Sunday 15 November 2009

The New-to-Me Winter Bike

This is a 1972 Eatons Glider made by Raleigh. I found it on Kijiji for a wonderful price. I had pretty much decided to buy her before I even saw her in person.
It had a bit of rust, and the chrome needed some polishing.

It has the original Glider badge
And a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub, that worked very well even without cleaning.

The pedals are really quite cool-I've never seen ones like this before.

And an old, white, Brooks saddle, which surprisingly, is not leather.

The front fender has some interesting details.

Sadly, inside the details, things were rather rusty.

The Geek applied some rust converter (I still have to research what the rust might be converted to. Gold would be good, especially at today's prices.) to stop it from spreading further.

She then painted on a coat of re-purposed truck-bed liner. That should keep any salt that gets in this winter from causing further damage.

Once the inner tubes were replaced and the seat adjusted, the handlebars were a little too low.
Yesterday we went to Naturalcycle and pestered Anders until we found the right stem/ handlebar combination to bring the handlebars to a comfortable height. Anders was somewhat concerned about the tire type and the open bearings on the wheels and how they will fare in the winter weather. Those things will have to be replaced if this winter riding thing catches on with me.
While we were there, a fellow walked in and told me that he had been looking at that bike and rightly identified that I bought it from a gentleman in Headingley. Sometimes Winnipeg is a very small town.

Once the old handlebars were removed and the brakes and gear-shifter were transferred to the new handlebars, she was ready to go.

Here she is beside Eselin. Even tho' she feels just as heavy, for some reason she doesn't have the same feel. No doubt it is because Eselin is much longer and has bigger wheels.

Now I just have to actually get up enough nerve to ride in the snow. Since the snow is late this year, and I am in no hurry for it to come, I'll have time to get to know her first.

And she will need a name. Pretty bikes like this cannot remain anonymous.

2 comments:

Carinthia said...

HI Sox, she's lovely! I'm intrigued by the white Brooks saddle... looks like a custom job. She looks superb in that last pic with the sun gleaming on her newly-cleaned fenders. If the fenders were the most-damaged part of her, that's a small thing. You've picked up something pretty special there. :-)

Dottie said...

Congrats on the new ride! The head badge and Brooks are especially wonderful.