around philly dot com

So a customer to the shop wrote a little shopping experience at Via Bicycle. It is fun and whimsical and gives you a little insight, especially if you are not able to visit us. We find bikes for people and we usually don't curse. . . .in front of the customer.

an excerpt-
"Perhaps, the lifestyle began almost 27 years ago when Curtis set up shop on Ninth street, right off South, with four floors of bicycle Mecca. However, before the trademark ‘stache, Curtis was a kid growing up in rural upstate New York, pulling rusty bikes from trash heaps and breathing new life into them. It explains the scars on this hands and the way his thick fingers nimbly repair the tiny parts of a bike tire as we talk."

full article is here at aroundphilly.com.

pictures 4- oh what a bore!

Part of the pictures series. This time we have a Moulton, Omelenchuk, and an invisible bike.
The Moulton was build during the period that Huffy was subcontracting them to import cool bikes(they also imported a super cool Carlton with Cappela lugs, and translucent paint over a chrome frame. My coworker Matt has one). This Moulton has a Sturmey Archer 4 speed internal hub and uses 17" wheels, that Moulton had specially designed and made.
The Omelenchuk rear wheel in a Omelenchuk frameset is very nice. There is not much available internet about George Omelenchuk, which is a shame. He was a local tinkerer and built and manufacturered a lot of his own components including stems, hubs, rims, etc. The hub was made by him and was on his wife's Jeanne's track bike. She won national titles on her bikes 5 times. here is a little blurb about Jeanne-here. Here is a little blurb about George OmelenchukBike Cult website.

and an invisible bike!!

Pictures 3- this time it's personal!

Here are a couple frames i picked up over the years, there is a good possibility that I will end up selling them this year.
early 1970s Jack Taylor "cyclo-cross" bike framest. It has brazeons for cantilever brakes but vertical rear dropouts and no eyelets for fenders. It also has round fork blades, typical of track bikes. I got the frameset with a campagnolo Nuovo Record headset and Mafac Cantilever brakes, but I have since used those parts for other projects, so just a frameset now. 58cm seattube.
The other frameset is a mid to late 1950s Peugeot PX10. It was original set up to take Simplex 543 rear derailleur. included is a Stronglight P3 headset.

Pictures 2-electric boogaloo!

Part 2 of a series of photos of cool bikes and parts-
this posting includes an early version Campagnolo headset, Simplex 543 rear derailleur, an Ottusi modified Brooks saddle, Nice late 1950s Frejus track bike, and then a set of toothed rear dropouts to be used with Campagnolo Cambio Corsa.

Pictures

The next few blog posts will be random pictures of cool interesting bicycle and parts.
this batch includes a nice repainted Tribune Blue Streak, with some incorrect parts, and a nice original Schwinn Aerocycle.

Raleigh Ladies Tourist bicycle

Raleigh is best known for their black "English Racer" bicycles, made the ever popular, Sturmey Archer 3 speed equipped, bicycle for over 80 years. To the casual looker, the Raleigh bicycle from the 1930s is no different than same model produced in the 1970s. A perfect example is the Raleigh Tourist.

Barring some minor details, the Tourist model known for it's larger wheel size (28" x 1 1/2") and rod -actuated brakes(rather than cables), remained unchanged for decades. It is a common mistake that people see these bikes as early Raleighs, even though Raleigh produced this model into the 1980s.

This particular Ladies model has a hub that is dated from 1978, and dating Raleighs this way is fairly accurate when the wheels are original to the bicycle. The 1977 catalog scan was borrowed from Retro Raleighs , an invaluable source of catalogs and general information about vintage Raleighs.

Classic Lightweights

Classic Lightweights UK website is an awesome resource guide and great place for vintage British eyecandy. I have linked some items before while blogging to this website, but I feel that it deserves it own post. It is valuable to collectors and restorers much the same way Classic Rendezvous is, but they have taken a more micro approach, focusing on vintage British lightweights and components, compared to the more macro, broader scope of all vintage lightweights that Classic Rendezvous deals with.

These are some of the pictures from the website showing some truly British ideas and designs. Vibrant stays on a Hetchins, Shellwin's cool hub flanges, curve seattube Jack Taylor, Burlite brakes, and a Baines International radical frame design.