Bicycles, Trikes, Tandems and anything else!

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I have a tandem but I let it go... I mean. It needs a total rebuild and maybe a little brazing. I bought it secondhand from a work collegue who bought himself a better one. I didn't know that he was a joint owner. In fact, it was owned between himself, his mum, his sister and his sisters husband. I paid £200 for it which was a lot in those days. (Probably about £600 in todays money). About a year into owning it his brother in law approached me and said he wanted his money. I was puzzled and he explained that he had spent £20 to buy it and the others had also put in £20 each. I said to see the person I bought if from. I asked him and he said that he had spent so much repairing it after his brother in law brought it back damaged that he wasn't owed a penny, and his sister and mum didn't want their share back. He said he wasn't going to pay him a penny. Well, I used it for a year or two and then he asked for his money again. Since that day I have not used it and it has deteriated due to being stored in damp sheds etc. It will need a total rebuild witn new parts which I have... I even have a new tandem chainset... But one of the more minor frame tubes that sits behind the rear bottom bracket and links the two chainstays (It is just to stiffen a frame. Most of the older steel bikes had them) has rusted through. This is about 20 or more years later. I may just take it to his brother in law and say "Here's your £20 worth"... It is annoyinb as my ex work collegue would be upset with me if I just paid him £20 as he said "Whatever you do don't pay him anything". Giving him the tandem may solve it.

I am thinking. I happen to have an early 3 speed hub gear which has a screw thread to it as the early ones built before the war did. Now if I can find it, I am wondering if two freewheels can mount onto it. Uhmm. I may need to open it up and see if I can find and fit a longer 3 speed hub axle... Ooh. If the one part is the same, I have both a 4 and a 5 speed (Early 5 speed) Sturmey Archer hub.... Though the 5 speed kept locking up. Could be a slightly bent axle. The teeth seem ok.

May be better just to keep it simple as a 2 speed...

Mind you, I happen to have a Sachs Elan 12 speed hubs on one of my bikes... I wonder if I can make it run with a chain tensioner and with a double or a triple chainset....

Me thinking away to myself! Haha!

my dutch bicycle, strange i can't find any without the handbrakes which is, or was? most common


the bike has back-pedal brakes like this


i got it after son was born, it transported one, then two toddlers and groceries with that,
the poor thing was left behind in Paris
now i must use some handbraked one, combined with the hills, that's a frightening thing for me

I know there's some variation in the frames, but BMXes are all 20" wheel bikes, at least back when my brother rode a lot.

His bike is sitting in the basement in my parents house, he built it in high school. It costs more than any car he's owned so far. He's 33 now. To be fair it costs more than any car I've ever owned either.

There are three different sizes of 20" wheel here in Britain. (And actually there is a fourth now. The large fat tyred version. (Not sure tyre and wheel size for that as I have not repaired one yet).

Theree is the USA size which is the most common which, depending on tyre width could be something like 20 x 1.5 right up to around 20 x 2.125.

There are the two other 20" wheel sizes. As I understand one is British and the other comes from elsewhere and was common on imported bikes and both sizes were marked up as 20 x 1 3/8 but one had to look at the other measurement as one had 37-450 and the other was 37-451. The rim sizes were therefore not the same. This used to create a LOT of confusion with customers in the 1980's to '90's when all three sizes were found on bicycles, and to the novice trying to restore an old bicycle, it probably creates confusion today, especially if one finds ones tyres don't fit and are either too tight or too slack for the rim (And believe me, a 37-450 and a 37-451 don't fit each other!).
Here in the UK as we had our own "Standard" sizes before the American, USA sizes and others came in (European etc), it is not exactly easy. American sizes are smaller as they are measured (if I am correct... I am writing all this from memory) by the outside of the tyre measurement while British are measured by the rim size. This is why tyres are also marked with the more precise measurement such as 37-451 (Which was the more popular tyre size seen out of the two 20 x 1 3/8 wheel sizes).

Now the reason for mentioning this, is that B.M.X's used to come in both the USA size and the larger diameter but narrower tyre width British or the other size (Which may have origioned from Europe before they went metric? I am guessing).
My parents could not afford to buy me a BMX when in the early1980's they were popular as they were silly money for what they were. Example the Raleigh Burner was £150 which could have bought you not a 10 speed racing bike, but a 12 speed with aluminium rimmed wheels and a nice Reynolds frame! There were only two children to have BMX's in my village of my age (No children outside of my age had one back then in my village... Not when they first came out) and one happened to have wealthy parents, and the other had unemployed parents (Rare in those days to be unemployed but in those days the unemployment benefits were better then if one was working if living in a poorer paid area like here, so one had a crazy situation where though it was looked down on, unemployed parents having luxuries that the majority of working parents could not afford. Things like colour TV's and microwaves which my parents did not get until the 1990's came in and the prices came down).
But back to BMX's running on the other 20" size (20 x 1 3/8. Can't remember if it was 37-450 or 37-451 but I have a feeling and strongly believe it was 37-451).... I once had to do up a fantastic Peugeot BMX in the very early 1990's (1992?) which dated back to around the mid 1980's and had been taken in part exchange for a mountain bike (ATB = "All terrain bicycle" which was the term used for the cheap versions which one would not want to take offroad and mountain bike used to be the term used for the better more expensive versions which could be taken offroad as in the early days of mountain bikes they were branded like this for some reason! This changed in the mid 1990's when the term ATB was dropped. The bikes were identical though some ATB's were fitted with caliper brakes and in general ATB's had steel wheels and ordinary mild carbon steel frames and forks while mountain bikes had aluminium wheels, cantilever brakes and either Tange or Reynolds steel frames and forks(Or of a similar quality frame and forks).
But anyway. This Peugeot BMX that used the larger but narrower 20 x 1 3/8 wheels and tyres was a fantastic lightweight machine!
The reason for the difference was that the regulations specified they must use 20" wheels, so depending on the competitive event one would ride the USA sizes for doing stunts on (Which was popular back then) or the 20 x 1 3/8 sized wheel BMX's for the BMX "Oval" (With dirt hump type jumps) track racing events, as the larger narrower wheels were such a distinct advantage all but amatures rode these larger wheeled bicycles. They were about two or three inches larger in diameter then the USA sizes and the tyre width would probably work out around 1.25 or 1.3 which was narrower then the narrowest available USA size which was 1.5.
I still have brand new aluminium rims of this BMX size which sat there for years as I bought them with other bike bits from a friend and I did not know what to do with them as I had no bikes needing them. A year or two ago they became part of our fencing round the bottom of the property! They maybe in a state by now but the lovely colours like light blue or yellow make the fence look nice!

We also used to get problems with customers who could not get their head round the racing bike tyres as they were all the British 27" sizes, but slowly the similar looking European 700c came in, and unfortunately even though these were smaller then the 27"'s they were also marked in the different old measurement in inches which were measured in a different place (On the tyre instead of the rim) and so were marked 28". Further confusion as the old British sizes also had a 28" commonly used on the old large wheels postmans bikes and other sit up and beg style work bikes, which the traditional firm "Pashley" still make. The daft thing is with Pashley is most people avoid them because they use the old sizes as one has to go back to them to get the tyres at their prices! Otherwize they are excellent bikes and I am very tempted by them. (A similar story is where they use the old British 26 x 1 3/8 which is a few mm smaller (8mm if I remember) then a 700c).

Anyway... I could keep writing and writing about tyre and wheel sizes on bicycles from the old British 11" wheels and larger! Haha.