This was my first return to the project after a much longer break than
I anticipated due to a lot of travel. I was really eager to get a lot
done, so I turned up a little earlier than usual and really stuck in.
I made a lot of progress and the thing actually looks more like a bike
than a project now!
I found a saddle - the range available was pretty uninspiring. I
obviously didn't expect to find a lovely Brooks just kicking around in
the big plastic tub of loose saddles, there really was nothing that
either had a nice vintage charm to it or looked especially
comfortable. In the end I grabbed a fairly cheap looking black vinyl
saddle made in Italy, which stood out from the others by virtue of
both being sprung and having the little bits to hang a saddle bag
from. The previous owner had left the bare seatpost adjusted
ludicrously high, and had also left it in when they spray-painted the
entire frame with primer. Maybe it was a sacrificial old seatpost
they left in to avoid paint running inside the seattube and to provide
a convenient handle for moving the frame around while it was wet?
Anyway, I had to pull it out (thankfully it came right out with no
struggle!) and use a steel brush to get the paint off the lower part
of it so I could lower it to a sane height. Saddle solved!
I found a suitably sized bolt to clamp my handlebars into the stem.
It's a little longer and thinner than would be ideal, but it does the
job, I can always take measurements later and find a better sized one
from a good hardware store. The stem had a little lip at the back
which holds a nut steady while you tighten the hex bolt from the
front, which I thought was clever. Most moustache handlebars seem to
have a small amount of drop (or rise, depending on which way around
you install them), but mine are oddly dead flat. For now I've
installed them perfectly parallel to the ground, but I might
experiment with tilting them down slightly in future. It's nice to
finally have these properly installed after just dangling loosely in
the clamp thus far. Handlebars solved!
I went rummaging for tires, which was a bit of a struggle as they are
not properly sorted by size. When this project is complete or close
to it I might volunteer some time resorting all the tires! I was
looking for 622x32 tires - I prefer fatter tires because they're
comfier, more puncture resistant and work better on rough terrain, but
parts availability meant I ended with relatively narrow rims and, at
the time, I believed that skinnier tires were faster (conventional
wisdom on this seems to be slowly reversing as more studies are done -
it astonishes me that this is not something in the realm of cold, hard
established fact yet), so 32mm seemed a nice compromise size that was
pretty likely to fit my rims and my frame comfortably. I found one
32mm Continental TourRide tire with a good amount of tread on it, but
the only other 32mm tire I found looked like it was on its last legs,
so I got some random 35mm or 37mm tire (possibly a Nokian*, I forget)
for the back wheel. I grabbed some patched inner tubes out of the big
plastic tub of such, and set to it. It turns out my front rim only
accepts Presta valves, which I don't really like, while the rear rim
was able to take a Dunlop (yes, even though most American
websites/forums will very confidently tell you that Dunlop valves went
extinct in the 80s and you will never find one outisde a museum, they
are in fact alive and well in various parts of the world, including
Northern Europe, where you can even buy them in supermarkets). I will
have to see if it's safe to drill out the front rim, but for now I'll
live with it. Getting the 32mm tire on was the hardest tire
installation job I've faced yet, but it's also the thinnest tire I've
installed yet, so perhaps that's the be expected. Eventually I got
them both on. Tires solved!
At this point I was tremendously excited at the prospect of my first
ever test ride. There are no brakes at this stage, of course, but a
slow, careful ride along flat ground should be safe enough. As I
installed the front wheel, though, I noticed that it had just a
ludicrous amount of play in it, meaning it wobbled badly from side to
side. The bearing cones were *visibly* far too lose. I don't quite
know how this happened, but putting a new axle in that wheel was one
of the very first things I did on this project months ago, so there's
been plenty of time for it to come loose. I was kind of dismayed to
notice this, as it wasn't *really* ridable in this condition, but the
co-op was closing very soon and I wouldn't have time to fix the wheel.
I probably shouldn't have, but I had been looking forward to it all
night, so I gently rode the bike for about 10 metres. Obviously, it
didn't feel the greatest, and I shouldn't have bothered, but one thing
it did teach me was that the stem needed adjusting. The previous
owner had "slammed" it (pushed it down as low as possible), and I was
forced into a much more bent over and stretched forward position than
I had expected. So, fixing the front wheel and adjusting the stem
provided very clear targets for next week, when I will hopefully be
able to do a *proper* test ride.
* Non Finns may be surprised to hear that Nokia is much older than
cellphones, and one of their earliest success was in rubber products.
Once they became kings of the phone world, the phone part of the
company was split off and kept the name Nokia, while the rubber part
of the company was renamed Nokian. I don't think Nokian still make
bike tires (I've only seen fairly old looking Nokian tires), but they
certainly still make gumboots, and have a very large share of the
Finnish market for these (Every Finn, even small children, owns at
least one pair of gumboots).
