Yes! whenever bicycles are broken, or menaced by international communism, Bicycle Repair Man is ready!

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Mystery Carlton

Carlton is generally known for their high quality, handmade road bike frames.  With ornate lugwork and lightweight tubing, they're very desirable.


While the head tube lugs are chrome, they're not what I would call ornate:



Otherwise, it's fairly light, but the dropouts are stamped, not forged.  I cannot find much information online about this specific bike.  The serial number on the dropout is 208464, leading me to date it between 1968 and 1972 (thanks to this page).

The tubing sticker:

Indicates that it's made with Tru-Wel 205 tubing.  High-tensile carbon steel; but a Tubing Industries (TI) product.

Thanks to this eBay listing, I am certain that this is a Carlton Criterium, but not sure what market it was intended for.  I'll be fitting a set of 27" wheels, rather than trying to stretch the brakes for 700c.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Mesa Toscana

Here is the Miele hybrid, a Toscana 300.  It is 24 speeds, and will go up for sale once I have replaced the cables and probably also the brake pads.  It squeaks.


I had to cut a U-lock off this bike and ground up my finger pretty bad in the process.  Stupid.

This is the Kuwahara Mesa.  It's from 1986-1988 due to the chainstay U-brake way down by the crank.    It has a Suntour drivetrain with indexed shifting, but the rear derailleur was half missing and the hanger was bent, so I will probably swap it out for a 7-speed shimano setup.  The six-speed Suntour indexing compatible derailleurs are hard to find.



The rear wheel is wrecked and needs a new rim, so I might as well pick up a good used wheel and be done with it.

Check out the sweet fade paint job and the bear trap pedals!

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Back to basics

In 2012, we built a new workshop.

Now that I have the space to work... I've picked up some bikes to fix.  Right now, I have a 1989-or-so Kuwahara mountain bike, a Miele 700c hybrid commuter, and a lugged Carlton frame that needs a lot of work.