6.00 for the grips. When I finally found the shellac, I paid almost $14 for a one-quart can at Menard’s. I have enough shellac now to last the rest of my life.

It’s a great look, I think, and I took a 15 mile ride on Sunday to try things out. I didn’t notice any real difference in the texture or comfort of the grips as a result of the shellac, so that’s a good thing.

Now I’m looking at pictures of bikes with burlap twine that’s been wound around various parts of the bike and then shellacked. Perhaps because I have this huge can of shellac hanging around, I’m pretty tempted to use it up. We’ll see if I go completely bonkers. In the case of bicycle adornments, sometimes less is more.

I will say that the natural next step is going to be adding a Brooks B-67 honey colored saddle.

The B-66 is the usual choice. It was one of the two usual choices for Raleigh bikes of this era. It fits on a straight seat post. But it lacks adjustability. And that’s something I think is really necessary with most Brooks saddles. At least for me, the Brooks saddle is the most comfortable thing around, but only if you can get it set up at exactly the correct tilt. I prefer a two-bolt seat post, so I’ve got one on order. I’ll make sure that it fits okay, then order a B-67, which fits on modern style seat posts.



Once that’s done, about the only other thing I am considering is to find, or build, some kind of saddle bag support. As seen in this photo, my saddle bag is almost hanging down to the rear mud guard (or fender), and the leather straps are starting to strain a bit.

1970s Three-Speed Schwinn Project

The Schwinn three-speed “bike build” turned into the most involved project I’ve ever attempted. It began with the idea that I could simply clean up and tune up an old bike that had belonged to my family. My dad bought it at a flea market for my mom to ride, but I’m not sure she ever did. It was in a shed, then in the bushes. Years went by, in the sun and rain, and that didn’t help it much.

One day I noticed that it had a Sturmey-Archer SC3 hub, and I was intrigued with the idea of getting the bike working again. It’s a three-speed hub with a coaster brake. I decided to either re-purpose the hub or fix up the bike. Or something.

While things looked pretty good, as I got cleaning it up I discovered one rusted out problem area after another. It was beginning to look like the hub was about all that was really good about the bike. I found a bent spot in the frame. I found that the seat post and the stem were both seized. One pedal was rusted and seized. The rims were terribly rusted.



So I decided the frame was toast. I probably could have salvaged it, but knowing that it was just another ‘70s gas pipe steel Schwinn frame, I wasn’t going to stick money into it. For $10 (plus $30 for shipping!) I bought a men’s 70s Schwinn Speedster frame.

Then I discovered that the front wheel was rusted through. I had one more old bike lying out in the yard, and as luck would have it, it had 26x1-3/8 wheels as well, and it wasn’t a bike I had any interest in saving. So I pulled that wheel into service for this project. It was turning into a true Franken-bike, with parts from at least three bikes on it.

I salvaged some pedals. One of the original pedals was good, the other was rusted and wouldn’t spin. Since they were not serviceable pedals, I rooted around and found a matching pedal from another old bike that looked right. So that was the fourth bike that donated.

I had replaced the seat post from the Murray bike I rebuilt over the winter, and it had the same style of seat post as this bike, so that made parts from five different bikes.

I finally had to start buying parts. I needed all new cables, a new chain, a new 3-speed trigger shifter, a new stem, new rim strips, tubes and tires. I needed new head cups, cones and bearings. Same for the bottom bracket.

I put it all together while waiting for the tires to arrive. Here’s a photo of it as of this week:



I’m not sure I can live with a stem that long! But I won’t know until I get everything put together and tires on it and take it for a test ride. I have another bike that would be happy to swap with it, a single speed cruiser that would look fine with high handlebars.

The tires finally arrived. I did the front wheel first, since it’s a little easier to get on and off the bike right now. Everything worked great.

Then I tried to mount the back tire. No go! I had run across this issue before, and it’s hard to figure out. Schwinn had its own proprietary 26” bike wheel size that was different from other manufacturers’ 26” wheel. The front wheel worked fine, using a conventional 26x1-3/8 tire. But the back wheel, the Schwinn wheel, is 7 mm larger. So I’ve had to order a special S7 Schwinn tire for it. The tires are by the same manufacturer and have the same style, but it bugs my sense of symmetry that the two wheels will be a different size and use different size tires.

Now to wait for the new tire. In the meantime, I can replace the front fender and start cleaning rust off the back fender and the rear rack.

Rainy Day Riding

Rain, rain, go away. I really do understand that we need rain in April. But this past month has been a deluge. I was able to do more riding in January this year than in April. I'm sure my work schedule contributed to that somewhat. But the primary reason is that I've learned to tolerate riding in cold better than in the rain. This year, January was a little warmer than average, and with some sunshine, that yielded some decent riding days.

But April was wet. And May is falling right in line with April. On two consecutive days last week my rain gauge total was 7.25 inches of rain. Less than a week later, I had a 24 hour period that produced 3 inches.

On Sunday my cabin fever had reached its limit. I've been trying to finish up a bike build, a three-speed Schwinn. Waiting on parts. I finally took the time to shellac my cork grips on the Raleigh DL-1. Looking good. But I had to get out for a ride, and it was raining.

I decided that since there wasn't any lightning, the worst thing that was going to happen to me was that I was going to get wet. I don't really have proper rain attire for riding, but decided to cobble something together to get as comfortable as I could, and make a break for it.

The temperature was in the 50s and the rain was light but steady. I wore an old long-sleeve silk Wintersilk® shirt for a base, then my Specialized windproof base layer, then a bike jersey, and shorts. I wore thick ugly wool socks with tennis shoes. Put a paper thin windbreaker on and loaded up my Specialized Sirrus, a hybrid set up with fenders. The Raleigh DL-1 has become my bike of choice for short rides near home, but it is a bad choice for riding in the rain or in wet conditions because of the rod brakes. Even with the Kool Stops salmon brake pads it just doesn't brake well when the rims get wet.

I rode on the Hamel to Staunton trail, a nice flat paved section. I think attitude had a lot to do with it. The rain never bothered me. It was actually refreshing, and I'm hoping that I'll learn to enjoy the occasional rainy ride like I do the occasional cold weather ride. It was a bit windy riding toward the northeast, but I just kept a nice slow, steady pace going and didn't let it get to me.

Much of riding seems to be just that: not letting things get to me. The fenders definitely are a great thing for riding in the wet. I had some concerns about riding with my leather Brooks B-17 saddle, but I know people get them wet all the time and live to tell about it. Since I was sitting on it the whole time, that kept it a bit drier, at least until I packed the bike up to go home.

I didn't actually think about being wet until I was almost done with my ride. I realized then that my arms were soaked through to the skin. But my trunk was still dry, and I felt good, not cold, not hot. It just felt so good to finally get a ride in.

I got 15 miles in. While I really like to do at least 20 miles, and I'm at the time of year where I'd like to be doing some 30+ rides, I recognize the need to stay flexible and get my riding in whenever and however I can. It's better to do a few short rides than none at all.

I felt really good the rest of the day. The rain has been depressing me. I think of the time I want to spend outside, I think of not being able to get our vegetable garden started, and I think about the water seeping into the basement (and the expense we're going to face soon as we've decided to get that fixed).

I gave the Specialized a good bath with some sudsy water and dried it off good when I got home. Wiped down the Raleigh while I had a bucket of warm water handy. The days are getting longer now. Soon I think I'll be getting some late afternoon and evening rides in!