I've been further at work on the Flying Pigeon, I finally got around to having the still pretty wobbly wheels trued up at my LBS. The shop mechanic looked at my wheels for about thirty seconds, spinning them on the truing rig, then he said to me "How do you stop on these things?" I explained to him how Westwood Rims are designed for rod brakes, and the brake pads make contact up against the inner surface of the rim.
Two days later, I had my wheels, put some rim tape on them, and then went about trying to mount the new Schwalbe cream colored Delta Cruiser tyres onto the
wheels. I seemed to have great difficulty with this, after half an hour, I went and consulted with the bicycle oracle (Sheldon Brown's website)- and that is when dear friends, I learned that there was a difference between 700C and 700B, which classic roadsters use. About 10mm worth of difference. Well that had me waiting another week for a special order of Schwalbes to ship direct from Schwalbe USA. That said, I can save the 700Cs for either the Felt Cafe, or for a future bicycle. (I'm considering a Surly Cross-Check). The new Schwalbes roll great, tremendously improving how the bicycle handles. I highly reccomend them.
The new tyres came, and I put them on with ease. New tubes, then did some paint work, as I really did not care all that much for the extensive decaling the bicycle came with. Some of it was even horribly applied, such as on the chaincase- "Made in TiaSQUIGGLE" So I scuffed up the clear coat over the offending decals with a sanding block, masked what I wanted to protect from overspray, and used some Krylon Appliance Epoxy-Black spraypaint. This stuff seems almost indistinguishable from the stock paint in tone and gloss, and has made me quite happy with the toned down looks.
I then spent an extra night or two adding some twine and shellack, tapering the handlebars in front of the grips, and adding a protective wrapping along the top-tube, where it had a habit of getting nicked from collision with the brake-levers.
The final touch, was adding some retro-lighting, in this case a reproduction oil-lamp from Rideable Bicycle Replicas. This is the only current production oil lamp I can find, and for the price is a pretty good deal if you're just dying for a light. The build-quality is so/so, and I had to reverse the side-glass, as it had red on the right, and green on the left, which might have been okay if it was a tail light, but standard position lights for ships, planes, traines have green on the right and red on the left. It does work though, although seems to seal poorly between the kero/oil tank and the burner. I might gasket this with some innertube rubber. A further improvement might be to add a sheet metal reflector internally. But oh my gosh, when it is lit, it is so cool. I got lots of attention on the dusk ride home I made with it tonight. Drivers smiling and such. It stayed lit in some pretty strong winds, with moderate speeds. I have it mounted to the fork-light mount via an old bracket adapter. It does some with a headset bracket as an option.
These little box-style lights seem to be thin on the ground- original items that is. I'm not too suprised though, given the light stamped construction and the high heat gradients, they appear to corrode/warp into unserviceability. A check on Ebay will show a dozen or two good looking carbide lamps, and just a handfull of the black box lamps all ragged looking, and going for more than the ornate carbides! Looking over the construction, it gets me wondering about how hard it would be to make my own. A Niche market to be sure!
