Took the Brompton out for a little spin yesterday, telling myself it would let me check more places for a black spray paint for cars, needed to get on with the Raleigh restoration. On the way I got some rust converter and snagged a couple of slices of pizza at one of the best local places, unchanged...

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Another day, another unbalanced set of bearings.

While I wait for a freewheel removal tool to appear, I turned my attention to the front wheel, starting with the axle. This proved relatively easy to get undone, although there was some rather strange fibrous material that seemed to be trapped in th...

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Moved on to the downtube shifters, which are a bit of a mess. The clamp is Huret-Sachs, the shifters Shimano SY20, a very early index shifter that I dimly recall asking the bike shop to fit for me. YouTube told me that the clamp probably had to be re-tapped to accomodate the larger Shimano bolts. Anyway ...

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Restoration of the old Raleigh is starting to pick up a bit of speed. I had to pay money to get the stem and bottom bracket removed by a professional with a blow torch and an angle grinder, but the frame is now ready to be rubbed down and touched up (Oo-er, Missus!) There have also been a couple of interesting discoveries.

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Over the past month or so I have been drawn inexorably into the world of unracer cycling, all of which has prompted both a forehead smacking but-I’ve-always-done-that and a guilty why-is-my-best-bike-languishing-unloved. With the purchase of a bike repair stand to help with the other bike, I was seized with the idea of fixing up the road bike. I mean, how hard can it be?

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