A Voyageur In Astoria

Here in Astoria, as in other New York City neighborhoods, I see all sorts of re-purposed bikes locked to fences and signposts. Sometimes I wonder whether the folks who ride them have any idea of what they have.

A case in point is this World Voyageur I saw on a side street in my neighborhood.  

In the mid-1970s, Schwinn sold bikes that were manufactured for them in Japan.  Probably the best-known is the LeTour, which was basically a rebadged Panasonic Sport Deluxe and, it seemed, positioned to compete with bikes like the Peugeot UO-8 and Raleigh Grand Prix. 

The World Voyageur was a couple of steps up from the LeTour.  Both bikes had lugged frames, but the WV was constructed from double-butted chrome molybdenum tubing, in contrast to the LeTour's carbon steel.  While the LeTour's rims were steel, the WV's hoops were Araya alloy.  Both bikes had rebadged Dia Compe center-pull brakes, a standard on Japanese bikes of the time.  They also had rebadged Shimano derailleurs and hubs, though I think the ones on the WV were Titlist: at that time, Shimano's second line, behind Dura Ace.  It would form the basis of the popular 600 series Shimano would introduce a couple of years later.

Interestingly, Schwinn didn't try to rebadge the crankset:  a very nice Dura-Ace.  One reason why it didn't become more popular, I think, is that its chainring bolt circle diameter pattern, now called BCD or PCD, differed from Campagnolo's or other popular European cranksets of the time.  Ironically, Dura Ace's BCD--130 millimeters--would become the de facto standard for road cranksets a decade later.

What made me wonder whether the owner of this bike has any idea of what he or she has are the handlebars and stem.  My guess is whoever rides that World Voyageur inherited it from someone or bought it from someone who didn't know what they were selling.

My guess is that the bike in the photos is from 1973, as that seems to be the only year in which the World Voyageur was offered in that shade of blue.

Another Mixte In The Mix

Today's post won't be about Max, or any other cat.

It'll be about a bike.  Specifically, it'll be news about one of my own bikes--as if I haven't given you enough lately.

This item, though, has nothing to do with any of the bikes on the side-bar of this blog.  It has to do with my commuter "beast" bike that almost never enters my apartment.

For three years, that bike was a '70's Schwinn LeTour.  It was one of those rare bikes made in a woman's version big enough to fit (more or less, anyway) someone my height.  

(Funny that when I lived a man, I was of average height.  Now, as a woman, I am taller than about 90 percent of my sisters!)

Well, that bike was stolen.  That is one of the reasons, of course, to have a "beater" bike:  Losing it doesn't hurt as much as having a nicer bike disappear.  You buy such bikes cheaply and spend as little as necessary to make it do whatever you need it to do.  And, if you lose that bike, you repeat the process.

Anyway, I went to a few sidewalk and yard sales and checked Craigslist, where I found this:

From the information I've gleaned, Fuji made this Allegro during its 1986 model year.  The frame is constructed from "Valite" tubing.  How or whether it differs from the carbon steel Fuji and other manufacturers used on their cheaper models, I don't know--or care.  I must say, though, that the bike does feel livelier than the LeTour.  That may be a function of its geometery, which seems a bit tighter.  If nothing else, the wheelbase is shorter.

And, interestingly, this bike has SunTour dropouts with the "ear" for mounting a derailleur.  They actually look like the SunTour dropouts on my Trek 412, except for an additional set of eyelets:  a handy feature, as I've mounted a rack and fenders on the bike.

Originally, the bike had 12 speeds shifted with steel SunTour derailleurs and stem shifters.  As you can see, I took those off and turned the bike into a single speed.  The derailleurs were still operable, but the chain, freewheel and cables were rusted.  So were the springs and all of the other brake hardware.   In any event, I gave the derailleurs, brakes and some other stuff--including the flat-ish bars and brake levers that came with the bike--to Recycle a Bicycle.  And I replaced the brakes with a pair of Raleigh-branded Dia Compe centerpulls I had lying around.

If you read this blog regularly, you won't be surprised to see that I installed Velo Orange Porteur handlebars and bar-end brake levers.  I don't like the hand position on most flat bars:  The grip area of the Porteurs allows me to keep my hands in a position something like that of the ramp and brake lever hood area on the handlebars of my road bikes.  The Porteurs also allow me to use a stem with a slightly longer extension, which improves handling.

So far, this bike is working well as my daily commuter.  And, yes, it's a twin-tube mixte, so I feel at least like I'm riding with some style.  And isn't that what really counts? ;-)

Same Color, Different Fade

I like the color of your crank.

I heard that compliment while I was parking my LeTour.  Of course, I didn't put the bike together as I did so that people could admire it:  I intended it as a beast of burden that could be parked in urban combat zones.

The person making the comment added, "I've always liked gunmetal grey. It looks good with the color of your bike."

The funny thing is that I hadn't noticed what color my crank is until that person pointed it out.  Or, more precisely, I thought of it as black because that's what color it was when I installed it on the bike.

Believe it or not, the crank and guard were almost exactly the same.  In fact, it almost looked as if the guard was of one piece with the crank and the chainring was bolted to it. Of course, the guard and the ring are bolted to the arms of the crank "spider".

The LeTour is almost always parked on the street; I very rarely bring it inside.  (In fact, I even left it parked in front of Terminal B at LaGuardia for five days while I was in Montreal.)  I have long known that anodizing faded, especially after repeated exposure to the elements. But I never saw two parts in the same color, attached to each other, fade at such markedly different rates.  Or, to be more precise, I never saw one part fade so much and the other so little.

Now, to be fair, the crank is a no-name cheapie.  So far, it's served me well on two different bikes.  But it didn't cost me much less than the guard, on the other hand, was made by BBG.  I know little about how anodizing is done, but I suspect whatever materials BBG uses (in Oregon) in the process are better than the ones used by the (probably Chinese) crank-maker. And, being a smaller operation, BBG probably takes more time to do whatever it does.  Whether that makes a difference in fading (or lack thereof), I don't know.

The chainring is, by the way, a US-made Rocket Ring.  It's very good, better than most inexpensive single-speed rings I've seen.  Being silver, it has not faded.

The First Day Of Spring (With Or Without Powdered Sugar)

Officially, Spring began at 18:45 EDT  yesterday.  And--you guessed it--snow fell.  

This morning, I went to the store.  I'd left the LeTour parked outside.  She complained that I wouldn't treat a dog that way.  I reminded her that I don't have a dog.  Well, then, your cats she retorted.

OK, so I didn't really talk to the LeTour--or, at least, it didn't talk back.  But it certainly captured the spirit of the beginning of this season:

It's interesting to see where snow collects, and doesn't:

I could just imagine some little bug finding shelter under the arch of that cable.

Cycling is sweet.  If that's the case, are our bikes confections

with or without the powdered sugar?

I know what I'm having for breakfast:  waffles, of course.  

Losing Two Teeth

We all lose teeth in various ways.  Of course, when we’re kids, we lose all of them so that our “grown-up teeth” can grow in. (A boy in a poetry workshop I conducted wrote, “My teeth are like stars, they come out at night”.)  Then, as time goes on, our teeth fall out or fall apart because of neglect, diet or simply age.  Or we might get into an accident or fight that knocks out an incisor.  Or two.

Wednesday night, I lost two teeth.  No, I didn’t win or lose:  I didn’t fight.  And I didn’t fall on my face.  Rather, those teeth were the casualties of a bungee cord.

Yes, you read that right.  I was pedaling home from work when, in the middle of a turn through a busy intersection, I rode into a pothole.  Just as I reached the other side, in front of a gas station, I suddenly couldn’t pedal.  No matter how hard I pushed, they wouldn’t move. Then, I budged them slightly; they moved as if my whole drivetrain had been stuffed with horsehair.

A bungee cord I’d hooked across the top of the rear basket on my LeTour popped off and entangled fell into the rear wheel. One of the hooks latched onto the non-drive side spokes.  That pulled the body of the chord into the space between the fixed gear sprocket and the hub flange and coiled it.

The hook was so tight in the spokes and the cord so tautly wrapped between the cog and flange that I couldn’t get it out by hand.  Rotating the wheel only seemed to pull it tighter.  I had to borrow a pair of pliers and a knife from an attendant, which I used to bend the hook out of the spokes and cut it away from the cord, which I could then unwind.

At first I didn’t notice the missing teeth.  I felt an odd skipping when I applied any kind of pressure while pedaling.   I figured that something was bent and, as it was late, I crossed my fingers and kept on riding.

I made it home with my chain going ker-chunk, ker-chunk every couple of pedal rotations.  I propped the bike and found nothing bent or warped, not even a chain link. Then, after a couple of more pedal rotations, I saw 

that I’d lost two teeth—and, of course, a chunk from the body of that cog.

So, I flipped the wheel to the freewheel side, gave the chain (a SRAM PC-1) a couple of shots of oil, and everything ran fine.

The cog was generic.  Maybe I’ll spend a few extra dollars and get something better.  Phil Wood cogs are great (I use them on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear), though I’m not sure I want to spend that much, or whether they’ll fit the Formula hub on the LeTour.  Perhaps I’ll get a Surly.  I don’t want to lose more teeth.

A Wheel Disappears

If you saw my post from the other day, you may have noticed something different about my LeTour.

Last week, I left it parked outside overnight, next to the candy store/newsstand on the corner.  It’s a pretty visible corner, and people walk by it even in the wee-est hours of the morning.

But, apparently, someone keeps very different hours from theirs, or mine. 

Last Friday morning, I went to the candy store and discovered that the LeTour had been turned into a unicycle.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised:  the front wheel wasn’t locked.  Also, it has a black hub with a nutted (non-quick release), black spokes and  a black deep-V rim on which the sidewalls aren’t machined for brakes.  So, perhaps, someone wanted it for a “stealth” bike—or to sell to someone who’ll use it for that purpose.

Fortunately, I wasn’t going to use the bike when I discovered the theft.  I took a trip down to Recycle A Bicycle and asked them for the cheapest 700C front wheel they had.  It’s actually decent: all name-brand components, if the lowest-level model of each.  Heck, it even had a Velox rim tape in good condition.

So far, it’s working fine.  For twenty bucks, I got a wheel that someone trued and tensioned with a hub that seemed to have been regreased.  Good folks, they are, at Recycle A Bicycle.

Never Again--Until Now, Of Course

In an earlier post, I talked about the futility (for me, anyway) of saying “Never again!”

I built up a Trek hybrid frame from about 1990 and used it as an errand/”beater” bike for a few weeks before deciding it was just a little too big for me and giving it away.  I said I wasn’t going to do anything like that again.

Did some famous person say all resolutions are temporary?  Or is that just some rationale I’ve devised for breaking vows I make?

 

Or, perhaps, I’m just in the habit of making promises to myself that I simply can’t keep.  You know, like the one that I was going to live as a cisgender heterosexual male.  Oh, well.

Anyway…You’ve probably guessed where this is going.  Another bike found its way to me.  Yes, really, it did…just like that kitten I brought home as a kid followed me home.

Actually, I found it at a yard sale in Brooklyn—not far from the neighborhood in which I grew up.  And the owner made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.  Well, I could have, but I don’t have that much resolve.  What can I say?

So for a princely sum of ten bucks I found myself in possession of a Schwinn LeTour manufactured in October 1975.

The frame itself had barely a scratch and seemed to be in perfect alignment. However, the rims and spokes were rusty, perhaps from sitting in a garage or basement.  Those parts, and the others—except for the tires and seat—were original equipment.

I took everything off the bike, as I would have done to overhaul it.  Then I unlaced the wheels, tossed the rims and spokes and gave the tires, seat and handlebars to Recycle-A-Bicycle.

As the bike probably hadn’t been ridden much, the other parts were in very good condition.  So I decided to list them on eBay, figuring that they’d be good for “period” restorations.

In my listings, I made sure to mention that the parts were original equipment on a ’75 LeTour.   A guy in Tennessee bought the derailleurs, shift levers, cranks and bottom bracket; other buyers bought single parts.  The brake levers—complete with the “suicide” extensions—went to a fellow in Switzerland!

While I didn’t make a fortune from those parts, they netted me enough money to buy a pair of wheels.  I know, they’re kind of strange:  the kind of “Deep V” rims you might find on a “hipster fixie”, with a coaster brake on the rear.  But I figure the rims will take a beating and the coaster brake won’t require a lot of maintenance.  Plus, the bike is going to be used for errands and such, and locked in all manner of places, so I wasn’t looking to assemble a technological marvel.

Those wheels were all I’d need to buy. (After assembling the bike, I bought the Wald baskets.)  The other parts came off other bikes or were acquired for projects I never pursued.  And I got the fenders in a swap.  Someone had drilled them for a custom fitting but decided he didn’t want steel fenders.  The way I fitted them to the LeTour is inelegant, but somehow right.  Anyway, it works.

I’m not going to sell or give this one away.  At least, not for a while, anyway. ;-)