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New bike for me!

George J

Herefordshire member
Vintage-Raleigh-Wayfarer-3-Speed-Bike-Fully.jpg


It is coming to me as a gift in kind after I have been helping a friend clear loads of books, records, CDs, and other stuff that found its way to the recycling tip, prior to moving house.

Now this is far from my Carlton, and here is the link to my Flickr page:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/146183770@N06/with/46578917072/

... where there are several pictures of my pride and joy.

So what is the point of a heavy upright workaday bike when I have something as nice as the Carlton?

The answer is simple - and without any irreversible changes - I will fit an electric assist front wheel, and it will become a practical load lugger. It has a really heavy duty panier carrier on it, and so more grocery than simply a rucksack can easily be carried for example. Plus a high quality stand so it will not fall over ...

The paint and decals are all tidy enough simply to clean up, and a bit of sympathetic touching up will leave it looking tidy and mainly original.There is no point electrifying a lightweight, as once you have a motor and battery is will never be a lightweight afterwards! But those old Raleighs are solid!

Fun project.

Best wishes from George

PS: It is green rather than blue as in the internet phot I found. So I'll have two green bikes!
 
Nice Carlton - always wanted one after seeing my PE teachers in the late 60s,think it was pale blue and chrome - lovely
 
If you could give us a blow by blow account of retro-installing an electrical assist then I, for one, would be grateful.
 
Dear Enrae8,

My old Carlton came to a low ebb before I was given it. I grabbed the chance to prevent it being scrapped. Mine is the model they called Kermesse. Originally it was light metallic blue-green with chrome forks. It is a very nice colour scheme.

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The chrome was peeling, even though the forks were sound ...

I had it re-enamelled at Argos Racing Bikes in Bristol, and chose Mid-Brunswick Green [British Staff-officer car colour], as it is so demure and unlikely to attract magpie thieves!

Strangely the low key scheme works rather well as the frame actually is the attraction rather than the colour of it.

But the Wayfarer also is very attractive in a low key way. It will make a perfect counterpart to the Carlton being so utterly different, but with its own Sterling virtues.

Best wishes from George
 
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If you could give us a blow by blow account of retro-installing an electrical assist then I, for one, would be grateful.

For sure! I want to use Citronex as there is no permanent modification, only a replacement front wheel built to suit, a battery to fit onto the frame, and a sensor to monitor pedalling, so as to activate assist, and little handle bar controller with four [I think] levels of assistance. Fortunately the Raleigh has very robust steel drop-outs front and rear, so no need for a torque bar on the motor. And the front fork is built by the same people who built HMS Hood.

Citronex is not cheap so first of all is get the bike cleaned up and safe, and lightly refurbed ...

No reason to re-enamel this one, but only treat a bit of surface rust on the mudguards ...

I have to have a project on and since Covid, I haven't.

Best wishes from George

PS: I'll treat it to a new Brooks B17 for sure, and a proper set of paneer bags.
 
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Dear Steve,

Aged sixty in two months, I am still learning spelling! I do however now have the OED dictionary so long as I can wield a magnifying glass! [Gifted in the last fortnight -1980s edition].

I keep trying to be good! I fail as all humans who do anything will.

Best wishes from George
 
Dear Steve,

Aged sixty in two months, I am still learning spelling! I do however now have the OED dictionary so long as I can wild a magnifying glass! [Gifted in the last fortnight -1980s edition].

I keep trying to be good! I fail as all humans who do anything will.

Best wishes from George
Best of luck George bue in green? She's a beauty. Hope you are she have many happy electric miles together ;)
 
Don't fit a front wheel motor
Go for a rear wheel one

There's nothing in the price and rear is better

For Christ sake don't buy one of those swytch bike kits (had one....they are unreliable and crap)
 
Don't fit a front wheel motor
Go for a rear wheel one

There's nothing in the price and rear is better

For Christ sake don't buy one of those swytch bike kits (had one....they are unreliable and crap)

What was wrong with the Swytch? I've just got mine after waiting nearly 6 months and so far it is very good. What happened with yours?
 
The sensor in the hub came loose and damaged the inner hub
Then the ESC burnt out (twice!!)
And finally..the battery is too small for anything other than a short round town trip..

Sorry...but that's my experience

The kit was sent back to swytch by my dealer when it first stopped working (wheel sensor)...they "checked" it and said "nothing wrong" ... of course it still didn't work!
 
Sounds to me like your installer didn't install it properly then blamed the kit. I chose the Pro battery because the standard one looked like a loss leader and I would always want more range. Getting the sensor and magnetic ring installed correctly is crucial to making the most of the conversion and it's worth taking your time over it and getting it right. Below is a review I posted on another forum.

So I took the Swytched bike for a shake down ride the next day. Behaved perfectly. I went out with a friend with a purpose made electric bike. We did 30 Kms with a height rise of 300M. On hills it felt a bit like being on an exercise bike in the gym set to medium. Completed the ride with 40% battery power left. I'm sure with this I will ride further and get more exercise on the bike as it makes things more manageable. It also had me travelling in a direction I wouldn't have gone before because of some steep hills. I'm not a dedicated mamil (Middle aged men in Lycra) who hunt in macho packs. Cycling is just one of several things I do.

1291107-de5e24d5769c6913e1fc0e6396283406.jpg


The kit is in 4 parts a powered front wheel hub. A battery pack with control centre. A bracket and cable assembly allowing the pack to be easily removed from the bike. A magnetic ring attached to the pedal crank with a sensor attached to the frame that senses you pedalling and supplies proportinate power. It looks pretty much like it is part of the bikes standard kit.
So I'm pleased despite my 5 month and 20 day wait. Cost for the kit with Pro battery pack plus extra for a black wheel was £600. Best of all it still feels like my bike but easier to ride. Comes with 12 months warranty with UK based support by email and zoom
 
Don't fit a front wheel motor
Go for a rear wheel one

There's nothing in the price and rear is better

For Christ sake don't buy one of those swytch bike kits (had one....they are unreliable and crap)

My plan is to get electric assist onto what is a nice enough classic bike to make me want everything to be reversible. To mount a rear motor hub on a three speed would remove an element that defines the bike in one respect, the classic Sturmey Archer hub gearing. Also it is a rather narrow rear dropout at 120 mm, so to fit a modern electric motor hub in place would require a permanent adjustment to the frame to make the dropout 126 or 130 mm. I am absolutely not prepared to do that.

A front hub may not be optimal, but it remains functional. I had not considered Swytch, but must look into it. Citronex [similar system] costs about half again more.

I am rather looking forward to doing this!

Best wishes from George
 
In terms of the battery what do you have to in essence electrify the forks?
Look carefully at the Boardman above and you'll see. The handlebar bag holds the battery, there's a cable tied to the forks that connects to the centre of the axle. This supplies the motor.
 
The Raleigh is with me.

I have no idea why I thought was green. It is a lovely very dark blue!

Anyway I managed to get it into a Toyota Aygo, and getting the Carlton into the car was not difficult. Not so the Raleigh which is longer. I took the front wheel out, but even then I almost had to take the back wheel out. It is also an immense heavyweight, but that is alright.

There is almost no rust, and what I thought might be was in fact oily muck, which is fairly easy to clean off, though the job will be a matter of patience to avoid damaging the pin-stripes and decals, but it will come up very fresh for a fifty year old machine.

I have taken off the Sturmey Archer light set. These days such a set would be in no way adequate given the extremely poor standard of motor vehicle driving, prevalent over the last ten years or so. It was in any case an option so not intrinsic to the bike. The dynamo is in the front hub, which will be shortly replaced with a non-dyno-hub, and longer term with an electric assist motor to make a the bike usable in the local very hilly countryside.

This bike mostly reminds me in dynamics and weight of my late Norwegian grandfather's bike, which I used to ride when staying with my grandparents before my grandmother died in 2000 [my grandfather died in 1993], but that was a two speed with back-pedal break on the rear wheel. It was a lovely bike, if a more amiable amble sort of machine than a speed beast!

Really, I am looking forward to making a very useful cycle out of it, without doing any irreversible modification, and also refraining from a re-enamel, or anything much beyond smarting it up in original none too shabby condition.

Photos will follow over the coming days as I find time.

Best wishes from George

PS: Just weighed the Raleigh and the Carlton. 16.2 kg., the Raleigh and 10.0 kg., the Carlton. Amazing what the difference is. Though it is a little unfair as the Raleigh does have a substantial pannier frame and hub-dynamo ...
 
16kg? Jesus. It's an hgv!

For grime removal I use a radiator brush, bought cheap, with a long handle, and some petrol or paraffin. With a drop of oil if you wish. Brush it on, the grime dissolves. Done. Polish it with a rag when done.
 
Nice bike, you will always need another.

crashed my MTB and broke my arm yesterday. No cycling for me for a while.
 


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