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Richard’s Bicycle Book

by David9694
Mon, Oct 10, 2022 08:06
64

Now the nights are drawing in, there are old copies of this on Ebay for £3 or £4.  If you're under 40 and missed this, it's still worth a look.  It rapidly takes you through what cycling is and can be, getting and keeping a bike. 

Not sure what happened to mine, but this is the book that got me hooked and to some extent you might say radicalised me. All the stuff about drivers and cars 2ww talk about is charted in there - and they hadn't even got phones back then.

Steel was real and "10 speed" meant "10 in total" (minus the 2 illegal gears, of course.)

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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64 comments

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David9694 replied to chrisonabike | 2 years ago
1 like

Light, cheap, strong, reliable and simple are my bike stuff criteria. 

On that basis, I'm not convinced about: threadless headsets over threaded, , brifters/ indexing or disc brakes, and CF still seems a bit new fangled, but let's put that down to my crappy power:weight ratio. d12 strikes me as one more thing to have to fiddle with and to go wrong. 

We seem to be no better off with press-fit b/bs.  Brifters are by definition indexed, d/t levers can be either - I find friction levers to be the best for me on a 2 or 3 x 10s system.  

So that'll be me poking around for my next build on Spa, SJS and Ebay with the Stronglight chainset, Dia Compe levers in my basket, or older series Shimano callipers, a quill stem.

SPDs, LED lighting, the wider availability of alu and Ti frames, Kevlar in tyres, better saddles (I.e. other than leather) have made the cyclist's lot better.

In the world of Richard's Bicycle Book, disc brakes exist, but are mainly on things like tandems. Steel is real.  There is some basic indexing, but it's all downtube and occasionally stem mounted. Brake levers don't seem to have gone aero yet. Tan wall tyres complimenting a sports or touring bike. 
 

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chrisonabike replied to David9694 | 2 years ago
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Amen to most of that.  For my next "adventure" machine Spa look like a good source.

Except for those tall gears I'd take Richard's bike.  Most used bike I've owned (still do) is a nth-hand Dawes Galaxy, steel, quill stem, down-tube friction shift *, cantilever brakes, threaded everything.  Off the peg, the're "boring" bikes, but as the thousands of miles roll by it just keeps going.  Used as a shopper, commuter, multi-day tourer, cargo bike (60kg with trailer, have done a flat move), for day runs out. Differences from the late 70s (or 80s when I think it's from) - it now has a sealed bottom bracket (easier to replace) with external bearings.  Slightly tougher tyres (although I remember the plastic strip you could put inside your BMX tyres).  Hub dynamos aren't new but the Supernova LED front light is literally night and day compared to the Every-ready bricks I tried not to carry.

* Just occasionally (steep uphill or downhill) this gets hairy - shifters on the bars and by the brakes do have some benefit.  The rear shifter lever has optional indexing but after going through lots of wheels and deraillieurs I realised I couldn't be bothered to adjust indexing each time.

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armb replied to David9694 | 2 years ago
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That's the one I had. Probably still have, somewhere.

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David9694 | 2 years ago
3 likes

Hush children, an old man is talking. 

Oh god, even my contemporary references are old.

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