Two Wheelers & History

From Here

Words to live by

I went over to the high school yesterday to offer a little advice on their high mileage car. He's got some spiffy new rims and hubs and was looking for a bit of advice on lacing them up together. I'm no pro at lacing but I've done a few wheels. This one is supposed to be a cross 3 pattern. I've got a book on bicycle wheels but I thought I'd look and see what the internet had on offer and I ran across a real good tutorial at Atomic Zombie. That's a dangerous place for a guy like me - lots of plans for making bicycle projects. Especially since I've been thinking bicycles lately anyway.

The weather warmed up a bit yesterday so I went out into the shop later and hit a couple more licks on the motorbike project. I've about got everything all tacked together but I'm not pleased with the chainguard from the engine to the rear wheel. I'm going to have to come up with something different. Actually I need to make two. I haven't made anything at all for the pedal cranks yet. I've got an after market one on my old Elgin I could hang on the motorbike. If I ever get around to restoring the Elgin I'll need to make something a little more in keeping with the time period. The main thing is I'm close enough to the finish line that I should have the motorbike ready to go when the weather warms up.

650 BSA engine drawing. I can't imagine what it would take to draw something like this up. That is some serious work. Beautiful, actually. There was a lot of this kind of work back then. All of the shop manuals and much of the advertising work had these technical illustrations. This one came off of the Just Beezas group on Facebook. In addition to dealing with bicycles and a motorbike, I want to get back on the BSA project real soon. Surly drew up a design for the sidecovers, so it's my move now. Between the cold weather and the sore back I haven't done much of anything lately, except the family history project, but I've got the itch to get out in the shop and go to work on some things. There's a Villiers Engine group on Facebook I check out now also. I'm keeping on eye on that for a source of parts for my Frances-Barnett. I knock out a couple other projects and it'll be time to go all Brit bike around here for awhile. Or at least do a teardown on the Fanny-B motor and see what I'm going to need so I can start ordering parts from across the pond. 

At least the back is better, and the family history project is nearing completion. My brother is coming into town in March and he has a connection to get it published. I want to have a proof copy done when we meet up. He can check things over and see what we need to do to get various versions printed for family members. The way I'm thinking is mine will have my side of the family tree as well as my wife's. My brothers and cousins can take what I've got on my side and add their spouse's side or we'll just print them copies without my wife's side and that will be that. No matter how it goes, I'll be finished.

I would urge all of you to get a family tree chart and jot down all of your ancestors, if you haven't already. Don't wait until grandma passes away. I was lucky that I started working on mine before all the old ones passed. I've only got two aunts left, one is 82 and the other will soon be 90. That makes my generation the "elders" now and it's up to us to preserve our heritage. That might not matter much when you're young, but it does seem to become more important as you get older.