On 11-10-23 10:04 PM, Larry Colen wrote:
On Oct 23, 2011, at 5:25 PM, Bruce Walker wrote:
So here it is: a 1973 vintage Dawes Galaxy. I bought it new for $219 from Bloor
Cycle in Toronto. It's a touring bike with 27" road tires on aluminum rims,
center-pull brakes, Reynolds 531 double butted steel tubing and a real Brooks
leather seat.
And even, it looks like, cottered cranks. Very nice.
Luckily, they weren't frozen, so came off for cleaning and lube.
A couple of summers ago I got it out of storage, completely tore it down,
cleaned it and replaced hopelessly broken stuff. The rear derailleur was
useless (broken idler gears) so I bought the closest thing I could find that
would fit. Everything has changed on bikes since this was manufactured, so the
chain widths are different. That means I can only reach 8 gears now instead of
the original 10.
If you have friction shifters, and it looks like you do, you should be able to
hit all of the gears. The gear spacing only comes into play as an issue with
indexed shifters (is that the right term?). When I built up Vita, my legnano,
I converted it from 10 speeds to 18. Now, I think it is 21, with the aid of a
mountain bike rear deraileur. Is there any chance that you have the motion
stops on your rear deraileur set wrong? Which gear won't it go into?
The problem is this el-cheapo derailleur doesn't have adjustable motion
stops, just a fixed travel -- doubtless made for a specific modern
standard cluster. So I have the choice of missing the largest gear
nearest the spokes or the smallest. I chose to miss the largest for now.
I'll replace the cheap derailleur at some point, or else spring for nice
new lugged steel touring bike like the nice one that Bob linked to, or
the Rivendells.
But it runs and the ride is wonderful. I love the stiffness of steel. I've
ridden modern fat-tubed aluminum bikes and they just feel heavy and spongy to
me.
The irony is that aluminum frames are stiffer than steel.
Yeah, I misspoke myself (pun not intended, this time). Of course the
steel frame is springy and naturally shock-absorbent. This article says
it all better than I can:
http://www.rivbike.com/kb_results.asp?ID=29
http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/2254722/1/PDML?h=e7f676
(It's the bike, not the girl on the left.)
K20D, DA* 16-50/2.8 @ 26mm, f/8.0, 125th, ISO 200.
AF540FGZ x 2, shoot-thru brolly left, silver brolly right.
PP with LR 3.5
(Sorry about the outlets on the wall. A backdrop is on my wish list.)
-bmw
--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow
the directions.
