1940s Raleigh Ladies Bike with Brooks B66 Saddle

An Original Raleigh Ladies 21" 3 speed Roadster possibly from 1940s SOLD

This was in poor condition when we got it, but was complete apart from the saddle.  see Raleigh Renovation The previous owner claimed that it was 1940s.  It has interesting cable brakes that may be from around that time however I do not believe the handle bars are original.  The front axle has been replaced along with the cables.  The frame has been pained with Hamerite to preserve.
There is a 3 speed Sturmey Archer operated by a modern lever.  The lovely original was not in working order so had to be changed.  The gears work but are not 100% as positive as a new 3 speed would be.  Vintage back rack is included.

The bike is now sold

Variety is the spice at Spindles

I came back from holiday (cycle camping of course) last week so I hadn't been to Spindles for a couple of weeks. I caught up with the news of getting some generous bike donations (mainly children's bikes) and Nick's hernia. Good progress has been made on the Black Apollo by Josh who seems to be very keen. Matt is also making progress on his Cannondale.

We didn't have many customers last Saturday so I was a chance to finish the Orbit Gold Medal and the GT easy rider with the stuck seat post. The extraction was filmed as follows:



Robin did a good job painting the 1940s Ladies Raleigh.
We need to do more advertising and get some of the stock sold. An advert in the High Street would help. Only Robin and Myself next week

Moley

Spring at Spindles

The last two months have been very productive with an emergence of a clear direction.  The bike hire has been put on hold due to the fact that there would be too many problems.  Bike hire needs lots of bomb proof bikes and we could not hold a sufficiently varied stock.

We have had several good mountain bikes through as well as a number of ladies bikes   Saturday mornings have been busy with lots of maintenance jobs and bike sales.  There is not enough time to work on bike projects.  Today we had several children in stripping bikes, cleaning bikes and working on their own projects.

We are now concentrating on maintenance and keeping a stock of reasonable quality road and mountain bikes.  We also have two pre war bikes, one BSA and a Raleigh that are being done up.  These bikes take time to restore and get into working order, sourcing new bits its time consuming and cleaning the grime can take ages.  We have Robin who is excellent at cleaning years of grime off wheels and frames.

The last month has been our best ever selling 8 bikes and keeping much of Corsham cycling.  The word is spreading and we seem to be getting a good reputation.  Roll on the summer.

Once a Week at the Pound Arts 13th Feb

13th February
Spindles is now once a week at the Pound which will hopefully give us some regular custom.  We had three customers today, one of which bought a bike and the others required some maintenance.  Robin worked on the Ladies Viscount which has almost never been used although its over 30 years old.  It will make a good little run around.  I would like to do a straight bars conversion on it but its just too expensive as we would only hope to get £40 for it.  We are open until 1pm so its a bit of a rush to get everything done.  We still have too many kids bikes which are taking up room, maybe an advert on trade-it would do the trick.

Robin is getting better at cleaning bicycles and we are almost running out of bikes for him to clean.   I managed to get a 1 1/4 headset for the Cannondale only to discover that the forks have been filed where the bottom racer sits which is a blow.  I have some suitable shims that might work but that's even more time.  We just need to sell it as a frame.  It would be a fantastic bike once finished.

Nick was kept busy on Customer bikes.  It will just be myself and Robin next week

A Cold day for Cycle Maintenance

Saturday 9th January
A perishingly cold day to do cycle maintenance although everybody turned up.  We have sold the Caprice to a lady in Manchester who found it on the web so Nick did the final tests and tweaks.   I worked on the Viscount and Edgar, with the help of Robin, worked on the rusty Carlton.

Matt and Sam came with their flash tool kit  Christmas presents which spawned a few ideas.

Sam's bike was stolen just before the Christmas period so we have decided to sell his the small MB which Edgar has just finished for £30 and if he still has it in a year then we will give his his £30 back.

Still not sure what to do with the Cannondale MB.  The front forks are great but we cannot get a head set to match.

The Debate.
After lunch we had a chat about where the project goes from here.  The issue is that many bikes that we see are cheap, poorly made and heavy ATBs resulting in an unsatisfactory riding experience.  Cheap bikes that are made in the far east and sold on-line or by big department stores are designed to fall apart so that eventually the rider will go out and buy a new one.  This is a common theme in most commercial business models.  We can end up spending a lot of time fixing these kind of bikes which ultimately only encourages this approach to cycle manufacture.

There is a clear difference in the riding experience between mass market bikes and the light weight 531 based quality second hand bikes which we believe in.  The problem is (a) encouraging the use of 531 based bikes and (b) getting hold of old 531 frames to rebuild bikes on.

A direction we need to go in is more frequent opening, one day a week which will probably happen after January.   Morning session will be for the public to bring their bikes for service and the afternoon will be to work on donated bikes.    
  
We should think about training days in March when more people will be cycling.   Either a 'fix your own' bike day by providing tools or course.  

Next Spindles will be 30th  Jan 2010

Bike Maintenance Day - a deluge of bikes

31st October At the Pound Arts Centre

Only one Customer but 8 bikes were donated.

	working hard getting donated bikes working

It was a day of bike renovation with 8 bikes and a frame donated.  The day started early with the apprentices Sam and Matt arriving before anyone else.  We opened up and got the completed bikes in the display area and got the tools and stands ready.  I spotted a child's bike that needed a the tyres pumping up which turned out to have 4 punctures.  Whilst fixing the puntures we got some visitors who donated 6 bikes (pictures to come)  4 child bikes and 2 - 'his and her' - adult bikes.  They had not been used for some (maybe 20) years and has been stored in a garage so were not in too bad shape.

Sam and Matt were emediatly onto the childs  bikes taking the wheels off and cleaning the frames.  I carried on mending puncures.  Nick arrived with another childs racer to sell then Tim arrived with a mint Raleigh 'Caprice' Ladies bike with flowers on and a Cannondale Aluminium mountain bike frame.  Both had been rescued from the doom of a recycling centre.  The Caprice had never been used as the inside of the mudguards were mint.  There was however a major amount of rust on the Chainset and rims which Nick got to work on.

Edgar arrived with Robin and got the work bench out and worked on the Trek mountain bike with the rusty chain and mechs.  I still worked on the punctures,  The Green Dawes and juggled trouble shooting Sam and Matt's queries.

  One customer came through the door today who had a bottom bracket problem which was fixed for £7.5.  later on we got drinks and a slice of cake for everyone for about £10 so we made -£2.50.   However, the day was productive with lots of bikes saved from landfill and made ready to be sold.  Hopefully there will be a Christmas rush.

Veer the movie

see Trailer here http://www.veerthemovie.com/trailer.asp

Hanging the Bicycles

Tim and I (moley) did some work at the Pound yeasterday.  We put up some hooks so that the bikes could be hung and added some bike stands.

I've also bought some 6 and 7 speed freewheels and barings

Third Bicycle Maintenance Day

The third Bicycle Maintenance Day took place on the 3rd October.  We had Bradley Wiggings old Trek road bike in for the brakes to be fine tuned, a challenging gear shifting problem on a second hand racer and two apprentices Matt and Sam.  We got about 5 customers plus we also sold a bike and got 5 bikes donated including two childrens bikes.  Matt and Sam are brothers who want to learn about bike maintenance and brought two of their own bikes along that needed attention.  They managed to get the bikes going themselves and rode them away.  Next time they will have their own project.

We were very busy all day and more needs to be done.  People are already asking about the next one which is on the 31st October.  We should do something before then perhaps rebuilding the Cannondale.  We should also have a special event on the 31st.

I get the feeling that we are growing and heading in the right direction

The second Bike Maintenance Day 5th September

It was a sunny day for once but this time we only had 4 or 5 customers.  Still plendy to do renovating the bikes that have been salvaged.  One bike had its seat pin stuck in the frame.  With two people holding the frame and Edgar pulling on a very large adjustable spanner, the pin managed to shear off.  The Dawes and the Shopping bike are progressing well.  Robin did a sterling job of removing the grime.
We managed to sell our first bike for £60 which doubled the takings for the day.  This money will go towards tools for the project.  

About US

Spindles and Sprockets is a bike recycling project based in Corsham UK, that has been going since 2009.   

During Corsham festival in 2009, Richard and Edgar provided free cycle maintenance in Corsham High Street. Many people brought their bikes along so were very busy. The feed back provided that day led to the conclusion that Corsham needed a cycle maintenance facility. This would:

• Promote the skills of bicycle repair and maintenance.
• Keep bicycles on the road and being used.
• Increase the number of bicycle journeys in Corsham.
• Provide a recycling point for unwanted bicycles.
• Improve peoples experience of cycling.

It was suggested that the Pounds Arts Centre would be an ideal place for us and Spindles and Sprockets was thus born.  We started opening monthly on 1st August 2009 and in 2010 went weekly on Saturdays.  

We are currently based in Corsham Community Centre until 31st May 2014 when we must vacate to make way for the car park of the new Community centre which has no place for a bike project.

We currently consist of:

Edgar

Richard

Nick

Robin

Josh

Tim

with help from Alistair