One Out Of Ten Europeans Can't Be Wrong! Right?

One of the most common problems with old English three-speed bikes is that the hubs (and, in some cases, bottom brackets) have not been oiled in a long time.  I am guessing that British working-class people and farmers, who used such bikes regularly, if not daily, knew enough to drip some oil into their Sturmey-Archer SW hubs every month or so, depending on weather and other conditions.  Was that knowledge that was passed on from parents to children, or taught to them in school?

Most Americans have never had such knowledge.  (I know I didn't, until I encountered it in Tom Cuthbertson's Anybody's Bike Book.)  So, on this side of the Atlantic, Raleighs and Dunelts and Robin Hoods and whatever-other-brand three-speeds were ridden with Sturmey Archer hubs that had less oil in them than Japan or Western Europe. 

For that matter, the chains on those bikes--and others ridden, or at least owned, by the vast majority of Americans were just as dry.  One day, while parking my bike, I recognized the bike of a co-worker and saw that its chain was almost as orange as my safety vest.  The following day, I brought a little bottle of Tri-Flo with me and, finding the bike parked just a couple of spots away from where I saw it the day before, dripped some lube into the chain.

As it happened, that night we left at the same time.  On such nights we rode together, as her place was along the way to mine.  About ten minutes into the ride, she said, "My bike feels different tonight."  I could barely suppress my grin. "Why does it feel so much easier to pedal?"

From that night onward, she lubed her chain. And kept her tires inflated.  It may not sound like much, but it's more maintenance than most other people do--or want to do.

For that matter, in oiling her chain and pumping her tires, she's doing more than the average IKEA customer would ever do.  Someone at the home furnishings store chain figured that out.  Actually, that person (or group of people) came to realize that the fact that chains have to be lubed is exactly what prevents some IKEA customers from even buying a bike in the first place:  They're afraid that oil or grease will stain their nice new furniture, or simply clash with the décor.

So, the company--on whose beds one out of every ten living Europeans was conceived--has just announced that it is going to start selling the Sladda--a unisex bicycle "designed to fit an urban lifestyle"--in Europe this August.

The Sladda will come equipped with a sealed internally-geared rear hub and a cogged drive belt that, according to company literature, is good for about 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles). 

Now, of course, a bike with such a system is not new:  Trek introduced one nearly a decade ago, and other bike-makers preceded and followed them.  But the Trek District and Soho are available only in bicycle shops, as are (or were) most of the other belt-driven bikes.  Some clever marketing person in IKEA's employ recognized that the sort of person who's put off by chains or hubs that require oil will probably never set foot in a bicycle shop. That realization, more than the design or even the seeming novelty of the bike itself, is probably what is motivating IKEA to offer the Sladda.

The bike-- designed by Oskar Juhlin, Jan Puranen and Kristian Eke of the design consultancy Veryday--will also have what the designers describe as a "click system" for attaching accessories, including  a basket, a rack and a cart.  Juhlin hints that third parties might create others:  "Sladda is like tablet apps:  you can add endless accessories to enhance ease of use."

That statement, I believe, says as much as anything else about the intended market for the bike.

Oil And Mud

On Charles Street in Greenwich Village--just a couple of pedal strokes from the Hudson River and the Greenway that rims it--there's a shop that calls itself the "Downtown Upright Bike Shop."  I guess I'd prefer that to a Downright Uptown Bike Shop, and I'm sure I'd like it better than a Frowntown Uptight Shop.

In any event, Hub Cycles is an interesting place.  With its open front, entering it is rather like walking into a flea market.  It's somehow appropriate--among the rows of "Dutch style" and "city" bikes from Biria, Linus and like companies, one finds the unexpected, such as this:

The red bike behind the Biria has an unusual combination of design and construction:  It looks as if someone crossed an English three-speed from the 1930's with an American baloon-tired bike from built by, say, Schwinn or Columbia during the same era.

As you can see, it has the "camelback" design common on the old Schwinns.  The curved top tube connects the head tube with the seat tube cluster. On diamond-shaped bikes,the seat stays would connect the cluster to the rear drop outs or fork ends.  However, on this bike, a pair parallel tubes arcs from the downtube, across the seat tube and down to the dropouts.

What's really oee is that the top tube is joined by lugs while the curved twin tubes are spot-welded.  I guess there really is no other way to join them.  Still, I was a bit surprised to see such a construction method on a British bike.

The bike, as it turns out, was made by Dunelt, one of the best-known manufacturers of classic English three-speeds.  (It, like many other makers of such bikes, was acquired by Tube Investments--the parent company of Raleigh--during the 1950's.)  The head badge and chainring bearing the manufacturer's name were present, as was a faded transfer or decal on the seat tube.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the bike is this:

The hole on the bottom bracket shell is meant for an oiler.  If that sounds familiar, you probably have a classic Sturmey-Archer multigear hub--or, perhaps, some old BSA or Chater Lea pedals, hubs or headsets.  Those components--and the bottom bracket in the shell of this bike--were not made to be greased.  Instead, the oil--which had to be applied regularly--served as both lubricant and cleanser, helping to flush grit out of the mechanism.  

Such designs make a lot of sense when you realize that bikes like the one in the photo were made to be ridden on dusty country lanes that frequently turned to mud developed ruts big enough to have their own representation in Parliament.  People who rode such bikes often were far from the nearest bicycle shop and did not have specialized bicycle tools.  So, bikes and parts were designed to need "tear downs" as infrequently as possible.

Generations of people who used such bikes as their main means of transportation as well as for recreational riding were accustomed to the notion that their Sturmey-Archer hubs needed a teaspoon of oil every month or every time they rode in heavy rain or other harsh weather.  

Americans, on the other hand, got out of the habit of depending on their bikes--or of adults riding bicycles at all.  So what was common knowledge in Britain and the rest of Europe was forgotten.  That, I believe, is the reason why so many Yanks end up with otherwise-good three-speed bikes on which the gears don't work:  Necessary maintenance, minimal as it was, went by the wayside.  

The good news is that Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs made before the mid-1970's or thereabouts can usually be resurrected if the inner parts haven't corroded or rusted together entirely.  The bad news is that fewer and fewer mechanics know how to service those classic parts.

Anyway, in a rather perverse irony, the bike I saw today was equipped with a new-production Sturmey-Archer hub that doesn't need to be oiled.  That, to me, was more offensive than seeing the other replacements and modifications--including the hammered fenders, which I actually like on the Dunelt.

Serendipities

On any given day--especially in an urban area--one is bound to see a pre-1980 three-speed bike from Raleigh or another English maker.  In fact, I've owned a couple and ridden a few more in my time.

Now I'll show you one that I owned for about three days.  I didn't ride it home, even though I could have. In fact, I rode it only once.

The bike is just like this one--same color and, I believe, even the same size.  But mine was in even better condition when I got it than this one appears to be.

It's, of course, a Raleigh Superbe with a Dynohub generator on the front and a Sturmey-Archer AW 3 speed hub on the rear..  Mine was made in 1956; this one probably came from the Raleigh factory within a year or two of that date.  

The only reason I didn't ride it home is that I found the bike while I was riding down Surf Avenue in Coney Island, near the New York Aquarium.  So I wheeled the bike I'd been riding with one hand, and my new find with the other, onto the D train, which took me to Park Slope, where I was living at the time.

That was about fifteen years ago.  By then, the faded glory of the Coney Island boardwalk had faded; Surf Avenue, like nearly all of the rest of the neighborhood, was as splintered as driftwood and, at night, as desolate as the ocean that stretched from the sand in front of the boardwalk.  

Still, it had a certain charm--though not of the discreet sort of the bourgeoisie.  And, at that time, there were a bunch of semi-abandoned storefronts and warehouses across from Astroland that became impromptu flea markets on weekends.  The men--they were all men--who operated them were even more weathered than the wooden planks on the pier and, if you couldn't read their body language, could be just as treacherous.  

So, with my best poker face, I entered one of those storefronts and, among books and records that were forgotten the day after they were released and clothes that were out of fashion but not yet "vintage" (which wasn't quite hip at that time), I stumbled upon my unexpected treasure.

The old man asked forty dollars for it.  I shuffled around, and pretended to look at his other wares.  "Thirty," he rasped.

"I'll give you twenty."

We settled on twenty-five; if I'd waited a bit longer, I probably would have gotten it for twenty.  

A couple of days later, I rode it to Emey's Bikes, then located on East 25th Street. Although my steed consisted of two road bikes (one of them a tight custom criterium frame) and a hard-tail mountain rig, I was taken with the ride of the Superbe.  However, the shifting wasn't quite right and the Dynohub wasn't working at all.  I was going to ask Emey to work on those things.

He looked like a young  Dick Van Dyke with a pot belly, and talked with E.G. Marshall's voice and Jack Klugman's accent (at least, the one he had in The Odd Couple).  In addition to those qualities, Emey Hoffmann had other eccentricities that were, well, not quite as charming.  Still, the guy knew from Raleigh three-speeds:  People came from out of town to have their vintage Sturmey Archer-equipped bikes serviced.  

After I described the shifting and lighting problems, he asked to ride it.  That didn't surprise me; I used to do the same thing when I was working in bike shops.  

He came back about half an hour later.  "What do you want to do with this bike?"

"Fix the gears--overhaul the hub if you need to.  Same thing with the Dynohub."

"Hmmm..." He puffed on one of the little, unfiltered cigarettes he always smoked.

"Think you can do it?"

He took another puff.  "Wanna make a deal?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'll make you a trade."


"You mean for the repairs?"

"No, for the bike."  

He offered me a mid-level road bike--a Fuji, I think--from the early '80's or thereabouts.  I hemmed.

"Well, what would you like?"  

I glanced toward a Specialized racing bike from around the same time the Fuji was made.  It was a model I knew: I put a couple of bikes just like it together when I worked in Highland Park Cyclery.  

The tomato-red paint had faded only slightly:  The bike hadn't been out much.  The frame was made from a high grade of chrome-moly steel, double butted.  And the components were a combination of Cyclone and Superbe (but not Superbe Pro) parts.  If I remembered correctly, it was the second bike in  Specialized's road bike lineup.  

"Get us a slice of pizza and let me think about it."

One of my favorite pizzerias at that time--Mariella's--was about five blocks from Emey's shop.  I bought a medium pie; 
Emey and I each ate a slice. So did his son, who happened in.  I left the rest "for the house."

He gave me the Specialized racing bike, which I rode home. I thought about keeping it, but a couple of days later one of my riding buddies saw me on it.   The bike was nicer than the one he had; he asked whether I wanted to sell it.

"What's it worth to you?"

He offered three hundred; I asked for five; we settled on four Benjamins.    

I never told him how I got the bike.  Maybe he's reading this now.