London Town Bike Attempt #3: Meet Liesl

With Lucy the Brompton too heavy for trains and too valuable to lock up and Swoopy 'fessing up to a collision history, the job as London Town Bike was vacant again.

Meet Liesl. You may already "know" her if you've looked at the My Bicycle Stable page at the top of the righthand side bar. On the other hand, you don't know her at all.

And neither do I. I've never ridden her before.

Because Liesl is another Ebay acquisition from several years back. She, however, has some known history, which can be summed in few words:  all original, barely ridden, sat in a garage for over 30 years. And her condition bears this out: an even sprinkling of rust along the top of every single surface from handlebars to top tube to mudguards. But completely original, shockingly unperished tyres and virtually untouched original Weinmann brake blocks.

Since she had sacrificed a few things to Swoopy just 10 days ago, some re-assembly was required. Adam then went on to give her a thorough service including topping up the oil in the internal geared hub; taking off the chaincase and checking over, cleaning and greasing the chain and chainring; removing, cleaning and re-fitting the original bottom bracket. Everything is in good, sound original condition. The only new things needed were: brake cables, inner tubes and... a shiny new bell.

We decided to remove the plastic dressguards (potentially fragile and too valuable), the bottle dynamo and the dynamo powered lights (as they weren't wired up) and the cafe lock -- which we thought at first was seized but fortunately is in fact in good working order... with key present and correct!

Liesl has a few big advantages over Swoopy. She's "intact" rather than cobbled together from bits over various bikes. This means everything is compatible, with no mis-matches of components that have been "made" to work. She is also a better proposition in terms of security: she basically looks like an old bike. Full stop. Untouched and unloved. Whereas Swoopy had a few obviously new bits and looked like someone had given her some attention (albeit not altogether flattering attention!) recently.

She also has a couple of disadvantages though: steel wheel rims and tyres lacking any puncture protection whatsoever. The rims, we'll have to live with for now as I can't afford a new wheelset and I think I can manage through the summer at least on these wheels.

Here are photos documenting her re-build.

Swoopy being re-relegated to the garage.

Liesl up on the operating table.

First up: some Sturmey Archer love.

Drip-feeding oil into the internal geared hub...

...through a straw.

Chaincase and crankset off - good time to clean the bottom bracket.

Original Weinmann wheels.

Left rear dropout, with cable for rear dynamo light feeding
into mudguard stay (yes, internal cabling from the 1970s)

re-fitting freshly lubed bottom bracket

tightening bottom bracket

Feeding the chain back through the chainset

Fitting the righthand crank

Fastening the bolts that hold the chaincase to the frame

Re-fitting the Weinmann brakes (which Swoopy had borrowed).
This required removal of the cafe lock in order to access the bolts
holding the brakes -- we decided not to re-fit that.
Dressguards came off as well.

Re-fitting Liesl's rear rack (another item Swoopy had briefly)

Fastening the rear portion of the chainset.

Ready to hook up the gear cable.

And we have gears

Unable to replace the gear cable so we lubed the heck of it.

GT85 into the trigger shifter

Lots of lovely lube for the chain

Lots of lovely lube for the chain

And the front plate goes on, sealing up the chain nice and clean.

Tightening front brakes, once adjusted.

Removing the dynamo light

Bottle dynamo from front fork

Bottle dynamo from front fork

Bottle dynamo from front fork:  the first part of the name

Bottle dynamo from front fork: the second part of the name

6 volt, 3 watt. Adam was quite surprised that a unit as small as this
could produce 3 watts.

Bottle dynamo from front fork:  Made in France.

Original "Weinmann Brev." brake blocks, virtually unworn.

"ESGE" kickstand by Pletscher.

Original Puch-branded rear dynamo light (not wired in).

Pretty awesome BIBIA mudflap on the front mudguard

Fitting the obligatory rear reflector.

Fitting a new bell.

The Feline Inspection Officer today was Flora... who frankly wasn't interested in bicycles but was open to bribery in the form of cuddles.

Most of the time, however, she was preoccupied with her Mexican Stand-off with Sara. Flora wanted to go in. Sara wanted to come out. Neither wanted to go past the other.

So Liesl is on probation, for a temporary summer job at least. Adam says the bell will get nicked the first week. We'll see!