Claud Butler Dalesman

[Rhythm Thief]

Left side pedal dismantled, ready for cleaning and new bearings.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

There's no getting away from the fact that this is a ridiculous job to be doing on a pair of cheap mass produced pedals from forty-odd years ago. But it's quite satisfying.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Gears all cables up, with only a short delay caused by some idiot fitting the shifters upside down. I love the way the cable is routed through the parallelogram of the rear derailleur. Getting used to friction shifting after so many years with indexing is going to take a little while!

 

[All uphill]

Sometimes I wish my workbench was a bit tidier. Although not to the point where I actually tidy it up, obvs

Where's the workbench?

 

[wakemalcolm]

Are those Suntour Powershifters? Used to love mine. The indexing will be in your finger muscle memory after a few rides.

 

[Veronese68]

That’s a fine thing, I wouldn’t have be able to turn it down either.
Having just overhauled a set of old pedals myself I’d agree about it being satisfying. A friend wandered by as I was doing it and asked why, because I can was the obvious reply.

 

[simongt]

With LBS workbenches, I tend to think that if it's tidy, then they're not that busy - !

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Are those Suntour Powershifters? Used to love mine. The indexing will be in your finger muscle memory after a few rides.

Yes, not original to the bike but a worthy upgrade. They're about the best non-indexed downtube shifters ever made.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Time to get this finished! There's only the bar tape to do now, complete with these Claud Butler bar end plugs I found on eBay.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Shakedown ride to my local cafe. I'd forgotten what a massive arseache toeclips and straps are compared with modern clipless pedals. I also couldn't quite believe how quickly I ran out of gears with only five on the back! It does ride nicely, but I'll be fitting SPD pedals if I want to ride it any distance.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

As it looked when I got it, and how it looks now. I've given it a good clean, rebuilt the bottom bracket, freewheel, pedals, headset and hubs with new bearings, rebuilt the wheels with new Sapim double butted spokes, fitted new tyres and a nice set of secondhand stainless mudguards, upgraded the shifters to Suntour Power Shifters and got rid of the horrible foam bar grips. In other words, far more work than the thing is actually worth! But I like it and it's nice to have rescued another one after years of neglect.

 

[wakemalcolm]

Good job!
Used to love Weinemann centre pulls back in the day but suspect I'd be alarmed now: how's the braking performance?

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Good job!
Used to love Weinemann centre pulls back in the day but suspect I'd be alarmed now: how's the braking performance?

Er, yeah. "Adequate" at best, although in fairness I was too tight to spend £30-odd on some modern Kool Stop brake blocks for it, which I suspect would make all the difference. Riding something like this around brings home just how much bikes have advanced over the last four decades or so, and how much we take that for granted.