Come quick! Joonya's been shot! (blasted)

 Like I said in the last post, I've been wanting to do Joonya up; he's served me well as a tourer for the last year, so he deserves a little tarting up. Not only that, he looks like he could lose a few pounds (this is all starting to sound a bit Gok Wan... maybe I'll hold Joonya up to a mirror when all this is done, so he can gasp and then burst into tears at how amazing mirrors are). 

 The paint job on the frame was in pretty bad shape (this being a bike from the 70's), so I figured that had to go. Replacing it however would mean a new coat of paint (or rather powder), and I couldn't pick a colour I know I'd be happy with for ever and ever. So how about no colour? Strip the paint off, but then leave it. Bare, steel tubing. Industrial; mean looking; and let's be fair; shiny and nice. Add to that all-black componentry, and you're somewhere near the bike that's in my head right now.   

 So I looked it up, and various forums showed people had either tried, or enquired about, a similar thing. One obvious pitfall brought up was that steel rusts. The main solution seemed to be a clear lacquer or powder coat over the bare metal; that seemed feasible enough, until I rang Armourtex and I was told that they'd spray the bike with some sort of (can't remember exactly what he said) primer first, so I wouldn't get the desired effect. Plus the more I looked into it, the more I read that it was highly likely the clear layer would eventually be compromised (by a chip or a crack), and the water would get in, letting rust spread under the clear coat. Any attempts to wire-wool or brillo pad this rust off, would mean compromising even more clear coat; I'd be back to where I started. 

 This one guy then explained how he'd used Ankor-Wax though. Ankor-Wax is a thick "Rust-proofing and protection system" (it's a wax, then), that seems to be mainly used on old VW's, to maintain their rustbucket patina without letting it go too far. Basically the big pro of using a wax is, although the bike will be fairly well protected for the time it spends outdoors (which is only usually once a week), if when rust does appear, I can just wire-wool it off, and reapply more wax. 
 

I could only find the Ankor-Wax in a 5 litre tub, so I'm pretty much set for life

 The main con with Ankor-Wax is apparently that it can dry thick and gets tacky in the sun; my ego is putting this down to them doing it wrong, and that I'll be able to put it on thin enough to buff it up nice. If it all goes horribly wrong, I'll be sure to post a picture of my greasy knees. 

 Anyway, I started taking the paint off with a wire wheel on my angle grinder, and it started to look pretty lovely and shiny.

The head tube/top tube lug after a spot of wire wheeling; came out pretty tasty

 The problem was, Although I could strip the main tubes, I couldn't get the grinder into the smaller corners, like up into where the seat stays join the seat tube. I could have spent a bit on getting the right tools, but after asking around I decided to go get it shotblasted at Elgamec near Aldershot.
Today was the day I picked it up, and even though I knew what to expect, I still found it pretty impressive.

Taken at the train station this morning on the way back from Elgamec. Unwrapping it on the platform like a kid at Christmas

 The funny thing was to see the brazing of the lugs and tubes in all its glory. Well, I say glory; clearly this was a braze that was meant to be hidden away from the world. I know it's a box-standard Viscount and we're not talking about Reynolds/Columbus tubing, put together by a master builder but Jesus; this ain't a pretty bike up close!

No the prettiest brazing I've ever seen, but on a dented, bent old frame like Joonya, it's sort of fitting

 The frame also has a matte sheen to it from the blasting, which leaves the surface lightly roughed up. I've no idea how matte or shiny it will be once the wax goes on, but I've decided to try polish it up a little. I'm not putting all my time and effort in to get some mirror finish, because I do think the wax will dull it a little, so I figure I'll just lightly sand it down (with very fine sandpaper and wire-wool) enough that it reflects a bit. I experimented a little today on the forks, and it doesn't take too much to bring out enough of a shine that it reflects colour.

Hard to show in a picture, but a quick polish with 600 grit sanpdpaper and steel wool on the right fork blade gave it a nice shine

 This polishing will still take time, especially in the crevices, but I figure it will be worth it, and I've definitely got time as I need to spread out the all-black parts I'm buying!

Joonya!

  It was only once I started scrambling round my computer for photo's that I realised I hadn't really taken any of Joonya. Bought sometime in Autumn 2012, Joonya is my splendid lugged steel road bike, the Viscount Indy 500. This is the most profile shot I could find:

The only full-profile shot of the bike, not obstructed by some tit riding it

  That picture was taken about a year later in 2013, by Harry (Of Halfords Commodore stripping fame) as we and Daryl rode from Pisa, Italy to Split, Croatia last September.

  The Viscount Indy 500 is a 10 speed with a steel lugged frame fit for 27" wheels. I've no idea what components were original, or what was replaced by the previous owner, but here's how I found it:

• Steel rimmed 27 x 1 1/4" wheels with high-flange Shimano hubs and QR skewers; 
• 5-speed (14-16-18-21-24t) Regina Corsa freewheel;
• SR Apex 750mm cranks with 52t & 40t chainrings;
• Weinmann 610/750 centre-pull caliper brakes;
• Shimano Del-50 brake levers with suicide levers;
• Shimano 600 Rear Derailleur;
• Shimano Uniglide 500 Front Derailleur;
• Shimano LB-100 'ALMI' band-on downtube shifters

  The steel rims were a little bent (and they were steel), so I immediately bought some replacement alloy Rigida's from SJS Cycles, some spokes from Spoke Save, and laced up the byooootiful high flange hubs. My inexperience and naivety in the world of old 70's bikes meant that I didn't even consider changing to the modern standard 700C rims, and I just went for a straight like for like replacement. Probably fortunate though, as my brain probably wouldn't have been able to comprehend the issue of trying to get the brakes to reach a slightly smaller 700C wheel.

Oooosh; check out those flanges

  Due to the name (Indy), the running joke was to put do an abysmal stellar Sean Connery impression, and quote the line from Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail "Indy was the dog's name!".
... OK so that actually wasn't the line from the film, but my memory's poor and "We named the dog Indiana!" doesn't work as well. Either way, the Viscount became known as Joonya!, with Sean Connery's accent embedded for eternity.

 Originally when I bought the bike, it had some fairly ratty tyres, and some slowly unravelling black cloth bar tape. The tyres I straight away replaced with some cheap Michelin World Tours, and the bar tape got gaffer-taped down so it didn't flap about.
Over the next few months into early Spring 2013, a few more bits and pieces got replaced as I decided to keep it a 'traditional' old roadie:

• New handlebar tape;
• Some Velo Orange quill pedals with MKS toe cages and leather straps (these cages were particularly questionable due to the amount of 'toe overlap' I already had with the front wheel... something I became aware of when I clipped my toe on the tyre going round a sharp corner, which oversteered the wheel and sent me flying to meet the ground. Lesson learnt; when turning left, keep the right foot at the back/bottom and vice versa);
• A longer Valvert seatpost so I could stretch my legs, decked out with a lurrrvely Selle San Marco Regal suede saddle, which my bum slowly buffed to a sheen over the first 1000 miles;
• A 130mm Cinelli stem - the frame is pretty compact, so an extra 30mm gave me a more 'normal' reach for my size, plus more control (or less 'twitchiness', that can come with a shorter stem as the handlebars are closer to the headtube);
• 27" x 32mm Continental Gatorskin tyres - Gatorskins are renowned for their resistance to punctures, and even though they were supposed to be the same size, they were a lot slimmer than the balloon tyre Michelins, which left so little clearance with the frame they rubbed at any sign of a wobbly wheel.

  My other bike was (and still is) Mighty Martha II. But if she was for getting me to work or pootling around Guildford, then Joonya was for stretching my legs as far as they'd go. I got into road biking, and spent a lot of weekends out in the South Downs, blowing out my arse trying to go up hills. It was also around this time when me, Daryl and Harry decided to take a trip out cycling later in the year; they'd already done a trip from the Hook of Holland all the way down to Nice 2 years previous, but for me this was a whole new ball game. 60-70 miles training rides were a weekly occurrence through a particularly hot summer, and I'd messed with Joonya's gears and brakes so much that I knew every little bit of chrome and alloy of that bike.

...well, except for the fact that the headtube had been bent at an angle, and I'd never once noticed...

  I only realised when the bike was in a stand and the toptube was at eye-level; the previous owner had clearly collided with something, pushing the headtube to a more vertical angle, and slightly kinking the downtube and toptube in the process. Mild panic set in as we were set to leave for Italy in a few weeks, until I realised I'd never actually known the bike to be any different; I'd dragged the bike around the home counties for hundreds of miles over the past months and it had been fine, so why worry? Joonya's a bit banged up, but he's clearly a tough old bastard.

  So, I changed the cables (Jagwire) and handlebar tape (Bontrager) to a bright yellow, and decided to tart Joonya up a bit. By this time, I'd had frame's powder coated, but I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do with this bike. So for the mean time I took to hand painting enamel bits onto it for kicks:

Sadly, it's this sort of elegant cursive that's dying out in the modern world...

  I also decided that if I was to wear a helmet (I bought one in the run up to leaving for Italy), it'd have to match:

Science has proven that the lightning bolt decal can improve both speed and acceleration, and is markedly more effective than the 'go-faster' stripes of yesteryear

  

  And so, off we went and spent 2 weeks in September cycling from Pisa, across the body of Italy via Florence and Forli (by way of the stonking Passo del Muraglione), then up and around the coast of the Adriatic, through Slovenia, and down the Dalmation coast into Split. 

Joonya: A mighty steed. Picture taken on the D54 near Obrovac, Croatia

  The whole ride was a hell of a lot of fun, and save for a few broken spokes in the rear wheel Joonya ran beautifully; we had to stay an extra night in Trieste to have the spokes changed, which due to the language barrier (and some very unhelpful, effete staff) would have been near impossible had it not been for Massimo, the bike builder extraordinaire at Cottur Giordino Sas.

Unfortunately, an old problem I'd had with my rear wheel that I'd never fixed was that there weren't enough spacers on the axle, and without a washer on the outside of the frame, the QR skewer wouldn't tighten up enough (if the washer had been on the inside of the frame, the rim would have been improperly dished, with the tyre being about 2-3mm off-centre). With all this broken spoke business, I'd misplaced the washer, and had to make a "ghetto spacer" out of electrical tape and folded paper, which lasted me all the way through Slovenia and Croatia.

Wheel fixed and true, ghetto spacer on, ready to ride another 300 miles

  Since Italy-Croatia, I've been wanting to properly 'do-up' Joonya and make him into a racier version of his old self (like putting Nike Air Max's on your Grandad); I plan to keep the Shimano parts for another project, but I can't let go of Joonya just yet.

Mighty Martha II v2: Martha gets a new coat and loses her threads

 2013 took its toll on Martha. For one, I had a fall last spring, where I managed to twist the forks (somehow without messing up the wheel). I bent them back with a crowbar but it was never fully correct, and meant the left cantilever pad was ahead of the right. Cantilevers at the best of times are an arse to set up properly, so this just made it even harder.
Also, as I mentioned in the last post, the derailleur was always a little 'clicky' on the mid to high gears. This wasn't a huge problem, but no matter how many times I set it up, it was never 100% and always bugged me a little.
Top this off with me not taking the time to clean the dirt and grime off from daily rides through a wet autumn/winter, and she was getting to be in a bit of a state.

Mighty Martha II, before being ridden for a year more or less every day

 So, last winter I decided to take her apart, and sort out as much as I could. For one, the bottom bracket had never been serviced by me, and one of the cups had frozen into the frame over the years (to the point I couldn't get it out with PlusGas etc, and had to take it to the local shop where I get my wheels trued).
For two, I looked up the whole gears clicking thing, and diagnosed that it was because the derailleur hanger wasn't straight. The bikes had countless knocks, not to mention the time my housemate put the derailleur through the wheel, so this wasn't surprising. 
So, I got myself a Cyclus Gear Hanger Alignment tool from Wiggle. The hanger was definitely bent inwards a little, so it being a steel frame, it was just a case of carefully bending it back, using the tool as a lever.
 
 As much as I liked the Marin matte grey finish, it picked dirt up really easy and was rubbing away where I'd attached a big heavy chain lock to the top and down tubes. Plus my Halford's "Truck Bed Liner" paint job on the forks and handlebars wasn't up to much, and didn't take a lot to scratch off, exposing the steel to the elements.

The rattle can paint job wasn't doing anyone any favours, and the rough matte texture was a nightmare to keep clean

  
 So off I went to Armourtex Cycles in Hackney. I'd had one frame powder-coated by these guys before (the Raleigh Misty, which will get its own post once I've taken some pictures of it built up), and I was pretty pleased with the results. Price-wise, it doesn't seem much different from other places I've been to (£77 for a colour coat and then a coat of lacquer on a frame and forks), but the colour range is impressive, and they come highly recommended on most bike forums. 
Anyway, I chose a grey colour (can't remember the RAL number) and clear lacquer for the frame and handlebars. Like I said, the forks were twisted, so I decided to replace them.

 Another bugbear with the frame was the rising quill stem. Basically I think it's ugly as shit, and was the thing stopping my handlebars from being even lower. 
 

The original Marin quill stem, the dirty mess that it is

 A good looking quill stem for a 1 1/8" steerer is hard to come by, and one that has an acute angle like that on a 1" road stem is rare to the point I don't even think they exist. 

This road style of stem would have been nice, but finding one to fit a 1 1/8" steerer tube is rare

 Granted, I could have used a shim to pad out the steerer tube and used one of these road quill stems, but I really don't like the idea of relying on a shim, especially if it's really only for aesthetic reasons. 
So, with forks that needed replacing, and a stem I want to send to the depths of hell, what better time to go threadless!
 I ordered some cheap, threadless Raleigh forks with cantilever bosses from Freemans Cycles. Obviously this meant the Marin's original Ritchey Logic threaded headset was redundant, so that's been relegated to the spares box, and replaced with an FSA 'The Pig' headset from Wiggle. 
The threadless stem was a little harder to come by; most newer mountain and road bike handlebars are thicker in diameter than the bars I'm using, and this change must have come around the same time that everyone went threadless. There's not much of a market for a threadless stem that clamps onto 25.4mm or 26mm bars (the standard now I think is 31.8mm). I did find a road stem in the end though (again on Wiggle); the Deda Logo. Ironically, it was the logo on it that I didn't like; a cheap looking pillow-embossed sticker that had no place on a steed such as Mighty Martha.

Uggo logo sticker (purple and silver??)

 So, I got back on eBay and found a brass button the same size diameter, filed the back off, glued it onto the face plate where the sticker had sat, then sprayed some black paint over it. 

Because it wasn't primed, the paint has run off the skull and crossbones profile, which I think looks pretty cool

  
 Thaaaat's more Martha! Now to build up the rest of the bike.

Oooooh, baby

I replaced the bottom bracket with a sealed cartridge, and I've yet to give the pannier rack a lick of paint before I stick it back on.

The truck bed paint's already starting to scratch off, but even scratched it looks less out of place than if it was the original silver/alloy colour

 Although I kept the same crank arms (and primed and painted them with the leftover Truck Bed Liner Paint), I found a 44t Stronglight track chainring on Amazon to replace the original chainrings. I also removed the front derailleur I was using as a chain guide, and added the biggest bash ring I could find for that Bolt Circle Diameter (BCD); An FSA Chain Pimp.

The indexing now works great since I straightened the hanger

I also changed the brake setup. I replaced the annoying cantilevers with some Avid Single Digit 3 V-brakes; a massive improvement in my eyes, and a hell of a lot easier to set up the pads. 

Dual compound Kool Stop MTB pads

  I also replaced the levers with some Avid Speed Dials. This was more of an aesthetic decision as they're black and not silver. 

For me the 'speed dial' seems a bit of a gimmick; i don't really see much of a different in the lever action

 

I'm pretty sure the fascination with the skull and crossbone came from Danny from the Bash Street Kids' jumper

  
I also replaced the cables, and added some rubber skull-shaped (naturally) lights from On One/Planet X to the frame; they're not great (I've used them before and they tend to fail after a short time, especially when wet), but they're very cheap and make for good emergency lighting if I get caught short without my normal lights. Also (I hope I don't jinx myself), I've found that because they blend into the bike, they're less likely to be stolen.

  So, Mighty Martha II rides again. I think I've addressed every issue I had with the original build, and for me, we're nearing perfect bike status. Aggressive as hell, fast when it comes to it, but still comfortable and practical in a city. The styling is pretty divisive between my friends, but sod them, it's clearly cool as shit.  

Mighty Martha II: The marvelous Marin and mother of the messinaboutin'

 When I moved to Guildford 2 years ago, I either had to walk everywhere or take the bus. The walk to work takes 25 minutes. To the supermarket takes 45. I decided to get a cheap bike off eBay (of course) to speed up the situation. I can't remember where I went to pick it up, but I got a steel frame Marin Palisades mountain bike from the early 90's ('92 I think).

The '92 Marin Catalogue page for the Palisades Trail

 I didn't take any pictures of it, as I didn't realise I was going to get so into bikes, but here's the original picture from the eBay listing:

The original eBay picture

 I specifically remember the ride back home from the train station, laughing to myself at how walking was for chumps.

The bike itself was OK for the me back then; it started; it stopped; it turned; it was all I needed. Over the last two years I've become such a snob that I'd probably have to adjust and oil everything before I sat on it.

 The tyres were rotting away so they were the first thing to be replaced, and then the crappy plastic cantilever brakes. Then one of the crappy plastic pedals split down the spindle and I replaced them with huge FireEye platform pedals.
As you can see from the above picture the saddle was torn up, so that and the seatpost got replaced next with a swish San Marco Rolls saddle; the brass trim couldn't have looked more out of place on a luminous green and matte grey mountain bike frame, but by then I had some ideas forming about what I wanted this bike to be.
Then came the pannier rack so I didn't have to carry my shopping back home in a hiking rucksack (Godsend).

 The gears never really worked properly and were always skipping so I used it more like a single speed. Something in the left gear shifter had snapped so I never changed the front rings anyway.
I remember the sad, sorry night a month or two after I bought it, when my housemate borrowed the bike to nip to the shops. I'd forgotten to tell him to be careful changing gear, and a few minutes later he dragged the bike back in the house. He'd tried changing down gears, and the 'low stop' on the rear derailleur had been way off. The derailleur had gone into the wheel, and the spokes had pulled it all the way round. I was back to walking around like a chump for a few days...

 I ordered a cheap Shimano Alivio derailleur, and fit it to the bike to the instruction. It never worked quite right in the mid to high gears, but at least the stops were set!

 So I started getting a taste for replacing parts, and generally speaking, bike messinaboutin'.
By summer, I'd decided to radically change the bike; It was a work bike I used on some relatively flat roads. I had no use for such low gears, and as I'd got fitter I started getting a bit addicted to the speed I could put out. My saddle was getting higher and higher and I was constantly grinding away in my top gear, but I was still on a crappy old mountain bike. I needed to be faster and lower and cooler and better.

 At around the same time, I was going to custom motorbike mags and sites for inspiration. Fridays after work were set aside for beer and BSH. I've always loved the old-style custom bobber look on a motorbike, but it'd have me sat a little too comfortable if I wanted any speed out of a bicycle. There was the cafe racer look, but it was a little too clean for me. Then I came across pictures of old boardtrack racers from the 20's.

Boardtrackers were used to race round a track ... made of boards

It was perfect. It was bloody perfect. The stance was low down enough that I could really stretch out and have a proper go pedalling; and it was from a time when motorbikes actually resembled bicycles. I got to work sorting out parts.

 I'm obviously not the first person to try this (Rat Rod Bikes can attest to that), so parts were easy to come by once I knew where to look. 
The main change in the shape of the bike was the handlebars; they almost look like shallow, splayed out dropbars. I found out through blogs like Lovely Bicycle! that the best way to do this was to get some normal old cruiser handlebars and turn them upside down. 

A mock up of the bars I'd bought; these to be precise

The cables weren't long enough for the brake levers to bit on the bars, so my trial run around the garden was "interesting"... 

I was on my way, but still needed  to sort out the colour. The matte grey was great, but the luminous green had to go; I stripped the paint with a wire wheel, and primed and repainted the forks, handlebars and stem with black 'truck bed paint', a hard wearing paint that has a gritty matte texture.

Next the wheels; I wanted this bike to be aggressive but also bombproof, so I bought some 32mm wide DMR Dee-Vee rims, and Shimano SLX hubs. Before I laced the wheels up, I'd decided to repaint the rims. These being for rim brakes and not disc brakes, I'd heard that you shouldn't paint the braking surface as it becomes too slippy. So I decided that I needed to take the black anodized layer off, before masking them up to be primed and painted.
Looking back now, why I wasted so much time and effort wet-sanding off a perfectly good (and new) anodized layer is beyond me; by rubbing away at the braking surface, I've drastically reduced the lifespan of the rims.
Anyway, you live and learn. I repainted the main rim body cherry red before lacing up the wheels, and wrapping them in some 2.125 inch whitewalls I'd found on a German custom bike site called Classic Cycle (the same site I'd got the bars from).

Heavy as shit but byooootiful

Like I said before, I had no use for a mountain bike's gear range, so I decided to just forgo the triple chainring and keep the bike on a single chainring setup. To give myself more variation, I went for a 10 speed, 11-36t cassette, with a Shimano Zee shifter and Deore rear derailleur.   

So I was more or less ready to go, I just had to buy some grips (black, old school BMX style 'Toad Stool's), some brake levers (Shimano V-Brake), cabling, and a thinner Shimano Deore 10 speed chain (even though it's worked fine for 2 years, I regret this; Shimano use their patented "Hollowtech" chain pins which you're not supposed to remove, and you can only connect the chain up with their one-time-use solid pins. My next chain will be a KMC, because at least with their quick links, you can remove the chain without a chaintool, and don't need extra bits).

Mighty Martha II: The greatest workhorse around

After 6 hours of fiddling and swearing, I got the bike built. 
I switched the big and medium chainrings around so the biggest was more central, and kept the disconnected front derailleur as a chain guide (just moved the 'low stop' way up).

About an hour old in this picture, and already the whitewalls are smudged...

Riding it to work the next day was incredible. I'd had hardly any sleep the night before (I think I went to sleep at 4 in the morning), and it was the Friday work closed for Christmas. 21st December 2012; the day the world was supposed to end. At least I'd have gone out in style!

I named her Mighty Martha II. The first Martha was an inflatable whale I'd taken camping up at lake Coniston, who dissappeared one night never to return...
Anyway, I intended on having some vinyl cut, so I could lay the name on the top tube. The local signage company I contacted didn't seem too interested in such a small job, and I forgot/lost interest. Maybe someday.

I rode Martha around for all of 2013, and she is AMAZING. Heavy as hell thanks to the steel frame and tyres, but pretty fast if I say so myself. The fat tyres also mean it's very stable taking corners with a lean on, which makes it so fun to ride.
As for the position, I find it the most comfortable bike I've ever ridden (on short journeys). It's aggressive enough that a lot of weight rests on your hands, but the bars are wide enough that I can pull at them when I want to get going.
Saying that; 10 miles or so of being slumped over does give me some back ache, so I try to keep it to short journeys, and use my roadie for anything over 10. 

The original paint job has taken a battering though (23 years old!), as did my (poorly) painted forks and handlebars. This being a steel bike, rust is a problem, so this last winter I've upgraded the whole thing, including powder coating the frame. That's Mighty Martha II v2 though, and a post for another time.

DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP, COMMODORE HAZARD

 So as explained previously, this time last year I was picking up two tired old bikes to mess with. One of these was the Halfords Commodore. 

COMMODOOOORRE!!

 It cost me £16, and if I wasn't such a pansy, I could've probably ridden it away (albeit on flat tyres). That's a bargain for any bike, but just look at it! Golden foil decals, steel lugged frame, solid no-nonsense Sturmey Archer gears ... it's worth £16 just for the sexy brass coloured mudguards! Proper regal looking. No wonder it's called the Commodore. 

This Downton Abbey looking bastard is Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry of the US Navy: His middle name's Hazard, he's a direct descendant of William Wallace, and his flagship was the USS Lawrence, who's battle flag simply read "DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP". If Halfords had a Commodore in mind when designing this bike, I'm banking on it being this guy

 The parts on the bike are all pretty standard looking, although clearly this was never meant to be a performance bike, and to it's credit everything was in working order (aside from the gear hub, which was disconnected and thus resting in its highest gear).  
The brakes are of a flimsy side-pull variety I've seen before on old 3-speed town bikes, and the wheels are 26 x 1 1/4 steel. 

Steel rims make for poor braking, and RUBBISH skids

 If you've ever tried braking on steel rims, you'll know it's not exactly responsive compared to alloy rims. Granted, for a slow-moving town bike you can get used to planning ahead and increasing your stopping distance on the road, but the first time you try brake in the wet, or try an emergency stop, you really question why you've been given brake levers at all.

 So, the first thing I did was get online and figure out how to alleviate the situation. I first bought some 'leather faced' pads (standard rubber blocks with a strip of leather running through the middle) that were specifically made for steel rimmed wheels, but I found these to be as crappy and ineffective as the previous blocks. I then ended up getting some Kool-Stop Eagle II dual compound blocks, as I heard the salmon was pretty effective on steel, and they do the job a lot better. Still not enough braking power to lock the wheel, but a definite improvement and a safer bet when stopping at traffic lights.

 If this bike was being renovated for myself, I'd have had the rims changed over to alloy just for peace of mind (plus a considerable weight saving), but like I mentioned before I was trying to keep the refurb costs to a minimum.  

Not a bad condition considering the age

 The rest of the bike looked in pretty good nick, with only minor surface rust on chromed bits, and no real pitting that didn't come out with some wire wool and WD-40. The mudguards did pit and mark however, and even though they eventually polished up pretty great, they are discoloured in places. The pedals span freely, and although a bit grimy, the chain was in good condition.

 The tyres however, were cracked and needed replacing. For the record, trying to get tyres to fit 26 x 1 1/4 (597) wheels is a ball-ache; the size seems to be a standard for thin city-style 26" steel rims, which is irritatingly similar to the standard for the more common thin city-style 26" alloy rims, which is 26 x 1 3/8 (590). That last number in brackets is the
"The European Tyre and Rim Technical Organisation" (ERTRO) number for the wheel, and measures the diameter of the rim where the tyre's 'bead' sits. 
This means the difference between both thin city-style 26" rims is 7mm in diameter, which is just enough to mean the tyres will look about the right size, until you actually go to fit them (cue the flashback of me trying and failing to wrestle a pair of 590 tyres that I already had onto these rims).
Anyhow, the only 597 tyre I can find is the Raleigh Sport, should you ever need to know.

 I'd already made the decision to replace the teeny tiny stem with something more stretched out and comfortable, so on to stripping the bike down so it can be cleared of surface rust, cleaned, and regreased. 
Harry - a mate of mine who's also interested in bicycle messinaboutin' - came down to lend a hand in a weekend of bike breakdown fun. Because I picked up this bike and the previously mentioned Raleigh at the same time, I stripped down the rusted shitheap/spider-egg-graveyard mixte while he stripped down the Commodore. I feel he got the better end of the deal here.

Here's Harry, the smug bastard. He'd practically finished by the time I'd got my pannier rack off

 Harry stripped everything from the bike, except the forks/headset and the bottom bracket/crankset, and did a bloody good job wire-wooling surface rust off the chrome parts. Then it came to removing the cottered cranks. 

 Cottered cranks are, put simply, bloody stupid. I'm sure more a skilled person than I can swiftly punch out the cotter pins and be on their way, but make no mistake; cottered cranks are bloody stupid.

 Basically the cranks are held to the bottom bracket spindle by a wedge shaped pin (the cotter pin), which is tightened/wedged in place by way of a nut on the threaded end of the cotter pin. To remove the cranks however, you've got to 'unwedge' the cotter pin, which basically means twatting the threaded end of the pin with a hammer until it gives up and falls out. 

 The thing is, cotter pins are stubborn little bastards, and if you've read my previous posts on the Meathead debacle, you'll know that giving me a hammer and saying "have at it" isn't a sensible idea. If the pin isn't hit squarely, the threaded end can bend and deform and you'll have a hard time getting the pin out. In fact, even if the pin is hit squarely (but too hard), the threaded end can mushroom and deform, and you'll have a hard time getting the pin out, or at least you'll have a hard time ever using the pin again.

 We'd tried this cotter pin removal technique at Harry's a week or two before as we stripped down his bronze/orange Hercules 3-speed. We'd failed as we'd been too timid with the hammer and punch. Neither of us wanted to properly have at such a nice frame, however with the Commodore only costing £16, we figured there was less to lose.

 Surprisingly, I managed to hammer the non drive-side pin out in one or two swift knocks, which may have given me and Harry false hope that I was in fact the man for the job, and that the whole Meathead debacle was actually just some bad luck. 

 I quickly put that theory to bed, as I immediately bent the drive side pin... 

 In my defense, with the chainwheel being so close to the pin, it's hard to hit it square on wihtout fear of accidentally clipping the chainwheel's teeth. Either way, the pin was way too bent to remove. So out came the Dremel, and we cut and ground the threaded end off of the pin, so at least it might be a little easier to remove.

By this time, I'd resigned myself from any intricate destruction, so Harry went to work with the Dremel, while I held the beer bike

 After a bit of work with the Dremel, we still couldn't get the pin out, so we managed to nimbly unscrew the bottom bracket cups and remove the whole thing crank and all, so at least if the worst came to the worst, I could just replace the bottom bracket and crankset with another (preferably cotterless!).

 Putting it to one side for the meantime, we spent the next day stripping down, cleaning, greasing and oiling up the Sturmey Archer gear hub. A fun little exercise which actually wasn't as hard as we thought it was going to be, and definitely worth it just so we now know what a working hub should look like, given their popularity in the old town bikes we might come across.

 About a week later, I successfully removed the cotter pin from the drive-side crank (hoorah); I'll go into how in a later post.

 After that, I cleaned and regreased all the bearings in the bike (headset, front wheel, bottom bracket), and replaced the cotter pins with new ones. These new pins had to be filed down to fit because cottered cranks are bloody stupid apparently the cotter pin 'wedge' dimensions were never standardised, so it was all proprietary depending on the crank manufacturer.  

 After replacing the tyres, brake blocks and cables, I used the 70mm stem from the Raleigh Misty, and bought some Humpert Toulouse handlebars and some Ritchey TrueGrips, for a more swept back, porteur look that goes with the classiness of the gold and brass shiny bits. 

 And here he is: Commodore Hazard
 

COMMODOOORRRRRRE! Amazing what a bit of sunshine can do...

Foil's a bit tattered in places, but still nice and shiny

Original SA shifter (with the cracked plastic face plate removed), and original brake levers

  

The brakes and mudguards cleaned and polished up nicely, albeit with some pitting

Gear cable had to be replaced, as did the little adjuster barrel; strangely the original didn't allow cable adjustment

 Well there it is, the Commodore. I can attest that although it's too small a frame for me, it is a fun, cruisery ride, as I rode about 12 miles on it from London Waterloo to Stamford Hill and back last summer. The handlebars are wide and far back, and the big sprung saddle had me bouncing around like I was in The Wild One. 

 I did put it on Ebay last August but it never sold; I'm fairly sure this was down to the high starting price, which was in itself down to the Carradice saddlebag I'd attached to the back that hiked up my price. I've waited till after winter to relist this and the refurbed Raleigh Misty, so hopefully I'll be rid of them in the next few months, and can be back down to John at the GBP for some more tasty money pits vessels...