Lenton Sports bicycle

Introduction

Changed; 06/08/2025, 07/08/2025

I started with a child's tricycle, but my enjoyment in cycling started with my first bicycle when I was about 4.  The bike was made by Triang with solid rubber tires, a single rod brake that operated on the front tire, and awful *stabilisers fitted that probably did not help at all.  I quickly started cycling once Dad had taken the stabilisers off.  Later, I was given a new 20" bike for Christmas.  After that, I purchased a 24" bike with stirrup (rod) brakes, very rusty rims, and chain, which was as much as I could afford with my pocket money, which I negotiated and paid £1 or £2 for it.  My father promised me his Lenton Sports bike when I was big enough to ride the bike; it is my first bike with variable gears.  Very much lighter to pedal and flew when I touched the pedals. 

The picture above right, The Raleigh Bicycle Company's Heron, 1946 sports bike's sprocket was manufactured by Raleigh at Lenton Boulevard, Nottingham, England.  I was surprised to find the original, brilliant chromed large sprocket, called the chain-wheel, covered and protected by a black oil residue and dirt coating.  Other chrome, steel, and stainless steel have been speckled with surface rust or covered with oil deposits for most of the bike's life.  The sprocket (chain wheel) is made in two parts, and you can see one of the three screws' threads in the picture.  You can see a black lumpy deposit left from oiling the chain with 3-in-one oil for the bike's first 30 years.  During the period that the MK 2 Lenton sports were made (1946-1948), many changes were made The Raleigh Heron chain wheel was changed to an exciting new plainer pattern of straight lines and circles, and the 1930s style swirls used in the decoration were out of fashion other than to use stock such as this exception original chain wheel.  Nothing should be wasted was instilled in everyone during and after the war.  Chrome-plated steel gear hubs replaced the stainless-steel variable speed hubs during the 1940s. 

People have changed, and so has the way things are made, what is expected of them, and what we expect of each other.  This Lenton Sports bicycle is a very high-quality bicycle made for ordinary people, to last a century, and is guaranteed forever.  This example, being just post-World War Two, is more like a 1930s bicycle with a few of the changes that were going to be developed carried out yet, so the bike has the new Four Wide stainless steel cased variable speed hub, the modern exciting post-war serrated angular style decoration, but still has the lovely old style chain-wheel.  This blog also discusses the changes to bicycles and to us, and what we choose in our governments.  At this time, governments were of the highest quality, and people who worked for them were proud to serve the people.  There would have been a lot of hope in the people post-war, the radio and press had much less influence over the people, they had become more used to socialising, arguing, and resolving issues, whilst sadly also conscripted to fight a war.

 

The Lenton was made from about 1939 to 1960.  In 1946, the bike became the MK2, and in 1948, the bike became MK3 with a range of names for colour variants and decorations; the top-of-the-range Sports became the Clubman in the same polychromic green.  The Lenton name was also branded differently for the different bicycle makers' names, now manufactured by Raleigh.  The price dropped after a few years or so, and a range of makes, such as Humber, colours, and decoration variants, were introduced.  The bike was continually improving, and the lovely pre-war, wartime nickel-plated, knurled brake cable adjusters on my bike very quickly stopped being fitted, and the chain wheel had a modern angular pattern.  The bicycle was available in step-thru, crossbar, any saddle, and a range of gear hubs, Dynohubs, Brake hubs, and after 1950, derailleur gears.  There was a third-party modification kit to make the early model FW a 5-speed hub.  The Frame was also changed a little, and it is said to be even better.  The steering column has a forward-pointing link to the handlebars, which makes the bike more stable.  But it is fine anyway. 

 

* The stabilisers on my first bicycle were preventing me from riding the bike properly, and I feared falling off, rocking from side to side from one stabiliser wheel to the other.  The setting was wheels too high or both stabiliser wheels just touching the ground, so the drive wheel slipped.  I quickly learned to pedal and ride the bike soon after the stabilisers were removed, with a parent holding the saddle to support me briefly.  I also recall wobbling when I went too fast, not being able to stop, and inevitably falling off.  Evidently, child bikes are not optimised for speed, but for low speed, unlike most bigger bikes.  Some modern adult bikes, such as the 1985 Astra that I ran for a few years, also do not handle well, are heavy to pedal, and tire my wrists with vibration, unlike the Lenton sport, which feels very secure on the road. 

 

The Lenton sports feels like it is pulling and encouraging me to go faster, the faster I go, more than any other bike I have ridden.  In the high 20s of miles per hour, the bike feels like it is pulling me along quite forcefully on the flat.  The bike handling is very good, holding the road very well.  The bike smooths the bumps, variations, and shorter hills faster and more easily, but needs a higher speed to start going.  But when the bike slows, I get off sooner.  The Lenton is higher geared with a nicely placed and spaced four-speed hub.  "Fearless" has been said to me of other bikes similarly of this age.  The particularly nice thing is that the FW speeds are not that widely spaced, but are spaced more like a derailleur.  At low speed on nearly flat the bike will roll without pedalling and pick up speed more quickly than any other bike. 

I ran a moped, a small motorbike and half a dozen cars consecutively for 34 years and learnt a lot about car maintenance and driving that applies to bicycles, consequently.  I fixed the gear selector and started using my Lenton sports since 2017 and have run several bicycles in recent years,  see: https://blog.andrew-lohmann.me.uk/2020/05/pandemic-and-cycling-going-forward.html

 

The important thing as a road user is to manoeuvre with clarity and confidence and give everyone a clear signal of what you are doing in plenty of time, even if it is not practical to put your arm out to signal.  Therefore, don't tuck yourself in at corners or to the kerb.  Use hi-visibility clothing, reflectors and lights.  But follow the link above and do not learn to ride on a folding bike or an adult veteran sports or touring bike, they need more speed to go.  A mountain bike is good to learn on, but heavy to use; most modern non-folding bikes are also good to learn on.

What is said of sports bikes of this age; 

"Touch the pedals and the bike flies", Lenton Sports 1946 (this bike). 

"Fearless" Evans 1938, "Wow" and "Amazing". The high-

tensile-steel frame "Alive" plus Long wheel-base "Best ride ever".

"It just goes and glides. I sit in it, not on it", Elswick Hopper 1959".

I am also told a good alloy and carbon road bike is like a spaceship on  

two wheels and wonderful to ride.....but you feel every bump if the road  

surface is rough, but his old Fothergill floats over everything. 

By comparison, I am told, a modern titanium frame bike is stiff but light. 

I am also told that a 1930s Hercules sports bike is a heavy steel bike but 

light and comfortable to ride.

I have also been told that a modern bike can be fast and comfortable but 

you would need to spend comparatively more to get that sort of bike and

probably need to select a trekking bicycle with a hub gear.

By comparison, people also prefer good modern steel bikes;

I have been advised that I would like an expensive modern carbon fibre bike with an electrically operated derailleur, so that the chain does not tend to come off.  I understand, and heavy-to-lift, light-to-pedal Dutch steel bikes have always been made that way, like vintage British bikes.  These bikes can weigh over 20kg, but can carry a lot of weight.  Apparently, some of the electrically operated gear selectors are a little intelligent and manage the change and starting from stationary, and others simply move the derailleur.

Picture Lenton Sports in November 2021 with dirt and oil from regular lubrication after cleaning.  The bike now has all four speeds working, just.  Work just is the best you can get, unless it is a new gear hub, then it will work perfectly, which I have on another bike, an FG, which is a four-speed generator hub. 

The gear cable used to have sleeving on the inner cable.  The front brake cable nipple has been re-soldered, but using an electrical multi-core solder is not suitable, it turns out.  The correct end cap is put back on one pedal.  Cleaned enough to get an impression of the lovely polychromic green colour in places was like I remember it up until the 1980s.  The low-down lamp is now a decoration. I purchased this replacement in the 1970s, but I rarely cycle at night.  The first thing my father added when the bike was new was the blue Scotch tape, which has protected the chrome handlebars.

Soon these brake adjust-
ers would be changed to
a plainer style post-war 
adjusters.  I think these
are the pre-WW2 (1930s)
type but not chrome-plated
because of the war restric-
tions on metals reserved  
for military use, but used
nickel plating instead.

I'd say the bike is the best of the best engineering made by Raleigh, at the top of what it did, making excellent sports, touring and daily use, comfortable and light to pedal bicycles.  These bikes and other bikes with Sturmey-Archer gears had been winning in competitions for decades, whereas no derailleur-geared bike had won in competition at this time.  Derailleur gear bikes started to win races in 1950.  Both derailleur gears and internal (hub) gears provided 2, 3 or 4 speeds at this time.  Fix-wheel bikes, with a back pedal brake and single, two, or three-speed hubs,  were also available when the range was at its biggest in the 1930s.  A brake, a dyno and a variable gear hub and many combinations of them also became available at this time. 

 

Other companies made hybrid hubs and derailleur gear kits providing more speeds that fit with Sturmey-Archer variable speed hubs with screw fitting sprocket (modern hub sprocket is held in place with a circlip since sometime in the late 1940s).  These hybrid kits do not work or do not work well with FC or FD gear hubs, though, because both of those types take a little power from the rotating wheel to drive the second epicyclic gear.  Consequently, the sprocket will pull on the chain slightly, making derailleur speed changing difficult.

Derailleur gears were not permitted in competition until 1937; they have close or medium ratios between speeds.  But it was not until 1950 that Derailleur gear fitted bicycles started winning in races.  By comparison, a hub gear offers easy gear change and is suited for all types of use, but a wide-ratio hub is particularly suitable for everyday use, and is very low-friction, but for a few tips requires virtually no skill to operate, unlike derailleur gears.  Both types were available in two, three and four speeds as well as hybrid combinations of both types.  During the 1930's Sturmey-Archer added to its range the very robust AW 3-speed hub, Dynohub, and Hub brakes.  Sturmey-Archer also made two-speed back-pedal gear, back-pedal brake, fixed wheel two and three-speed hubs.  Sturmey-Archer completed the range with its four-speed gear hubs between 1939 and 1945, offering close, medium and wide ratios between speeds and gear hubs.  A clean, lubricated derailleur gear is said to be as efficient as a Sturmey-Archer hub gear. 

 

The major issue with derailleur gear bikes is the cyclist being ready and willing to stop quickly in high gear because of the inconvenience caused in order to start again with the bike stationary and in high gear.  Alternatively, the cyclist needs to use lower, less efficient speeds to be ready to stop.  To a great extent, the chain coming off on a derailleur gear is much less of an issue than it used to be that is even on a modest-priced £400 or £500 (2024) bicycle such as pictured below.  I believe that some electronic shifter derailleurs will handle the change for you when you start again, but others are simply electric cable operators (reply to my question on Facebook).  Either way, the operation is much lighter than the thumb operators on the Urban below.  It is fairly certain that if you stop before you have completed a gear change and then move backwards or move the pedal backwards, the chain will come off with any make of derailleur gear.

The compromise modern bikes make for easy starting from stationary, means they are less comfortable than a classic long wheelbase bike, but you don't need to lift the pedal ready to go, and if it has derailleur gears, risk the chain coming off, you can just shove off and go.

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(3 x 7) 21-gear Raleigh Urban 2 
- 9 speeds describe the bicycle better -

The modern 2000 - 2010? bike pictured right; Raleigh, Urban 2 (Photo taken 2021).  The Shimano derailleur gears work well, and the bike is fairly light to pedal and is fast.  This bike is a little heavier than the Lenton at 15 kg, bigger, which suits me better with 27" (700c) wheels, but it is not particularly comfortable.  The lower crossbar makes the bike easier for me, being older, to get on and off.  The aluminium alloy frame is improved by the bike having steel forks that improve the ride, but the bike suffers from some galvanic corrosion in the steering stem despite measures to electrically isolate the steel and the aluminium parts from each other.  The bike has lower and higher gears than the Lenton, but both bikes are as fast as each other.  The derailleur is unusually robust and reliable for that type of variable gear, but I notice that some people choose to never change gears on their derailleur gear bicycle.  They are thought of as good, cheap gear to have.  The usual way that the chain may come off is if you move the bike or the pedal backwards before the gear change has been completed. 

By comparison, the frame feels dead and does not carry you over the ups and downs of the road, unlike the lively vintage steel bike, so you find yourself changing gear and changing down more.  Although the bike is called a hybrid and has very low gears as well as very high gears, it is not a mountain or a comfortable touring bike.  It is fast and stable when carrying a lot of weight.

Be careful, I am old and need to be more careful, but my knee was jarred and a ligament torn while using the lowest gear and finding myself needing to pedal fast to stay on the bike.  The harm to my knee is more severe than anything I have done on any other bike.  Generally, cycling is gentler and helps repair knee injuries better than many other methods.  In future, I will avoid using the lowest speeds on bikes that have them. 

 

Raleigh introduced this type of road bike, like the Urban 2, with road tires in about 1990 as a hybrid or mountain bike.  Some have internal hub gears and mudguards, and all have fitting holes for mudguards.  So, the Lenton sports came complete with tools in 1946, but for saddlebags and lights, these modern bikes do not have standardised mountings for lights and need mudguards.  Neither bike can have a chain guard fitted.

 

Raleigh started making aluminium frame bikes in 1951.  Those bikes were still branded "All Steel" for a while! 

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Changing the four-speed gear hub to a five-speed hub

I thought the 5-speed gear hub would give me a lower bottom and a new higher top gear, but spoil the bike a bit, having moved Normal speed, the best speed, down.  This is what has occurred, compromised the bike a little, but I can now go as far up hills as I can on any bike, but necessarily faster. I was not sure if that would happen.  I was not expecting the lower gearing to help or the higher top, which is good, to be worth using.  The gear change operation is now good, and my fallback plan to put back an 18-tooth sprocket is not necessary. 

Picture above right: 5-speed two-cable gear selector, which I am not using.  At the present time, I am using two four-speed gear selectors, which I think I am liking better because I can easily change many speeds in one or two steps.

The rear sprocket is changed from 18 to 20 teeth, thereby reducing the ratios of the lower four speeds by 10% compared to what the FW was, but then added a less efficient a little higher top gear.  The S5-2, I think that I have fitted, the bike feels nice in all speeds but Normal speed is not the wow best speed any more as I expected would happen.  This S5 hub is almost identical to the FW, but the second cable has allowed the 5th, super high, gear to be brought out. 

Both the Peugeot Course, with straight handlebars and wider 32mm wide tires, so that it now rides like a sports/touring bike rather than a track racing bike that it had been, and the Urban 2 has a stiffer frame.  Those bikes, like all my newer bikes, can be ridden more slowly.  The two bikes are as fast on roads as the Lenton.  The FW hub could not be set to get all four speeds reliably, plus I now needed a lower gear, since retiring.  Since making the hub and sprocket swap in 2025, I can now cycle as far up hills in the lowest speed on Lenton as the Peugeot, even though I need to move faster, 4MPH rather than 3 MPH on the Peugeot. 

The S5 is fitted in the less tingy sounding, quieter January 1950, FW hub stainless steel shell, the left side is also the FW, which I would have liked to have swapped.  The right side is the side S5 with the 20-tooth sprocket. 

 

Pictures above Lenton Sports in 2025 after the gear hub swap;  One cable runs alongside the cross bar unchanged, and the new cable runs down the rising tube, then next to the pedal.  Fortunately, the cable and the pedal do not interfere.  The aluminium alloy rack is a better one than the steel one that I put on the bike in the 1970s, or another that just clamped on the seat post, because it is stiffer, stronger and unlikely that the welding will break unlike steel welds that did many times or the ride be compromised by the weight swinging side to side.  

The gears are.  Left (super speed) and Right (three speed) side selectors.

1. H, L.    The left selector needs to be moved two click positions. 
2. L, L.     to be clearly defined, so as not to slip. 
3. x, N.     x - don't care.  The most efficient direct drive speed.
4. L, H.
5. H, H.

The left cable pull is opposite to how the FW would have operated if it had been modified.  That may be the same as the first version S5.  I believe this five-speed gear hub I have fitted is an S5-2; its operation is good. 

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The hope and enthusiasm at the end of the Second World War, the new Lenton bicycle, led to the start of a range of four-speed gear hubs and Dynohubs.  Bicycles had chrome and gold in their decoration again, and variable speed hubs were being made again.  But the post-war, war-grade tires had a short life; my father told me they wore out quickly, so he purchased tandem tires, which lasted many decades longer than any other tires since probably would. 

Some have described the close-ratio hub AC or FC as having little difference changing up to high, but feeling the difference when going down a speed, but the cyclist maintains the cadence.  By comparison, a wide spacing ratio internal hub gear feels more like driving a car, and an FW is not so widely spaced, so it is more nearly ideal than an AW hub on a vintage steel frame bike.  If you require lower or higher gearing, you could change the rear sprocket or fit two or three sprockets side by side, whereas many modern bikes are fitted with internal gears or derailleur gears, which usually cover a wider range with many speeds, but those internal hub gears can be less efficient, consequently or have helical cut gears to mitigate some of their losses. 

Please leave comments below.  I have discussed much of Raleigh Bikes, Sturmey-Archer gears and bike history in various Facebook groups before writing this blog.  The book, The Sturmey-Archer Story, by Tony Hadland, has also been very helpful [and I have made reference to that book].

Picture left: close ratio 4 speed, FM and AF hubs (which are medium and close spaced hubs), later the AF becomes the FC.  They use a second epicyclic gear coupled to the main epicyclic gear to achieve the medium or close ratios.  Similar to the AR close-ratio 3-speed hub introduced two years earlier [Pg 105/106].  The second epicyclic gear drives the sun-pinion.  

The 1945 model FW 4-speed wide hub, which is fitted on this Lenton Sports bike, is different.  The epicyclic gear has a single ring gear, but one of two sun pinions is selected using dog clutches to the stationary shaft to provide a Low or super-low gear called Bottom.  The FW hub was changed a little in 1950.  This should be a more efficient gear hub, though, speaking to an owner of an FM, it feels efficient.  The FW was made until 1969/70.

The picture left, from the Sturmey-Archer Story, is the plaque awarded to Sturmey-Archer by the Cycling Touring Club for the greatest advance in cycling design or equipment for their 4-speed hubs in 1939. [pg 105/106]. 

Comparison of hub gear ratios: https://www.cyclinguk.org/cyclists-library/components/transmission-gears/internal-gear/internal-gear-ratios. The row "Super High (5)" is what an FW would be if modified to a 5-speed hub or the S5 hub that replaced it in 1966. 

 

Comparing the speeds without knowing the real ratios is difficult; the frame and the forks count for a lot.  Here they are in meters of road movement per pedal stroke; 

                  Lenton Sport,          Universal,         Raleigh Step-Thru,  Peugeot Course

          FW Hub 4 speed or S5,  AW Hub 3 speed,  FG Hub 4 speed,  Derailleur 2 + 6 speeds

Small sprocket     18t  20t  18t                   -                         14/34  

Big Sprocket      45t        45t        39t                   -                         42/52   (Chain Wheel)

Ratio              2.5        2.25       2.17              2.075                    1.24/3.71  

Wheel dia.            26"       26"        26"               26"                        673mm    

Wheel circ.           2.07m  2.07m    2.07m           2.07m                   2.11m 

  

Speed B [1]           1.74      1.57                           1.44m                   1.31m [Lowest of low-speed chain wheel] 

Speed L [2]           2.048m  1.84    1.685m [1]     1.70m                   3.17m [Highest of low-speed chain wheel]  

Speed N [3]          2.592m 2.33  2.246m [2]     2.15m                   1.62m [Lowest of high-speed chain wheel] 

Speed H [4]          3.292m 2.96 2.988m [3]     2.73m                   3.93m [Highest of high-speed chain wheel]

Super high (5th)   3.888m   3.5 [5] (S5)               3.23m (This additional speed can be obtained by modification to the gear hub)

 

KEY: m - Metres per pedal stroke.   t - Number of teeth.  The crank arms in all cases are 70mm.

The wheel diameter and circumference are approximate, and the bikes are different in character due to their frames, forks and wheelbase length.  Italic what can be done by modification to FW hub. 

Notes on the Lenton Sports 4-speeds;

 

 Four-speed gear selector patched with a clothes peg spring - Bottom - Low - Normal - High

• Bottom (1) You need a strong finger to select this speed; the cable and the indicator rod can both be broken.  You need to keep this bike moving faster than you would on a short-wheelbase, stiffer-frame bike. 
  

• Low (2) feels easier, but you need to pedal fairly quickly.

• Normal (3) pedal slowly and easily; It is restful, or you can go very fast.  The frame is now helping you more.  You can't start in this gear or in H.  Normal is the best gear, feeling the lightest only on the Lenton; other bikes don't have the frame quality to tell any differences.  This is the direct drive speed and the most efficient speed; no power is carried through the gears.  You may not notice the subtle difference on many other bikes.
  

• High (4) is a very fast gear.  The bike, because of the good frame, seems to pull you along much faster the faster you go above 25 MPH, but 25 MPH is fast enough, and you work hard at this speed.  A faster ride and a lot easier to get further up some hills, changing down a gear as required, than any other bike I've ridden, probably partly because the bike feels particularly secure on the road.
  

• Super-High (5).  A modification with a second cable provides a 5th gear.  This gives a better gear selection operation.  A larger rear sprocket could be fitted to reposition the speeds to give the rider both a lower bottom gear and a higher top gear, but take care not to make the lowest speed impractically slow for the fast Lenton frame.  Otherwise, the 4 speeds suit the bike's character particularly well.  In this case, the Bottom Gear could be called Super-Low, and the new top gear could be called Super-High.

Gear selectors on the rising tube are
hard to reach, easy to operate and allow
you to sweep across speeds easily.

Notes on the Peugeot Course 2+6-speed derailleur;

• Although it is recommended to operate the derailleur to keep the chain fairly in line, it is better to use the small chain wheel at a lower speed when you need to be ready to stop and go.  But use the large chain wheel at the highest speeds on a clear run, or stay in the large chain wheel on a fairly flat ride.  The levers on the Peugeot allow you to sweep the rear sprockets across many speeds and perhaps start from a high speed and quickly change to a low speed*.  Even so, it is only the derailleur gear bikes that I have got stuck in a high gear or inadvertently gone through a red light on. 

• Pedal lightly when changing speed on the front derailleur (left lever).  It is good practice, but not necessary, to pedal with light force when changing speed with the rear derailleur (right lever). 

• This bike, like modern bicycles, is optimised for riding at low speeds you don't by comparison with the Lenton need to pedal faster if you select a lower gear; the bike can move along more slowly easily enough.  This bike, like modern bikes, does not feel so tuned and goes a lot better and various speeds and has the momentum feel on hills and road undulations that the Lenton has lots of.  Both bikes are high tensile steel and have that lovely liveliness that an aluminium frame bike does not have. 

Because this short wheelbase bicycle can move more slowly, comfortably, it feels lighter and easier to pedal without being wobbly at lower speeds.  Consequently.  But at two or three speeds higher, where the gearing is about the same as the Lenton in Bottom or Low, you need to move faster on a long wheelbase bicycle, but Lenton's frame is working with you and feels very smooth and easy by comparison. 

• How you manage derailleur gears depends on the character of the bike and the nature of its controls.  I needed a quiet road for some weeks to learn to use this type of gear and more time to learn to change gears on the Peugeot, at first weaving the width of a narrow road, the first time I did it, reaching down to the levers. 

 A Sturmey-Archer three-speed hub gear is long-lasting and robust.  The best setup is to have much of the cable unsheathed the gears then select more smoothly.  The only maintenance it requires is oiling and cable adjustment in N gear if a gear slips, which is a quick adjustment.  Don't expect an AW or AG hub gear to go wrong, although FW or FG do become unreliable and difficult to adjust and need adjusting when the temperature changes a lot.  On the other hand, a low use or new FG or FW works nicely and precisely and needs less effort to pull the selector to bottom gear and hold that speed without slipping. 

• Sturmey-Archer variable gear hub needs light pedal movement but without force to change speed.  From stationary, moving the pedal backwards whilst changing speed works easily, forward movement with no pressure applied can work and is the recommended method and tapping the pedal in a forward direction works.  When cycling, stop pedalling and keep your feet on the pedals; this introduces the necessary movement to allow the hub gear change to operate.  Changing up one speed is best done with the lever held between two fingers if it is a well-used selector. 

 

1955 vintage Raleigh step-thru, four-speed (FG)
 dynohub bicycle.  Steel wheel rims give better
braking in the rain; the bicycle is green with
stainless steel rims.

1997 Universal, La Riveria, three-speed (AW)  
Sturmey-Archer hub gear.  Chrome rim braking
do not stop a bike well in the rain, but some brake
block types such as those with a leather insert
can improve the braking.

The two British-made bicycles pictured above are similar to each other and are like a good modern British steel bicycle, reasonably comfortable, easy to ride, and short wheelbase.  They can carry a lot of weight on a rear rack.  The 1955 vintage bicycle is a good four-speed low-gear bicycle, but heavy and heavier to pedal than a similar, more modern Raleigh bicycle.  The 1997 La Riveria is faster and higher geared, a three-speed, a little lighter to pedal.  They are not much like a veteran long-wheelbase sports bike, but both types of bikes do what they are designed to do particularly well.  They are like many stiffer frame bikes, rideable at lower speeds, but unlike many modern bikes, they are reasonably comfortable.  British-made short wheelbase bike frames, perhaps, have improved in design since the 1950s, when long wheelbase bikes were the best of the best.  The short-wheelbase steel bike frames were probably at their best in the 1970s (earlier than that, I am told, but I have no personal experience), and that any British-made bicycle would be using the same Tube Investments/Raleigh tubing kits, I guess? 

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Concord flying at 50,000 feet, Mach 2 for four 
hours or so, but has slowed down so that the
tornado fighter pilot could take this picture; he 
only had a few minutes at this speed and height. 
myaircraftcost.com theaviationgeekclub.com

Britain was known for engineering, which was said to be second to none, but the British textiles and film industries were also the best and the choice of top film producers. Stanley Kubrick came to England to make some of his best films.  What has survived a century and is in running condition is the best of the best, such as American Model-T Ford cars, British Singer sewing machines and Raleigh bikes.  Many new materials and techniques became available in the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as the bicycle chain and resilient, lightweight, seamless steel tubing.  Many machines made before the 1914-18 war did not last, metal parts did not spring, but bent or were brittle and cracked.  This is because there was more variability and art in engineering but less formalised skill and knowledge.  Raleigh Sturmey-Archer had to make their own gear-hub parts because they could not buy the quality they required before 1910.  That is, engineering had less precise parts, materials, and tools, and there was less standardisation.  I suspect a lot of Victorian steam train boilers cracked, or for other reasons, were scrapped after a short life, and I have seen a fine-looking steam train engine retired from service after only 10 years of use, in museums.  

 

There was a culture of looking after things, recycling and repairing much more so before 1980. Supermarkets put things in paper bags, but shops were reluctant to give away paper bags.  People normally saved boxes, tins, jars, bottles, and paper bags for other uses and took a shopping bag with them when going shopping, more so before 1970 and much less so after 1990.  Discussion would more commonly be about how to fix something, where to get a part, rather than where to get it fixed, as you find in general social media now. 

 

A small, cheap English-made car, which was also cheap to run, the 1922-1939 Austin 7

 

Austin 7 https://www.classicandsportscar.com

They were made by Austin Motor Company, and under licence or copied in many parts of the world.  The first small family car in the USA made by Fahrazeugfabrik Eisnach became Automobilwerk Eisenach, Germany and branded Dixi in the USA.  The car was converted to metric and soon after became the first car made by BMW when it purchased the US company.  Even so, such a car was only for the practical well-off people, but Raleigh sold nearly twice as many bicycles a year in 1939 as all the Austin 7s ever made. 

The Baby Austin car was a revolution in the affordability of British family cars because it had a small petrol-only engine, a quarter the size of a model-T Ford car's engine, but only a little lower power rating.  Dynamo, electric starting and electric lights were now common on cars, and the Super Seven also included a regulator*, but on other models, you set a switch that inserted a resistor in series with the dynamo field winding for low charge, high charge, no lighting, or lighting.  Earlier cars, the dynamo's voltage was set by moving a third sliding brush adjustment on the commutator to set the field winding voltage for summer or winter use and the number of auxiliaries fitted.  The battery was checked with a battery hydrometer; alternatively, charging is about correct, with very few bubbles formed in the battery after a drive, and the acid level rarely falls.  There were many more things to adjust, such as the brake cables before 1935 weekly, and everything was oiled every 250 miles and greased every 500 miles, wheel bearings depending on the manufacturer, 1,000 to 10,000 miles or Austin monthly.  The Mini was briefly named Austin 7 in 1959 when cars were becoming more affordable, for many more people were buying cars, but bicycles and public transport remained more widely used*.  The first motorway opened in England in 1958, but fuel was still expensive.  The cheapest cars were made by Ford and Austin when their prices dropped to £100 in about 1935 briefly (£5,000 in 2021*), and a Morris 8 cost £120.  In 1935, petrol cost 7.5p a gallon (1/6d, which is 1:15 hours manual workers' pay). 

 

Austin Cars

* The mechanical regulator is like a relay which opens a contact and reduces the dynamos' field winding current by supplying field current through a resistor.  The resistor is connected across the contact and also acts as a snubber, preventing sparking across the contact.  The contact hovers just opening, sparking slightly and continually, but contact erosion and electrical interference are modest.  Electrical interference needs to be addressed by fitting snubber, resistor and capacitor or capacitor, units and resistive high-tension cables.  The current sense winding causes the output voltage to increase when the output current increases.  The regulator operates a bit like a buzzer but operates quietly, hovering and making small sparks. 

I do not recall the regulator buzzing on my Mini or my Anglia but continually making small sparks, but I am advised that some regulators do buzz. 

 

Car wiring diagrams (left) are difficult to follow.  I have expanded a section so you should be able to see how the dynamo, battery, regulator and cut-out work.  My father redrew parts of these diagrams using coloured pencils; these diagrams have details about circuits fused that do not seem to be in published documentation.  This 1936-39 diagram is more like a picture with smooth curves rather than a modern orthogonal diagram.  Mechanical detail drawings for servicing are better and are very good.  Earlier Austin 7 circuit, which has no regulator but just the cut-out 

The mechanical cut-out was invented in 1915, web AI tells me;

In 1920, starter motors and batteries had become common in cars.  I do not know what came before the cut-out, or if cars could charge a battery, but I can envisage a dynamo and a governor-operated switch to connect the battery to the dynamo when the engine is running.  I have not found evidence of automotive battery charging systems before 1915. 

The cut-out.

Earlier cars, AL-0055-01B, did not have a voltage regulator but a high and low charging rate switch and a cut-out relay.  The cut-out is a rough approximation to the diode rectifiers used in a modern alternator.  Circuit diagram created using OrCAD Capture 17, limited trial version.  There are variations between makes and models of cars, but no connection between F1 and the charge rate switch look's wrong.  That is the diagram shows the field fuse bypassed, if wired this way would not stop the charging system working almost as it should. 

Austin Cars

Cars may have one, two or more fuses, but the circuits that are fused vary.  The third brush dynamo was withdrawn, and the regulator was introduced to Austin from 1934 and Morris from 1936, but the regular Austin 7 remained simpler Cut-out only.  Cars that did not have a regulator had a switch to select the charge rate and the third brush charge rate trimming control. 

• The system is not accurate, and it has a lot of intended and unintended positive feedback, so when the voltage rises, the dynamo would generate more current and voltage because the field winding voltage has increased, and therefore the voltage would increase more, so the battery plays a part in regulating the voltage. 

• A field winding fuse to stop the voltage from running away.  But it is possible that the dynamo iron was designed to saturate at, say, 6V field winding voltage and thereby limit the voltage runaway to proportional to engine speed and limit the maximum current. 

• That is, the dynamo output current is limited by the magnetic design in all dynamos and alternators. 

• The driver needs to move the charge rate switch according to the ammeter, and what inspecting the battery electrolyte tells him.  Use a hydrometer (because it was an accurate, affordable instrument) or a voltmeter.  If the battery needs topping up more often than once every two weeks, or if bubbles form after a long drive, you need to reduce the charging rate.  But if there were just a few bubbles after a long drive, the charging is about right.  [if I remember correctly].  It is necessary, adjusting the third brush on the dynamo as the season's changes. 

• The manual says the ammeter should come down to +2A to +4A trickle charge, which is a necessary high rate to accommodate when the electrics are running on battery whilst idling.  Therefore, a car, as I said, was only suitable for a hands-on person; at the time, that would have said a man.  A bicycle, walking, or public transport were usually better options. 

• The Austin 7 electrics total was about 60W, the dynamo was rated at 6V, 11A, but most other models and makes were rated higher than this.  The battery was 50AH, probably 300A?  Austin car club say 3-400A was the initial current of the starter.  This would be the short circuit current of the battery, cables and motor before the crank has movement.  100A, used to be said anecdotally for starting, it could not be higher when cranking, and my guess would be 50A, but very variable. 
• When I was very young 1961 to 1963, going on holiday 250 miles a few times to Devon, and Cornwall in a 1935 Austin 7, and a Morris 8.  But our subsequent holidays to Scotland often, 600 miles or so, were in bigger cars, Morris Oxford, Rover P4, Skoda Octavia Combi, Audi 80. 

 

The mechanical cut-out does not turn on or off precisely, so when the engine slows down, the dynamo will start drawing current from the battery, but when the current drawn increases enough, the cut-out will disconnect.  By comparison, an alternator provides power even when the engine is idling and the rectifier diodes switch precisely.  It is also likely that the early 4-pole type dynamo produced power even when the engine was idling, so that the inefficient cut-out only needed to operate when the engine was running and open when it stops.

AL-0055-02B veteran car regulator and cut-out, wiring diagram.  The three-phase alternator replaced the control box and the dynamo by 1970, and many more circuits were fused in a separate fuse box.  These schematics show component values that are not correct.  The generator starts because of the little remnant magnetism in the iron field magnets. 

The addition of the regulator allowed for substantial auxiliary equipment to be added without compromising the battery charging.  The reduction of four to a two-pole dynamo, which probably occurred in the 1920s or early 1930s, no doubt means that there would be more periods when the battery is doing work running the electrical systems and the cut-out, which is not efficient, operates more. 

The mechanical voltage regulator is quite good, and the driver did not need the ammeter or have a charge rate switch to manage, but the driver still needs to keep his tow on the throttle when queuing in winter with the lights on, if they start to dim.  No doubt the newer 2-pole dynamo was cheaper to make using fewer assembly operations than the early 4-pole dynamo.  But the alternator has 12 to 16 poles, and a smaller, faster pulley sweeps about 5 to 15 times more poles per engine revolution and runs all the electrics even when the engine is idling by comparison.  The lead acid battery has been very suitable for vehicles and electric vehicles for 180 years. 

• Auxiliary equipment became more viable, and A valve car radio of the time may require 6V, 5A (guess), which is more than the ignition system, so by adding accessories, the electrical system current balance could easily be very wrong. 

• Some cars were negative earth, some were positive earth, a valve radio probably could cope with either, but other cars were 12V, and this sort of radio would not accommodate different battery voltage cars. 

• Car radios could be made of high-quality cast aluminium with compartmentalised sections, a vibratory inverter, radio and audio sections, and all had 0V bonding to the case by the shortest path at many points.  The valve base connectors had clips.  It would therefore be very expensive. 

• The electrical system of modern cars has a high degree of interference screening and prevention, but at the sources of interference, such as the ignition, motors, and electronics.  So that electrical systems of the car do not interfere with the in-car entertainment systems. 

• The voltage regulator regulates over a range of current loading, provided the cable thicknesses and lengths are not changed, and should allow the battery to charge as fast as the dynamo can deliver current.  But the battery is still used when the engine is idling.  Constant voltage with a small increase in voltage when the charge current is higher.  The battery charge rate is increased further, as a compromise, when a lot of electricity is being used. 

Alternator supplies all the power all the time that the engine is running, including when the engine is idling.  Consequently, now car batteries rarely need topping up and can last at least a decade, but they still provide voltage stabilisation and some over-voltage protection.  The electrical system must work from 5V to double 12V battery voltage, therefore 24V, withstand 60V and a voltage spike of around 500-800V.  A dynamo is an alternator combined with a synchronous rectifier, formed by the commutator and brushes. 

The alternator has no brushes but uses slip rings that allow it to rotate faster, 12 to 16 poles.  When introduced, they were rated at ~30A, but the Lucas ones, like so many things then, were not well made at first.  A smaller, faster-spinning pulley sweeps about 5 to 15 times more poles per engine revolution and runs all the electrics even when the engine is idling by comparison.  So uses fewer materials than the slower-spinning 2-pole or 4-pole dynamo.  The lead acid battery has been highly suitable for vehicles and electric vehicles for 180 years.  

Control box with just a cut-out. 

https://www.da7c.co.uk/technical_torque_articles/threebrush_dynamo.htm

 

Control box with voltage regulating, current compensation wingdings, a cut-out and fuses;

https://www.vintagecarparts.co.uk/products/rf95-12-volt-regulator-and-cut-out-type-rf95#&gid=2&pid=1

Dynamo replacement - always flash the field winding, to ensure that the field is magnetised a little and with the correct polarity.  That is with only the battery earth connected, and the dynamo field wire F disconnected.  Connect a wire to the battery live terminal and touch to the field winding F connection for say a minute.  This will create a big spark when you disconnect, which will hurt you if you are touching the dynamo field winding F contact, you have no reason to do that.  Finally, disconnect the battery earth, then complete connecting the wiring, then lastly reconnect the battery earth.  You can prevent the big spark by connecting something resistive, such as a headlamp or tail lamp bulb, across the field winding first; this will prevent compromising the field winding insulation. 

I do not have experience with a 1920s car, but my motorbike, which used a selenium rectifier stack, had no regulator but a switch to connect higher current winding's into the circuit when the lights were turned on, but it ran the battery down if ridden using the parking lights.  That is, but for using rotating magnets and the rectifier, its electrical system had similarities with early car electrics.  

My moped did not have a battery, but ran lights well from its single-phase fixed magnet generator, usually called a magneto incorrectly.  This is similar to veteran car electrics, which would also have a battery for the continuous spark ignition for starting.  You did not always need to crank a veteran car to start it, but they did break a lot of people's thumbs or arms hand-cranking starting them.  One car in the Beaulieu motor museum had injure 10 or so people in its century of existence.

The regulator has a voltage setting method, such as a screw or bending metal, to adjust the voltage.  This wiring diagram/circuit with two fuses, but 12V instead of 6V before the War, is about what Lucas Industries made for British car makers after World War Two, but before the alternator system replaced them. 

Draw and write what you plan before you proceed with any bicycle maintenance.  Research and think about what you are going to do for a while.  

The Mini Metro was launched in 1980.  It had basically the same 3-main bearing engine as the Austin 7, with a leaner mix SU carburettor, and Cooper sports exhaust and manifold, and lower maintenance circularly moving contact breaker points.  The engine power was further increased over the Mini to 45BHP, and the service interval increased to a one-year, better fuel efficiency, and higher top speed than the Mini.  Cars had now become what the Lenton already was in 1946, a vehicle you could use with just some minor servicing points to observe and delivered without faults.  What has changed since is that cars cannot be serviced by their owner, but bicycles still can be serviced by their owners.  Tommy Godwin's record from 1939/40 has not truly been beaten on, more or less, the same bike as the Lenton and any sports bike of that time. 

By this time flowers had been long gone from the fields, big warnings about poisoning our planet, had not been headed enough but war was promoted, and excessive consumption encouraged.  Carl Sagan spoke to congress and warned of climate change.  But for some real good things happened; wind power, Ozone layer protection, and lead removed from petrol, for example, green wash, and ill-advised geoengineering, costly nuclear power.  Too many things have also not been done to put a break on the harmful things we do to ourselves and each other.  People really are dying as a consequence in growing numbers, about 40,000 a year due car emissions in the UK.  But the media, BBC etc. understating climate change severity, misquoting scientific reports, using a mixture of lies and truths to promote war and consumption but understate the adverse consequence of those as well. 

That is despite engine efficiency and less poisonous, cars go faster, are bigger and excessive consumption is now the way.  I am sensitive to vehicle fumes since I moved from a village to a town as a boy, mitigated by not consuming dairy.  It means I become sensitive to pollen and dust.  I am sensitive to meat also a modern food that my parents did not grow up with in such quantity. 

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

A bicycle dynamo is really a single-phase permanent magnet generator or commonly called an alternator.  They all generate a current limited by the strength of the magnetism, but a Dynohub operates below its optimum speed, so the output current is variable, and on small wheel bikes, cycled fast, are said to break the bulbs.  

Picture right: 50mm diameter, 24-step Stepper motor, 4-phase (2-phase) and more powerful magnets and turns faster, meaning that it produces as much power from a bicycle rim as a much bigger Dynohub and has much better current output regulation.  Whereas a Dynohub only has 20 poles and rotates at 40th the speed and has a weaker magnet.  I have not made this generator well enough to try it out on the road.  In tests, the output voltage rises with speed, then levels off when the operating current is reached.  The current then becomes constant regardless of further speed increases. 

Experiments with this motor used as a generator are at the bottom of the following blog link: An Engineer's Perspective: Bicycle Dynohub Maintenance and Lighting

 

Many lighting regulations changed, and the placing of the low-down left side light stopped being legal on later-made bicycles than my 1946 Lenton Sports.  That optional low-down light was moved to the right-hand side of the fork subsequently, in the UK. 

 

Raleigh introduced their first model Dynohub, in the 1930s was 12V, then an 8V then the 6V, 1.8W or 2W type was standardised on.  Sturmey-Archer developed and sampled 4 times more power, 3W 6V, 30 pole Dynohub with brighter lighting in 1982.  This was not popular, did not go into production, and Sturmey-Archer stopped making Dynohubs in 1984.

• Bicycle dynamos, by comparison, such as a Sturmey-Archer Dynohub, really should be called a single-phase permanent magnet AC Generator or an Alternator.  But hub dynamos run at too low a speed to get to the constant current region of the output curve. 
  

I have not chosen to put a Dynohub on the Lenton because the difference in my effort required though small, would surely be noticeable.  And I would not fit a bottle dynamo; they have a smaller contact wheel and is inefficient make cycling hard work. 

‐---‐------------------------------------------------

* I need to check the figures.  Although public transport use, walking and cycling declined from 1960 to 1990 but train use rose to its highest in about 2010 and then continued to increase, but this switch to rail has been limited by little infrastructure building in many parts of the country.  Wikipedia GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2023

 

There is no easy price comparison, fuel is a smaller proportion of a wage, and there are fewer small economical cars made for simple driving from A to B.  So many of the efficiency gains have been used to make the vehicles faster.  And the Internal Combustion Engine is not flexible but has an optimal efficiency speed, by comparison with electric transmission.  There are no small engine ordinary cars now. 

 

Until 1960, bicycles still needed some oiling but the crank and the basic wheel hub became greased parts.  The tires still need pumping up and the brakes checked.  These things, like washing the car, may still be, were considered normal duties or pleasures.  Lubricated for life things started coming in during the 1960s.  And not bothering anyway seemed to become customary from about 1990!

 

An owner's manual shows you
how to service nearly every-
thing on the car.  Car makers
stopped publishing these, but
The Haynes Manual replaced
them but also shows you how
to fix everything on the car.

After 1945, car engines got the improvements that had started in the 1930s, first in Jaguar Cars, the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, then designers went to Austin and other makers.  The swirling turbulent chamber design OHV doubled the output power.  Companies merged, got big, and management lost connection with the workers, bad industrial relations resulted and a few companies made a lot of bad headline news.   

 

In 1979, car ignition contact breaker points would need to have the high point (spike) filed down, then the gap set every 3,000 miles.  Better oils that needed less frequent changing, but brake hydraulic parts and fluid are rarely replaced as frequently as recommended, which is 20,000 to 40,000 miles or every two or three years.   Otherwise cars needed much less owner maintenance and only required management of the gears which people liked.  Hybrid cars manage the transmission more efficiently.  Now self drive cars are starting to do everything in 2025.

 

When the Mini car became available, it soon became a people's car like quality bicycles made by Raleigh.  It's 850cc engine, was still 3-bearing but now OHV, SU carburettor, forged crankshaft, and double the power output at 34BHP of the Austin 7 it was the successor of.  Owned by ordinary people as well as the very rich.  First-world nations used to pride themselves on having good services, people took pride in working for a government service, and everything well made for their people.  Many manufacturers, including big companies, still pride themselves on making good quality things, but talking about profits is not vulgar any more.  The Austin 7 cars were well known in sport, and the Mini cars were exceptional in rallying.  And very good sports bicycles used to be made to be used on ordinary roads, whereas they are now uncomfortable on ordinary roads.  One of the differences between a Raleigh Record Ace used in competition and the Lenton sport is that the crank height is set 1" higher off the ground in the RRA.  Both bikes should be good to cover 1 km in a minute. 

A good basic Raleigh bicycle cost less than £5 in 1935, and a good basic Hercules bicycle would cost less.  BMW Isetta and Messerschmitt Heinkel were about the most economical cars to run in the 1950s and 1960's the two German cars achieved nearly 100MPG.  But anything imported, such as cars, was expensive until Britain joined the EEC, which became the EU.  All the same, many more people were starting to own cars.  Some of the small late Victorian cars, such as De-Dion of France and many other makers in the UK, also had small engines of 600cc, low tuned with no valve overlap, low speed and a comparatively very good MPG, but were quite dangerous to start.  The first steam road vehicle was demonstrated in 1801.  Steam coaches started to run services from ~1830, and electric cars were developed, lead-acid batteries were developed in the 1850s, and the steam car was ready to go in 90 seconds by 1890 after the flash boiler was developed.  In the 1850s, cars became popular with the wealthy, but they required a considerable amount of maintenance, whereas bicycles were practical everyday transport by 1900, though they were expensive.  Electric and steam automobiles held the land speed records, but in time petrol cars were developed with electric starting 1920, which made them much safer to start.  They developed to become the fastest vehicles on the road.  Veteran hand cranked internal combustion engine cars usually caused a number of there owns injury when starting them. 

Raleigh made motorbikes from 1899, Raleigh made three-wheeler cars from 1903 to 1908 and from 1929 to 1934.  The Raleigh Safety 7, launched in 1933, cost 100 guineas but was finally discounted to 90 guineas (£98/10/- with tax).  Raleigh Sturmey-Archer ceased making cars, motorbikes and motorbike gearboxes by this time; their car designer left to start the Reliant car company, taking the Raleigh tooling and spare car parts, used a J.A.P. engine, followed by the Austin 7 side-valve engine.  Reliant purchased the Austin 7 engine tooling to continue to make a variant of that side-valve engine until 1962.  Raleigh made or re-branded Raleigh some petrol engine-powered bicycles and mopeds up until 1970.

 

The picture right is https://www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/the-raleigh-safety-seven/

 

* The calculation came from several web calculators, such as the Bank of England.  These calculators are showing much lower figures than they did when the website was written, presumably some years ago.  £6,200 versus £5,000 in 2021?  This price is probably a good indication of affordability for a middle-class family.  Working out another way, a Manual worker's (man's) wage in 1935 was £0.06/hr. for a 50-hour week £3.00/Week, £156 a year versus £22,500 a year now. 

Comparative price of a modern car = cheap car in 1935 * annual pay now / annual pay then.

 £14,400 = £100 * £22,500 / £156  

This seems to be a more accurate figure?  If I took the mean manual wage for men and women and also the hourly rate, then the value of the car would be higher by at least two times higher (£30,000 in 2022)?  

By comparison, in 2024, Auto car gave the most basic electric cars at £8,500 for a small Citroen EV, and the next cheapest family EV car was £14,500, and a plug-in hybrid EV was £20,000. 

• Anecdote: It used to be said by Raleigh representatives that a Raleigh bicycle will last 100 years.
  

• Anecdote, by comparison, during the 1950s, a 1930s Ford Anglia cost 200 guineas (nearly the same, adjusting prices, cost as when the car was new), which may have cost a little more than £100 new in 1935 (about £5,000 in 2021).  At the same time, A Rolls-Royce might be for sale for £190 and be difficult to sell because it was so expensive to run.  Markets sold cars, it is said, with soapy water in the sump so they did not smoke, and some wooden pistons and the trader was gone when you went back to face him - not sure about that story other than Buyer Beware is the point. 
  

• By comparison, people living in the lush forests and jungles of the world would work 4 hours a week, if any work at all could be discerned.  Missionaries liked this, and many did not return to Europe but "Went native"  (BBC Radio 4 From Eden to Ethiopia ~1988).  By comparison, people living at high altitudes poor fertility land, such as in South America, would need to work hard to survive on the land chewing coca leaves to boost their effort. 
  

• When I started work in 1975, the company was new, and the car park was mostly cars and a few bicycles.  When I changed jobs in 1977 to a 63-year-old company, the car park was small, not very full, but the bike shed was over full of bicycles.  People discussed things like buying a new bike or replacing the ball bearings, chain, and spoke tensioning were the only things required after 25 years or more of use, in addition to normal weekly oiling, tire pumping up, and brake maintenance. 

Older vintage or veteran bikes will outlast if maintained, a maintained car by very many more miles and years.  A bike could be in reasonable order after 100 years.  As if the machine has personality and appreciates being liked, and gives remarkably good long service in return for having been cared for.  I have seen a picture of a 1951 Raleigh sports bike that had been in continuous use (as of 2018), and the paint is still good, although chipped. 

Things changed - in the 1970's new cars were delivered with faults, poor management in British industry, designed for obsolescence and designed to wear out.

My 16th Birthday present.

Timex watches can run without maintenance for 50 years, but my 1974 day, date, and time Timex watch (pictured right), the winder was made of soft metal that wore out in under 5 years when the knurling on the winder wore away. 

 

You could have the winder replaced with a better winder, but I fitted a piece of rubber sleeving periodically, and the watch remained very accurate for 30 years.  When wound up every morning was accurate all winter, losing 1 minute a month in the summer and 2 minutes a month in the hottest month.  Evidently designed to wear out and had been well-engineered so that just one part would not last too long, so that the watch would not be compromised until after the warranty period had ended, but probably before the Sale of Goods Act guarantee had expired.  My patch was to fit and to keep replacing a rubber sleeve onto the winder, or to wind the watch with a rubber band stretched across your fingers.  Timex is an American company that has operated in Scotland since 1946 and also manufactures for other companies, such as home computers in the 1980 home computer boom. 

During the 1960s and 70s, some British brand-name products were delivered with faults.  Early TVs, then Colour TVs and early front-loading automatic washing machines were remarkably unreliable, but foreign manufacturers imported things that were particularly well-made at first, but were often later designed to wear out.  During this time, British-made products could be branded with a foreign-sounding name or a Union Jack placed to capture patriotism to sell them. 

 

Buyer beware.  Most cheap watches were not robust, accurate or long-lasting.  But 

many jewelled watches would be repairable and should outlast a cheaper Timex watch.  

The time would be wrong by 5 minutes a day for such a cheap watch.  Timex were 

not like that, but was regarded highly for being a robust and reliable instrument.  Having 

said that, it was quite normal to work with that error, but useless if the watch stops.

Axminster Carpet was probably purchased in the 1970s, near the end of its manufacture in Britain.  British carpets last 100 years, and when people had a new carpet, they moved the old carpet to a bedroom.  These carpets were cut and taped together to fit different-shaped rooms when moving house. 

British Textiles were still made to high standards, and my 1975 Burton's made-to-measure coat would be made to last a lifetime.  After 20 years, one of the buttons got loose, but the coat always felt lovely to wear compared with anything off-the-peg.  The material looked tired until washed and passed on to someone else a few years ago, looking new again, but for the loose button.  British Leyland was still making very well-made Rover cars and Minis, but many of the cars they made, although very good, were delivered with faults (Gremlins).  The Leycare warranty was featured in advertising during the 1970s, along with the admission that new cars might be delivered with gremlins.  All makes of cars were delivered with faults or defects that became apparent years later.  Both Audi and VW had defects in electrical areas, but very few other faults, so they have well deserved an excellent reputation.  

But in the 1980s BL became Rover group the cars were excellent lots of staff and management made redundant and machine manufacture but Rover was not the second to none brand that the name had been in the 1960s.   The Labour government had done an excellent job sorting it out and the Conservative government sold it off. 

 

Ford cars were delivered with few faults and made with cheap, short-life parts and being a cheap car with cheap parts was a sales feature of Ford cars.  At this time, Japanese electronic products had a justified reputation for being fit for purpose, very long-lasting and faultless when new.  Meanwhile, ITT, GE, Ferranti, Plessey and Mullard (Philips) were making the traditional British brands or parts for them, many of which have always made high-quality, reliable parts cheaply.

 

Repair, Recycle and Reuse;

It is a modern version of the phrase; Don't waste, there is a war on.  Or Make-do-and-mend, these were current at the time that the Lenton bicycles were made and for decades after the two World Wars.  Short-lived things are liked, and there is a culture cultivated of buying, using briefly and throwing away, and this is now not a thing to be ashamed of.  So the environmental concern about this waste is usually dismissed, with waste said to be good for big business (not good for small repair businesses, of course).  It does not follow, though, that all companies make things designed to go obsolete or break after a short time.  The vegetarian shoe company, in Brighton, East Sussex, make and also sells other brands of vegan shoes, for example.  They are well-made, very repairable, and consequently long-lasting. 

Japanese Canon AE1 best camera of the year 1976 and a particularly good camera for a few decades following.  Particularly nice to use, with well-thought-out operation and both are in working order over 40 years later.  The camera does not have any aspherical lens elements, unlike some cameras made 5 years later.  But it does have a Texas Instruments microprocessor with some key low-power Ferranti intellectual property, I believe.  British cameras are still made but not in volume probably for 100 years or more.  In  there time they were very good.

Between 1945 and 1979, small companies continued to be merged or taken over to become big companies, leaving the country with a surplus of the best designers and engineers.  Engineering, such as computing and aircraft designers from World War 2, was the best, and it was a challenge that governments tried to resolve to not lose all of it and cause unemployment.  Although Concord was cancelled and restarted with the swing of governments, this prestigious project showed divided opinions among the British, where a political consensus did not exist.  But why the Chevaline weapon system upgrade to the Polaris nuclear submarine was never cancelled shows a lack of scrutiny in military spending that has never been addressed.  The upgraded Polaris submarine was launched and then replaced a year later by American Trident submarines.  The political consensus of this period was that all governments tackled the issues, then changed to using foreign manufacture as an ideology of government and the terms Thatcherism and Reaganism were coined for this policy change.  Finally, turning the last big one around British Leyland (BL) with the launch of the Mini Metro car in 1980.  BL became Rover Group, cars were now delivered without faults, and the cars continued to last well.  Some of the cars last a very long time, but the company did not last under the new ideology of the times its bad reputation now stuck and foreign cars were probably a safer buy.  I do agree that the automotive industry should not be state-run or state-subsidised, but the loss of Rover is the consequence of the British buying cheap foreign cars subsidised by their governments and a worldwide overproduction of cars.  So many companies closed in the 1980s or were sold by the government very cheaply and ended up mostly foreign-owned, probably financed by private UK money instead of state-owned.  Public and financial institutions that bought shares and sold them profited well, whether they kept them or sold them straight away, called stagging, but overall jobs were lost, and useful employment and purpose for a lot of people were big losses. 

The 1970s marked a time when life had become easier, with full employment and virtually no homelessness (in reality, there were a lot of homeless in the big cities).  Mortgages, pensions, and financial services were trusted by mutual and friendly societies, which provided their own salaried advisers who could be trusted better than the newer independent commission-based advisers, and that was what most people used.  The banks still had their founding Quaker or other philosophy of supporting and looking after their customers, but these things changed.  Significantly more things were designed to wear out or were badly made, so they wore out before a useful time, the novelty wore off, or they became obsolete quickly and were discarded.  There was little place for repairing shoes and bikes, and what was repaired was carried out by replacement of a module rather than of a worn or broken part, although a module such as a motor might be overhauled and sold.  Built-in wear-out had already been the case, for example, valve TVs designed with the valves over-stressed, and microwave ovens that deteriorate in power more quickly than others or older models.  More people chose things that only needed to last long enough to buy, open, be played with briefly and then be discarded, so many British manufacturers tried to follow the trend but cut costs instead, and failed because they started producing rubbish.  Raleigh bikes went with the trend, changing enough but continued manufacturing good quality bikes in the UK until 2012.  Bike makers did not need to design in obsolescence or to wear out; many bikes are and have always been bought but then ridden just once. 

 

1970 HMV Radiogram used most days for 50 years, but although the controls needed to be operated a few times to make them work, this was a weakness of this era of Hi-Fi; the sound quality, if placed across the diagonal corner of the room, has an excellent sharp clarity.  HMV was a brand made by ITT (US company), probably in Paddock Wood, Kent, England.

 

There were many better paddle switches used in telecoms equipment and more expensive brands of Hi-Fi, such as Teleton.  More recent volume and tone controls were implemented with integrated circuits using analogue multipliers, now some digital processing, so that crackle did not occur as the control was adjusted.  That is unlike bicycles, the best had not been achieved at this time, though those more expensive Hi-Fi systems could have better switches but a poorer receiver.  The HMV used better lower lower-noise European and UK-made transistors by comparison.

Oil companies would send anyone who wrote, asked, booklets and lubricating charts in the 1950's such as the one pictured right.  Here are some more: Ford, Morris, Riley, and Rolls-Royce.  Most things used to be made to be repairable, and ordinary people would be more empowered by having repaired things.

Note: * The Car's life was improved by adding oil and air filters to reduce engine wear.  Later improvements to oils also meant thinner engine oil with both better lubrication and better engine efficiency.  In the 1950s? CC Wakefield Ltd.'s Castrol brand multi-grade oil became available, so summer and winter oil changes became unnecessary and over subsequent decades, car servicing frequency was reduced to once a year.  The number of types of oil was greatly rationalised at this time, and booklets like these had amendments reflecting the changes.  Many types of vegetable oil had stopped being used early in the 20th century.  In the 1970s improvements to carburation were made using a bimetallic mechanism to redirect air intake from the hot exhaust manifold get the engine running at optimum temperature quickly, thereby improving efficiency and reducing cold engine wear. 

Consequently, a small car's engine would last 15,000 to 25,000 miles, increased to 100,000 miles and now even longer, and engine, de-coaking, and reconditioning are not so common. 

Engine power-to-weight ratio improved by allowing some blow-through by the valve overlap in a four-stroke or in a two-stroke cycle compared to very old engines (I can't find a reference, but I think made before the 1920s).  Petrol octane increased so that lead, one of the poisons in fuel, stopped being added but the highest octane fuel stopped being offered and cars with high compression engines needed to be de-tuned a little.  Efficiency traded for speed and reduction in some pollutants makes an internal combustion engine a very bad compromise, less bad than they were.  Engine temperatures are reduced to reduce emissions, but this makes the engine less efficient.  However, at speeds, they still produce a lot of poisonous ozone and nitrous oxide.  The gearbox attempts to match engine power to road and driving requirements, but electric transmission (generator-motor) used in trains and shipping is more efficient.  Trains are long and with modest rail gradients improve efficiency a lot more, though.  So a gearbox requires driving skills that make driving a, for fun than functional.  Helical-cut gears improve efficiency and make the gears run quieter, and synchromesh makes gear changing easier.  Evidently, car engines were never intended to have such a short life as they did before 1950.  American cars tended to be gas guzzlers by comparison because the USA has a more exploitative hold over oil suppliers, which is a bad thing, but has become true here in the UK, although the phrase Chelsea tractor is used against some of them.  Small British-made cars became much more comfortable after 1980, just like many small European cars already were.

 

Yashicamat camera, Vivitar flash, 
Strativ tripod.

Picture left - Yashicamat, 1950s Japanese Camera equal to a German "Rollei" Rolleiflex or Rolleicord in quality, far eastern products can be equal to the best.  A hot-shoe to cable and a connector adaptor that operates the modern flash. 

 

My grandmother, who was a photographer, bought her first Rollei when they were new in the 1920s.  She tried one in a shop and insisted on having that one, not another off the shelf.  This was important because things were much more variable in their manufactured quality then; people still took this precaution until the 1980s.

 

A Raleigh bicycle, a Japanese Hi-fi and most European or American brands you would not expect to need to bother to check for poor function, performance or fault.  But you still cannot always get you sale of goods act rights without facing an argument, which may not arise.  I have bought a number of tire pumps that did not work well or broke after a few years. 

During the post-war (political) consensus until 1980, if you could do the job, you were given the job.  There was a place for philanthropic, commercial and government services and investment called the mixed economy, which was regulated so that what worked was done.  Significantly, manufacturing and engineering were still supported.  The British prejudice against engineers, being people who work on dirty engines, as opposed to ingenuity the correct meaning was always true.  The Technician makes the dirty engine clean, working and functioning, or the design proving or reporting design improvements or flaws using his dexterity and skill, often called in a derogatory way a grease monkey for a car mechanic (technician).  A craftsman is the most prestigious type of technician.  There was an expectation to be employed, and anyone would feel or be made to feel very uncomfortable about being unemployed.  Generally, periods of unemployment lasted just a day.  For longer-term unemployment, state national insurance paid unemployment pay and your mortgage interest was paid. 

At the end of the 1970's the problems in British industry, partly due to poor British management leading to bad industrial relations, were understood.  Suppressed or fixed by the government and union initiatives, such as ethics in BAE Scotland, The Lucas Plan, and Triumph Motorbike Cooperative.  To protect against monopolies from unfair pricing was addressed by the creation of the British Sugar Corporation and Giro-Bank (not that sugar prices should be regulated, which surely conflicts with public health) was addressed.  Rolls-Royce aero engine, part of that business, became state-owned (1971-1987), and the RB211 jet engine was developed was one of the most efficient in its time.  High-value investment and return supported by the National Enterprise Board, which significantly supported Ferranti and its Uncommitted Logic Array (ULA), also British Leyland (significantly the Mini Metro car) was resolved, even though the unionised workforce lost jobs to robot assembly.  The National Coal Board and British Rail had already been successfully nationalised in 1946 and 1948 from failing private companies, so British deep mine coal was the cheapest and safest in the world, the National Union of Miners proudly boasted in the early 1980s.  The small gang team working system of management introduced at nationalisation had been a model of best management that was copied around the world.  The working week had reduced from up to 48 hours before World War two to typically 40 hours a week, but many worked 37.5 hours, and the number of hours was reducing towards 35 hours in some cases, with up to 30 days' annual holiday.

Pon Holdings, a Dutch multinational and Giant in Taiwan, was the largest maker of bicycles or were in 2022.

Preview of Ethical Consumer, Issue 197, July/August 2022 (bicycles and transportation - views in Firefox)

Political change, what had been fixed was sold off, cheap.  Imported said to be below cost, called dumped goods were now a good thing instead of a bad, and financial services became a major business of the UK.  Waste, profit and provoking of war and consequently selling weapons are not vulgar but profitable. 

 

The electoral promises of 1979 amounted to the same as bribing children with sweeties, but we are paying for it due to the consequences of our excessive consumption, populist poor foods, excessive militarism, and consequential environmental damage.  The following general election would have been marginal for Mrs Thatcher, but in the end won by fighting a war with the Argentine's followed by victory parades for the healthy veterans.  Mrs Thatcher and her Party captured people's greed motive, after that, and she became popular around the world, including in the Soviet Union, and her party became unassailable in general elections after 1983.  Keeping things, caring for them had briefly ended, buy new and discarded soon had replaced the culture of bicycle home maintenance.  Michael Foot MP inspired across the political spectrum, but what Noam Chomsky Wealth Inequality Documentary says explains what has happened, that is, we do not live by socialism, capitalism or mixed economy, though those things are significant but to protect the very wealthy rather than the little people at big cost to all of us and life on Earth.

 

The current era, since 1980, was discussed and planned for in the 1970s for the country to move to financial services as the main method of exploitation.  The "military-industrial-complex" remains the same, a monster out of control, as was warned would happen when the phrase was coined by US President Dwight D Eisenhower.  Therefore, the creation of money and excessive consumption of very cheap, below UK costs, and what is or amounts to the exploitation of labour and the environment.  For a long time, imported things undermined and thereby displaced a lot of manufacturing in the UK, intentionally.  Cheap, so-called dumped, below-cost, that had been bad foreign-made things, became a good thing and were wanted instead, and banks created money to buy those things, also undermining traditional building society savings.  In addition, cheap imports have become poor quality or very good quality but short-design life things; the seeming short-term gain has become a loss.  Excessive consumption is environmentally harmful, but has not given improvement, but has caused change.  MI5 and the establishment apparently plotted against Prime Minister Harold Wilson, causing him to resign in 1976.  The Labour Government continued to be well-led under Jim Callaghan, but cultural changes started happening, many more people were secure and comfortable, leading up to a change in 1979, using the media and the democratic process.  The eras of "White Heat of Technology" and the post-war political consensus symbolically started in 1940 with the end of the period called the Phoney War and the quote from Winston Churchill "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." had ended and we would not all be in it (society) together in the future.  A decade later,  Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher was removed by her party from office, the 1980s had been a mistake, and the plot against the earlier 1975 Government was eventually revealed.  Much later, in 2006, a BBC documentary was created on the MI5 plot. 

Replica of a 1970s British GPO
telephone.  A repairable instru-
ment made to last, each one with
a different ring, a deep note that 
made it easy to locate in a large
busy sales office full of phones.

Having said this, some good things such as realising again* that the Soviet Union was not a threat but a competing, by a different system, ally.  Most countries owned or subsidised the overproduction of cars.  Nuclear weapons are the biggest danger.  These things changed but were not corrected.  But more controversy, the Single European Act was signed, and we were now part of the European Union, but some British Members of the European Parliament worked against the EU from the inside, sadly.  But in the UK people are now so remote from a war on the homeland that they find it easier to promote and glorify war as long as it is elsewhere, a point many used to make, including Jon Pertwee (Actor and WW2 special operations office reporting to the Prime Minister) made towards the end of some Doctor Who stories.

 

I say *realised again, that people would have been joyful about the end of the war, the thing was for Britain to be at the top table with a hydrogen bomb at all costs to discourage the USA from having another world war, but in Europe with our Wartime ally, the Soviet Union.  Peace News reported that Government Papers showed in 2023 that our Prime Minister Churchill had changed his mind and was following the people's wish to prevent war with the Soviet Union.  Things slowly came back, and a common thing was that all governments went out of their way to give their people more than they had had before World War two.  The London Olympics came in 1948, and the NHS and the Festival of Britain were held in 1951.  On the other hand, Britain does not now run an Empire, but we continue to exploit and profit from war and conflict just as before. 

 

The bike is now cleaner, but not all four speeds work at this stage.  The gear hub is clean and
 set up, the original front brake cable has not been repaired yet, and the pedal cap has been replaced.

1946 LENTON sports (Raleigh);
My father was promised the bike if he matriculated (passed his school-leaving exams), his mother paid £19 and something (£19/14/- is the listed price), but just under £20 with the extras (would be £1,200 in 2022*).  Evidently, my father had to wait until after leaving school in 1945 for the war to end and for his bike to be delivered.  There are two numbers on the frame which confirm the date of early 1946.  My father was conscripted for National Service that June and returned 18 months later, so he had his bicycle briefly before being conscripted.

* The calculation came from several web calculators; these calculators are showing much lower figures than they did two or three years ago.  £860 versus £580 in 2021?  In this case, workers needed bikes, so workers' pay is a more relevant figure than using a web calculator that uses CPI or RPI.  Working out another way, a Manual worker's (man) wage in 1950 was £380 a year versus £22,500 a year now £1,150 = £20 * £22,500 / £380  (bike price in 1950 may be the same but for a Lenton Clubman or Raleigh Clubman or a little less at £17?) This seems to be a more accurate figure.   Taking the mean manual wage man and a woman, then the value of the bike would be higher.  If the figure for the number of hours needed to work to buy a bike as well, then the price of a good Raleigh bike becomes more like £2,000-£3,000 and a good basic bike £1,000-£1,500. 

Bottom bracket No. 453967 Z (under the bottom bracket),
Frame number: 289193 P (below the saddle)

I am advised that the bike was made, 53,000 frames, perhaps made 1 to 6 months before May 1946.  So this bike could be an MK1 or an MK2 Lenton sports, but what I believe is the new modern post-war MK2 Lenton sports transfer decoration.

This Lenton Sports bike is an MK II [web], Model 25 [Facebook].  The picture right shows some cleaning shows the lovely steel chain wheel (front cog 2018), the picture above shows more cleaning, also wiped down with linseed oil a few times (2020).  The plastic bottle top used as a pedal cap has since been replaced with the correct cap given by a Facebook friend, thanks. 

The FW, 4-speed wide hub has a reputation for being unreliable.  The hub's date code is 50 1 (January 1950), which may be an upgrade or a warranted replacement.  The selector and probably the rear wheel were changed as part of the hub replacement because the plating is of a different quality, more bobbly on the rear wheel.  The rear wheel is 40 x 2mm zinc plated, but the rusted spokes seem to be all original.  The front wheel has 32, 1.5mm bright steel spokes, and all of the spokes have been replaced at least once.  My father chose a more comfortable saddle instead of the standard sports bike saddle.  The saddle has also been re-stitched a little more by a local shoe repairer since these pictures were taken.  I have also been replacing springs in the saddle (2021), but this is not working out so well. 

 

I have seen a well-used Humber bike with the same frame as the Lenton, but many parts were replaced with parts from different bikes.  Unfortunately, water had got into the tubing and rusted out, making a hole.  The frame would not be safe to use, consequently.

 A good steel frame bike is fantastic.  Some people speculate that the art of making a good steel frame bicycle has been lost.

Picture right above: The LENTON sports decoration has a flat top with 45' corners and a gold outline transfer.   The letters are italic capital 3D polychromic green as the bike and deep blue shadow outline, I think.  On the tube section from the bottom bracket to the steering column, the words ALL STEEL are painted red with a black 3D shadow or outline.

Comparison with other bikes;

For me, the minimum speed to balance is 3MPH rather than the 2.5MPH I need on a modern bike, but the bike feels great at all speeds.  But on a mountain bike, not a hybrid bike, I can almost raise both feet simultaneously to the pedals and start pedalling.  When I put a rack on the Lenton and add some weight, that changes the tuning of the frame adversely, and the minimum speed-to-ride stability increases.  I am 3 times the weight I was when I first started riding the bike, and height is set to the maximum rather than the minimum and the ride, holding the drop handlebars or sitting up holding the top of the handlebars, feels the same.  The road-holding is very good and you will notice that if you go over metal covers, manholes and cats-eyes in the rain.

I am advised that the last of the Lenton models, the Super Lenton (1952-1960), was the best and fastest.  This bike has some alterations to the frame and lugs. 

 

 

1975 Hercules Balmoral, Raleigh (Tube Investments)

1985 Astra (imported from Yugoslavia
or Czechoslovakia by the then former
Elswick Hopper bicycle maker).

 

The Raleigh bicycles were always made to last and do their job very well, but by the 1950s, parts were replaced with very good but less costly parts to make.  Both bikes weigh 15 kg, and the Balmoral is a better bike than its 20-year-old 1950s equivalent.  You can see the 1955 Raleigh looks nearly identical to the Hercules pictured left, although the Hercules is lighter and the ride is much lighter to pedal and faster, made by Raleigh. 

I liked the 1975 Hercules Balmoral step-thru steel frame bike that I had.  Its weight is a little more than the Lenton at 15kg, easier to start off but not quite so smooth over the road bumps and vibration, but smooth enough and still very light to pedal.  The frame is stiff enough for you to carry any amount of weight without changing the ride much.  At this time, Tube Investments (1980) was making all the tubing for every winning steel frame bicycle in competitions. 

Astra, made in 1985 with Soviet-era high-tensile steel, is too stiff.  The road-holding is poor, consequently to its stiffness, and the bike is uncomfortable, and the vibration made my wrists tired.   Elswick Hopper used to make better bicycles than this before they stopped manufacturing some bikes in the UK and started importing bikes instead.  Apparently, at this time, they still made Falcon sports bikes, which are said to not be in the same league as the Lenton.

 

 

Peugeot - Course sports bike - And with wider tires fitted, handlebars changed, and a rack added.

 

Bike picture above - A Peugeot Course sports bike made in about 2000 with 22 x 622 tires, weighs just 12kg, Mangalloy steel.  The front of the bike is shorter, the bike is stiffer, and the crossbar is higher.  The bike is very hard on the cyclist, but can be ridden more slowly or faster on very good, smooth roads.  It was harder work to pedal on most roads.  The bike does take a rack, and carrying weight affects the stability of the bike, but less so than weight high on the rack affects the stability of the Lenton.  Being able to cycle at very low speed, as is typical of modern bicycles, and if you don't use the gears, makes the bike easy to learn to ride.

The bike over-steered a little and was wobbly, but is now easy to ride, so greatly improved by fitting straight handlebars and wider 32mm wide tires and is now about as fast on most roads as the Lenton.  So, I would now choose to cycle further on this bike, consequently, but the bike is still uncomfortable, though a lot better than it was.  The bike is lighter and smaller, making it good to take on off-peak trains.

32x700c are the widest tires that can be fitted.  The bike can be ridden down to ~2mph means I might be able to start in a high gear, launch myself with a good push, change down and go.  It took me a few weeks to feel stable on the bike and to use the gear change more comfortably, and I have found that I can sweep across several speeds and so change down fairly quickly with the lever operation.  The wait of half a wheel revolution for the speed to change is inconvenient.

The gear change is now even more difficult with the straight handlebars, and I wobbled the width of a road lane changing the left (front) derailleur the first time I did it.  Even so, this has the best gear change for a derailleur gear bike I have come across.  I chose to mostly use the low-speed chain wheel unless I am certain to not need to change to the lower speeds.  The bike is easiest to carry on to an off-peak train, though I would not want to ride the bike over big distances.  But after these changes, the bike has become lighter to pedal. 

 

When changing the front derailleur speed pedal lightly, but on this bike, it can catch, and you need to move the pedal backwards a little, then forwards again to complete the change.  The chain does come off the front derailleur sometimes, like all derailleur gear bikes; they are dirtier bikes to ride, even if you don't change gear.

 

The Universal's (Universal Cycles Ltd) bike gear cable path is mostly unsheathed, running over a nylon slide
 under the bottom bracket.  The gear change is particularly smooth and nice on this bike, consequently.

This bike, the Universal and the Step-thru Raleigh benefit from being steel frames and forks, but are nothing like as lively and willing as the Lenton Sports bike.

 

My 1997 Universal, La Riveria was a cheap, heavy British-made bike that had a better frame and was lighter to pedal, moderately comfortable with a different saddle fitted, but still not as good as the Raleigh/Tube Investments 1970s Hercules with its Terry saddle.  But that Universal has much of the gear cable unsheathed, it runs over a nylon slide (pictured) rather than a pulley wheel, and that much older Raleigh bicycle had made the gear change operation smooth and nice. 

Bike stability changes by adding a front basket or rear rack with weight high up if it is not designed for those, but placing weight low down helps keep the bike stable.  Also, short-wheelbase, stiffer-frame bikes handle extra weight better.

The video was created by Velocipede, who is very well informed and understands bicycle frames, but the reason a good, more modern 1930s to 1960 long wheelbase bike is stable, without the leading tubing on the handlebars, is different.

-------------------------------------

Reg Harris is promoting the Lenton 

sports bicycle, and it looks like he's 

also promoting smoking a pipe.

The Raleigh Record Ace (RRA) was a custom-made-to-order and the most expensive Raleigh bike that only some dealers could sell.  The Lenton Sports MK I, MK II or Lenton Clubman MK III were the top-of-the-range standard bikes that all dealers could sell, I understand.  The RRA is a lighter-weight bike at 27Lbs (12kg) with panniers, 9Kg with lightweight wheels, 1" (25mm) greater ground clearance and has many racing records.  These bikes cost about 50% more than Raleigh's top-of-the-range bike.  Otherwise, the Raleigh price ranged by 2:1 between the top of the range and basic adult bikes.  The RRA has a time of 3 hours, 40 minutes (Ray Booty 1950s) and at least one 1948 Olympics medal held by Reg Harris, who otherwise trained on and endorsed the Lenton range of sport bikes.  This bike changed over the years, weighing 14kg in 1939.

Similarly, many manufacturers supplied different dealers with a broader or a narrower range of parts, accessories and bikes - it used to be necessary to visit another town to find out about and obtain things.  By comparison, since 1980, it has become normal to only find a limited range of the same things anywhere.  It is now very unusual to find different things, and the expectation of speaking to trained staff on the use and the type of product is not expected or offered.  This uniformity and narrowing of choice, but for the wide range of toilet roll colours in supermarkets, were promoted, in the 1980s, as "choice".

January 1950 stainless steel FW variable gear hub

 

The FW four-wide variant hub stainless-steel hub (pictured left) was a new model launched in 1945. Although Tony Hadland's book is more authoritative and says the lighter alloy hub option was launched in 1948, the alloy hub was discontinued in the 1960s.  Apparently, the steel hub was more reliable.  I would say the gearing and the gear spacing have been chosen well; this was also said at the time. (Inspection hole for cable adjustment, you should check that the indication rod is not coming loose periodically, as pictured).  But with exceptions reported, the indicator rod does not come loose.

The bike's four-speed selector (picture below right);  The selector is the same later 1950 type as the hub, the wheel (it is a Dunlop rim like the front wheel, but the chrome is more bobbly).  They could be a guaranteed replacement.  There were revisions, but in the typically British way, many parts were common to different types of hub gears.

 

Green brake pads leave a dust
coating on parts nearby

Pictured right, I have pushed the gear selector cable through so that you can see an extra square washer on the cable.  This added washer prevents the small-diameter anchor from wedging the selector and jamming it.  The smaller anchor would wedge the halves of the movement apart if the cable were assembled following the workshop diagram (without that square washer).  The inner cable was also replaced in the 1970s.  It rusted and broke where it runs over the wheel under the saddle, which had not been neglected to be oiled or greased.

 

When parking the bike, put the bike into the highest gear in order to release the cable tension by moving the pedal to complete the operation.  The gears are easy to use and respond better to smart but sensitive use.  The least strain on the selector, if it is not fitted to the bike, is at the lowest speed.  Springs are working against each other in the FW hub.

The four-speed wide (FW) hub on the Lenton Sports worn and so is fiddly to set up, and it is hard to pull the lever to the Bottom gear.  Another common complaint is that only two or three of the four speeds work.  The hub used to click in N (3rd) gear, probably since new, but it does not now since it has been serviced in recent years, and the compensator spring has been replaced.  A quarter of a turn of the adjustment to tighten makes N speed slip, but a quarter of a turn the other way makes B speed slip, a total of 1/2 turn, whereas an AW hub has 1.5 turns between slip and secure setting.  The FW hub is, as it was said of it when it was new very nicely placed and spaced four-speed hub, and it is worth spending a lot of time getting it to work that way. 

The FW hub is now very worn despite the service on it, but it is still worth tolerating the necessity to fiddle with it because it is so nice when it works.  By comparison, a new FG, which is the same as an FW hub, or S5-2, the adjustment is as clear and unambiguous as an AW hub.  But the hard skin on my finger that came about from pulling to Bottom has softened since I replaced the FW. 

Gear cable adjuster - cable soldered
to prevent the strands from fraying 
was then cut to length.

It is said that after Sturmey-Archer was sold in 2000 and the tooling was exported to Taiwan, the quality of the hubs improved again, but some things were still wrong.  For example, the cable could not be adjusted to select all gears on an S5 hub, I have been told.  I guess some of the knowledge (knack) was not all conveyed to the new owners when the tooling was exported?

As an electronics design engineer, I worked for an old scientific instrument maker where I was shown many things done quickly and precisely using techniques that could be called knack.  Those methods had been developed by the craftsmen employed in the past, are vital but could be easily dismissed looking easy and trivial and lost when people leave or craftsmen are not replaced.  Asking how accurate this is?  I have been shown very high-precision optical work made by a professional with equipment and test instruments all made by the company, and not necessarily look up to the high quality of work that was turned out normally.  The culture of excellence went through the company from bottom to top. 

Technical detail observed;

The mechanism selects easily.  There is a feature since 1910-1912 to hold the gear even if the cable is not optimally adjusted, but this feature is not on all hubs or speeds (if I have understood correctly).  Sturmey-Archer patented many modifications, but most of them were not implemented.  All gears are in constant mesh but are selected using dog clutches or by selectively disengaging the free-wheel pawls.  One of the dog clutches is chipped (the bike used to click in Normal [3 of 4], probably from new).  

Normal does not use any of the sprockets, but all sprockets are used in High and Low speeds in an AW.  One of two sets of meshing gears is not used, on the FW and S5, depending on whether regular or a super speed is selected. 

The FW hub on the Lenton sports does not have the low-speed pawls permanently coupled, but overrun in High gear instead; there is a neutral between N and H gears, and that appears to be the case. 

Sturmey-Archer patented many ideas but only implemented some of them.  A 1948 patent that was not implemented would have put two gears, N and H, closer together and ensured they overlapped; therefore, there would be no neutral between those two speeds.  This patent once again did not normally have the low-speed pawl over-run by the high-speed pawls except whilst changing gear, as far as I understand. 

• The gear selection had been fine in 1970, but deteriorated, and the cable broke in the 1970s over the pulley under the saddle, which I replaced.  The gear selection was then much poorer, and I only had 2 and 4 or maybe three of the four speeds, 1, 2 and 4 or 2, 3 and 4.  The hub was cleaned, and the compensator spring and the pawl springs were replaced, but this did not resolve the problem.  I then shortened the sheathed cable length to a maximum of 18" and ground the cut end of the sheath cable flat as pictured, with a carborundum stone.  Lastly, I added the tape pictured to minimise the change in length of the cable when steering.  I also do not carry any weight in the right-hand pannier because that weight will knock the hub out of gear at Normal speed.

• I had been advised many times recently to replace the sheath with a less springy type.  The bicycle shop did not know what a less springy type of sheathing was, but I purchased what they offered has improved the issue.  That was July 2024.  I had felt pessimistic about making this change of sheathing a second time (the first time was in the 1970s when I replaced the cable).  What I had bought before was fine, but there are a lot of myths surrounding how to get a worn FW to work that turn out to be wrong. 

• The selector is now improved by pressing the sides together with a vice, and the bottom works better, and the operation of the gears feels more precise.  But sometimes, all four gears operating properly is the best you will get. 

Owning the 1955 new condition Raleigh bicycle with a properly working FG (the same gear hub) was a great help, and the selector operation of the Lenton still requires more cable tension to hold the bottom gear.  I guess that all speeds would work on the FW if another selector were fitted in parallel just to pull Bottom a bit harder, but I had found a good S5 hub by this time. 

 

The main point is that a light oil-lubricated Sturmey-Archer hub is very efficient and easier to use than derailleur gears to use.  The efficiency in N gear is of the order of 98% falling to 92.5% in other gears (proportionally to the difference from N gear).  I don't know what this means, but the wheels move very freely.  Normal gear is the direct drive speed and is discernibly more efficient; I have not noticed this on any other bike, or now that I have replaced the hub with the S5.  My father said it is a shame it clicked because it is the best gear. 

"Tommy's mileage increased from
 156 to over 200 miles a day... a step-
up of 33 1/3% increase with a four-
speed hub."  The hub did 75,000
 miles in 11 months never did the  
hub falter, something like 10 years
wear the poster goes on to say.  

Later in the Sturmey-Archer Story, the book quotes different comparative tests.  The book covers the history of Raleigh and their gears during the time when their bikes were made to be the best without unnecessary cost.  The company made many cross-licensing agreements with the UK and European bike makers.  Significantly, the FW, 4-speed wide hub provides a hub design with up to 5 speeds with just one extra set of meshing gears carrying just a small percentage of the power.  The FW is different to the 1912 four-speed hub patent gained in cross-license agreements with Fichtel & Sachs, Germany.  The Universal Torpedo four-speed hub was not successful then.  Fichtel & Sachs bike gear maker with the same reputation in Germany as Sturmey-Archer in Britain.  The single-cable 5-speed variant patented by Henry Sturmey (1857-1930) was also not taken up by any manufacturer, no doubt because of fear that cyclists would, similar to the earlier 4-speed hub case, consider two or three speeds adequate.  A five-speed hub with two cables was launched in 1966, and there was a modification to the early (1945-1950 FW) four-speed hub to provide the extra gear.  A single cable version of the five-speed hub was launched in the 1980's similar to the 1921 patent used two epicyclic gear assemblies, but the power trains were through one or the other, but not both epicyclic gears (any patent would have expired by then).

 

Placing top gear or second to top gear as the direct drive speed N is very nice because this is where the cyclist most notices the benefit, both fast and most restful.  At lower speeds, the lower efficiency is not noticeable.

 

Poster from 1939 left; The 1939 AF & FM close and medium ratio 4-speed hubs [Pg 105/106].  These hubs are different from the FW, having a second epicyclic gear.  The two epicyclic gear assemblies, in which one assembly is coupled to the other (providing an opposing drive and thereby the difference in two bigger ratios is the medium or close-ratio required).  These were similar to William Reilly's brother Henry's 1908 patent for four and five-speed hubs not developed at that time.  I think these particular four-speed hubs have more friction and were told they are more "laggy" [Facebook]. Conversely, the four-speed and the three-speed close and medium ratio hubs developed in 1937 were very well-liked in competitive cycling when a number of cycling records were broken with them.  The FM gear hub was transferred and the bike switched to a Raleigh RRA (would have been earlier heavier at 14kg version) for most of the distance after the original bike sponsor (Ley TG Special) pulled out, that bike had been reliable but the sponsor sited cost of maintenance was too high, Tommy Godwin continued to ride 100,000 miles in 500 days in 1939/40 some of the early parts of the record on an AW hub gear.  Although the exact record has not been broken in 2017, a cyclist beat the time but used a number of bicycles on a track and no doubt much better clothing, which had been a problem for Tommy, who used creams but eventually switched to using silk underwear, for example.  He also cycled on ordinary roads and during wartime blackouts with dimmed lights.  The FM hub had completed 75,000 miles without faltering, and after 1939, the war stopped being over there somewhere but was becoming here and much more important.  Tommy completed the record and joined the RAF after a period for his legs to recover.  The record started using a three-speed gear hub.  That winter would have been hard work cycling in the snow, ice, blackout with dimmed lights, falling off and continuing, and his average daily mileage dropped. 

Tommy's 100,000 miles record was beaten in 2015, but on track, I believe, not on road, all weather.

Old British patents used to be granted for much longer periods, such as 40 years.  The 1930s Austin Over Head Valve cylinder head was used in a lorry at first, but is well known as the Mini engine.  {I do not have the references now and have not been able to reconcile those details with what I have read more recently on Austin} The engine cylinder head designer came from Jaguar cars' and worked on the Merlin Engine for Rolls Royce (a very widely used WWII aero engine) then went on to do the same for Austin engines.  The cylinder head design creates a lot of swirling turbulence in the combustion chamber to spread the flame quickly and thoroughly, which happens to be the reason that the earlier side valve engines were particularly powerful, and their successors, with a smooth flowing Overhead Valve Cam, were a design failure with less power.  Copyright Act 1911 gave protection for the author's lifetime plus 50 years.

The patent may have less relevance than Raleigh Sturmey-Archer's philosophy of conservatism in making small changes, taking cyclists with them rather than leading.  Many say Raleigh and its successor Tube Investments were over-conservative and missed some opportunities, such as choosing not to build the Molton bicycle for that company, but the RSW16 developed subsequently, both bikes were much improved with modern tires, I understand*.  That is avoiding investing in a new design that would become a commercial failure, only making the most necessary changes and not doing things that compromise the bike, such as adding friction.  That is the original three-gear hub was sold all over the world, but the four-gear hub failed.  However, 30 years later, the range of four-gear hubs is acclaimed.  Then, a modified four-gear to provide five gears followed by a single cable five-gear hub a few more decades later.  This is 50 years after a 5-speed hub was patented but not made.  Lesson learnt that each step is small and when the cyclists were ready.  The improved Dynohub and lighting failed in the 1980s but are popular now and are made by other companies. 

Apparently, many small wheel lightweight bikes are floppy and difficult to cycle, not suitable for learning to ride on, but are good for taking on a train.  The Bickerton was the first lightweight folding bike, which started to be made in 1972, weighs just 9kg, is said to be quite floppy and is the classic leading brand!  The Lenton is also not suitable to learn to ride on, although it is delightful to ride when you have learnt to ride.

 

The Raleigh RSW16 and Molton may also not be suitable for learning to ride on.  I am told that the RSW is better for riding.  The Molton Mini weighs only 12kg. 

Modifying any FW gear hub to a five-speed to improve 

gear selection and provide 5 speeds using two cables 

German website archive of bicycles or Fichtel & Sachs hubs;

1912? - Fichtel & Sachs Universal-Torpedo (strewi-fahrradwerke.de)   BSA also made the Sturmey-Archer earlier X series 3-speed hub under license.

Strewi Fahrradwerke – Über historische Fahrräder (strewi-fahrradwerke.de)  - more documents and history (I can't read it because it is in German).

By 1980, Raleigh was making 1.5 million bikes a year.  During the 1970s, the average distance cycled was only 20Cm a year. 

The Lenton sports, soon after I took it out of the shed in early 2018,  fixed
the gear selector and started cleaning, but you can see reddish rust on the frame. 

Since about 1990, the bike has lost most of its brilliant metallic green colour and has an orange layer of rust - the wheels move freely.  I am advised and observed that the transmission friction on these old bikes is less than on modern bikes.  The wheel movement, including the gear hub and transmission, was fine and very free.  The bike has probably only been used under 50,000 miles in all weather, and my father had a cycling cape.  Mum told me that Dad used the bike for anything.  The front bearings are worn a little, having tight spots as the shaft is turned, but are fine when I adjusted to the loosest range of the tolerance, 1/4 - 1/2 turn of slack.  The front wheel and the gear hub bearings have all been replaced.  On the other hand, the frame, saddle and everything are tight like new, and there is nothing loose, but in prime condition.   Also, nuts and bolts that have not been touched in the life of the bike or for many decades move as easily as a new bike, I found when I adjusted the seat, handlebars and spokes recently.  Some spokes were loose, though, and many are different, no doubt having been replaced with many of the spokes on the front wheel of the Raleigh Bright Steel, and they are a brilliant yellow/silver.  All the rear wheel spokes are dull grey galvanised steel and some have a slight amount of surface rust, consistent with the hub/wheel and gear selector being replaced in 1950.  The Bright Steel spokes were not mentioned on the MK2 Lenton catalogue page.

A worn sprocket can be seen to have hooked
teeth.  The chain length is stretched to 12 1/8"
which is +1%.  The chain's internal width is 3.5mm 
on a 3.1mm width sprocket, but 4mm is a suitable
replacement.  The sprocket was not the correct
type for a variable gear hub, apparently, though
 it fits properly.  This type of screw fitting can
 alternatively take a derailleur with a wide
hub, forming hybrid gears.

• The bike will need tires, brake blocks, tubes some adjustments, including the spokes, from time to time, and after 100,000 miles will need new sets of ball bearings, which are cheap to buy.  Apparently, the chain may be okay at 100,000 miles if it is on an enclosed type of bike.  It depends on the terrain. The Lenton's chain is not worn but stretched; there are long, steep hills between Sevenoaks and the seaside, where my father rode the bike a lot. 

I read that the link spacing is 0.5" and the chain should be changed if it is stretched by 0.5% but if the chain has stretched by 1% then sprockets may need to be changed as well.  Check the chain with a 12" ruler that is 1/16" should be changed or 1/8" the sprocket may also need to be changed.  There are various different width chains, and modern chains are constructed differently so that they have sideways flexibility to suit derailleur gears.   

• I have seen pictures of sprockets worn down to spikes, but it is said that an AW hub will still look good inside.

• A postman used his 1910 bike for 50 years, 75 miles a day.  He had his bike serviced, and many parts, including forks, were replaced under guarantee, and Raleigh never charged for the parts.

• Another bike had done 500,000 miles when the AW (I think) hub was inspected; it looked like it had been made that morning inside. 

Okay for 25 years, but
then the gear hub stops 
working properly.

• A very heavy person using a bike up steep hills and 7 miles a day may find a modern mountain bike the best, but they wear out a bike every 5 years. 

• Traditionally, advice changes with time on lubrication.
• Is one teaspoon first use, then 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of oil every 100 miles or fortnightly, but of 20 SAE oil. 

• A tin of Sturmey-Archer oil I purchased in the 1970s is a thicker oil and probably is 30 SAE - the tin does not state the viscosity of the oil. 

• 3-in-One oil is a very bad oil for bicycle hub gears.  On a chain, it leaves a coating, which is okay and protects things, but this coating clogs up a gear hub.  This oil used to be sold as a general-purpose oil with a picture of a bicycle on the can in the 1960s.  I believe it is a vegetable oil, perhaps it originates from only vegetable oils being available in the 19th century, when the Raleigh bicycle company was formed.

• Bikes' moving parts used to be coated in oil and dirt, but ran well being fed with a lot of oil to flush the dirt out of the bearings.  Oil in the hubs will run down the spokes and eventually onto the rims, but I have not found that it gets onto the braking surfaces.

• Since 1990, Sturmey-Archer gear hubs have had no oiler and are lubricated with a very runny grease.  I put a little thin engine oil dripped into the toggle chain side, with the side cover of the hub removed, once a year.  The water resister, groove, can be greased at this time.  The cover should then be put back with 1/4 to no more than 1/2 a turn of slack and the lock nut tightened. 

• Modern oils are better, and a few drops of thin oil, such as barbers' clipper oil, a week is good advice I was given.  I now use a thinner engine oil, which is thicker, is fine and a few drops can be done a little less often, consequently.

Homemade oiler using a plastic bottle and a ball pen inner ink pipe works well with thicker 10W40 engine oil, but 5W30 might be marginally better.

------------------------------ Riding a bicycle again -----------------------------

It was very nice experiencing that same delight with the Lenton sports bike in the early summer of 2018 when I took it out of the shed and found the bike running smoothly but with more surface rust and much less of the original colour, and paint left.  The same delight with the bike I felt when I started riding the bike as a boy in about 1970.  I had not used the bike because I could not find a replacement gear selector for it, but eventually thought of a fix that worked using a clothes peg spring. 

Riding a bike again, I have been walking 7KM on most days for years.   Have changed my diet more recently to a Mediterranean diet, approximately, that is, vegan or fruit and vegetable plus wild fish, and the consequence is that although I am obese, I do not suffer from headaches, hay fever, aches and pains that I used to get. This is important when starting to ride a bike again, you probably will ache a bit when you start out in the morning, so don't ride every day and don't go on more than two 1 to 2KM journeys and ride on the flat at first.  At your very first cycle, just 200M expect to wobble, have a break, then have another ride, do that on a Sunday when the road is quiet.  A good old hub-geared bike will feel like it is helping you, as if the bike were pulling you along a bit.

 

Learning to ride a bicycle and bicycle maintenance. See my blog Pandemic-and-cycling

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

The war-grade tires wore out quickly, so my father fitted tandem war-grade tires, which did not wear out but perished and then remained stable.  One of those was replaced in about 1968 as a thank you to my father for lending the bike to a colleague.  I was using the other war-grade tandem tire until 2018, but I have replaced it since.

The wheel rims are stamped Dunlop 26" x 1 1/4", the front tire is Dunlop war grade Tandem V, 26" x 1 1/4".  The chrome is quite thick and bobbly in places on the wheel rims, although the chrome on the bike is smooth.  Raleigh used to claim in the 1930s that their chrome was the best, and that claim does not seem to be exaggerated.  I've seen poorer chrome finishes on early 1960s cars.

Steel tubing is joined using brazed lugs.  Lugs were made of single pieces of forged metal to form faultless joins with strength and lightness.

Unfortunately, the bike was stored in a shed in which the floor rotted and the front wheel dropped into the mud, this has caused a little corrosion to lift the chrome on the rim, which caused one brake pad to keep wearing out for a while, but the corrosion is not enough to have weakened the wheel.  Otherwise, the bike's polychromic green paint has mostly fallen off.  The little of the polychromic green paint that has survived was heavily coated in oil and dirt - evidently, cycle oil has protected the paint.  The MK2 Lenton sports' gold decoration could be a shield or, most likely, a serrated javelin head pointed to the ground in a distinctly modern style rather than the pre-WW2 swirling designs in the decoration.  The decoration is on the post-WW2 Lenton's up until the 1948 London Olympics, after that other decorations were added and a range of bike colours with the introduction of the MK3 Lenton, including the Reg Harris Olympic Torch decoration.

• The paint is called Polychromic Green in the next model, the MK III, Lenton Clubman. The 1946-47 MKII Lenton Sports.  The technical differences between the bike models and the Lenton Sports, MK I and MK II, became the Lenton Clubman MK III in 1949.

• The first Lenton was in 1940, MK1 lady's bike; it does not mention that Reynolds 531 steel was used, but this use of aircraft steel became a feature after WW2.  I am advised that Reynolds 531 steel was used on sports bicycles from 1935 when it first became available, but I have not found it mentioned on catalogue pages.  The frame on its own is very light and can be lifted with two fingers.  Lightweight Molybdenum and manganese steel frames were made and labelled on those bikes before that time, but the brand does not seem to be mentioned.

• Sports bikes had a label certifying Manganese, Molybdenum or high tensile strength steel or later Reynolds 531 steel.  This gold label can not be read now, but probably such a gold label at the top of the tube section between the bottom bracket and the saddle.  Could it be the dealer in Sevenoaks' label from where the bike was purchased?  
  

• Other MK2 Lenton sports bikes do have the Reynolds 531 Steel label, but there are other differences between each bike made.  The differences do not in any way seem compromised by post-war shortages and the make-do policy of the time, but everything is just perfect for the job required.

• The British molybdenum, manganese, medium carbon (contains iron is magnetic and will rust) steel frame is Reynolds 531 Steel.  This type of frame makes the Lenton sports noticeably very light compared with some folding bikes and light compared to most ordinary town bikes.  The bike would weigh originally with the standard saddle under 14 Kg, and a conventional steel men's sports bike might weigh 1.2 Kg more.  By comparison, modern good bikes such as the 2019 step-through Pashley Cycles with brazed jointing (lugged and brazed), not welded frame, weigh 20 kg.

• The bikes made after the end of World War Two (September 1945) would have been made the best that was possible with available stock.  Sturmey-Archer briefly stopped making hubs in 1943.  These bikes were made to last, and they do last.  The four-speed (FW) hubs have a justified reputation for not working properly, but they are very nice when they do.

Pictured left: The tire pump with the bike is a Bluemels motorbike (Schrader valve) pump fitted with an adaptor for a Dunlop bicycle valve.  One of the holding clips on the bike was loose and fell off.  The pump has rusted, the rubber valve/piston is hard and does not work, so it has not stood up over the years as well as the bike and one of the tires.  I have painted some parts with Hammerite anti-rust treatment.  It has a fold-out foot-stand.  

I have also replaced the rubber seal/valve with a car brake cylinder rubber seal successfully.  The connecting tube is also patched at one end using some cloth and cotton thread binding.  The pump catches my hand and is uncomfortable; it works with Dunlop valve tubes, but it does not work with modern Presta valve tubes.   The pump is therefore not usable on the bike now.

Bluemels, which also made the mudguards, was a UK company from 1860 to 1983 but is now part of  SKS Germany.

The rear tire was a replacement in about 1968 and is a 26" x 1 1/4", 597mm_32mm.  Even this dimension tire is now (2018) difficult to obtain, and you need the correct inner tube; a bike shop is likely to order the wrong size.  Even these modern (Schwalbe) tires are tight, and you need strong plastic levers to get the tires on; the metal levers damaged the new tire.  The bike is strong, but I broke one front spoke in about 1971-2 riding over some tree roots.  I did not fit the replacement properly; I should have fitted the nut and trimmed the length of the spokes.  I learned this when I punctured the inner tube instead.  The rubber on the newer Michelin tire looks better than the old war-grade tire looked decades ago.

Tire Arithmetic - this seems to work properly for an old bike;
What does 597mm_32mm mean?
   31.75mm = 1.25" x 25.4; Rounds up to; 32mm
   660.5mm = 597 + (31.75 x 2)
   26" = 660.5mm / 25.4; The tire diameter agrees.

597mm is the tire bead diameter, so if you measure a rim's circumference where the bead of the tire sits and divide by pi (3.143), you will get this number.

So what does 650A, E? mean? It is a tire size code, not a dimension.

The tire's outside diameter is larger than 660mm (26"), but that figure is roughly the wheel's outside diameter when fully inflated and the bike is carrying the rider's weight.  If the measurements on the tube, tire and rim are all the same, then they will all fit, but a bike shop is unlikely to have those on the shelf for an old bike.

Warning, I have looked at a newer bike tube and tires, and this arithmetic does not work out for those.  The tire diameter says 660mm is important for a mountain bike, but different widths of about 38-55mm are interchangeable.  This is also true of the tubes.  The problem, though, is that the tolerance tends to be poor, so they can almost fall off or be very tight, as I have found with both bikes.  It is, in any case, important to bed the tire in by partially inflating the tire and bouncing and turning the wheel on the ground (to bed the tire in).  Check the tire pressure each time before you go out on the bike.  For the first few times, the tire will keep needing more air until the tire is fully bedded.  In conclusion, the number 26' for a mountain bike is just a number related to the bead diameter - wheel rim diameter and is what this code determines in this case.

Because the tire is a tight fit (bike shops are likely to get in and sell you the wrong size tubes and tires, and may tell you what they have got in for you will be suitable, but it probably won't be suitable) so fit the tire and remove it without the tube before you try with the tube.  Also, move the cloth tube protector.  I added more cloth from a ripped-down cotton bed sheet.  Also, check that the ends of the spokes are below the surface of the nuts; they would have been adjusted over the life of the bike.  The ends of the cloth are held by a double galanised steel wire loop, with the ends crossed over so they face into the rim, not the tube.

Warning: Modern tires vary in tightness and Schwalbe, more so than other tires, but all tires are more fragile as well, so it is best to use plastic leavers.  I wrecked one new Schwalbe using metal levers.  Metal leavers cut into the thin plastic/rubber down to the wire reinforcement in the bead of the tire, but metal leavers do no harm to old tires.  

Bounce the tire on the ground whilst rotating it, and pump
it a little and bounce it again, then pump it up fully to bed 
the tire in evenly.  For some very loose-fitting tires, you
need to look around the edge to see that the moulded line 
on the tire is evenly just above the rim.

Keep going around and around the wheel a little at a time.  Also, getting the right tube, on my bike, is for a 26" x 1 1/4" that has a larger diameter than the tube, which a youngster in a bike shop might tell you is correct.  The correct tube with quite a lot of air in it, but no pressure, will not tend to keep popping out or getting trapped so much as you go around levering or using your hand to put the tire on.

Raleigh-made-in-China tires were easier to fit on another bike by comparison, 26" x 1 5/8" in that case.  Two levers are enough; the plastic ones I have were from a bike shop and take a lot of strain.  They can stack in any number (pairs obviously).  Old bike tool kits came with three levers and two multiple-size spanners, which included a C spanner for the bottom bracket. 

More Bike Maintenance

Spokes - I had been putting off dealing with a wobble in the front wheel for the past 50 years, but I have done it now (2019).  The front spokes would have been Raleigh Bright Steel (which is brilliant and all have been replaced a few times, undoubtedly).  The rear spokes are original, thicker galvanised steel spokes I fitted 45 years ago and set to the same tension as the neighbouring spokes.

1. Firstly even up the spoke tensions they all played different tunes when plucked but I am advised that squeezing adjacent spokes is a better way - I think either way is fine.  Start from the valve so that one revolution can be determined.  I felt the spoke tension by squeezing two spokes together on a few new bikes in a bike shop.

2. Tighten any loose spokes to just firm then slacken any spokes that are unduly tight. 

3. Making a small adjustment of 1/4 turn a spoke per wheel revolution and start from the valve.  The loosest spokes first. keep going around bring up the loosest spokes.  That is making small adjustments at a time.

4. I was expecting the wheel to go eccentric at this stage and this had always worried me dealing with two parameters and I had considered a strategy before I started but the issue did not arise.

5. Watch the wheel rotate next to a brake shoe and stop it when the gap closes.  You can use a piece of wood held pressed against the frame or brake part to help gauge the closest distance.

6. Loosen two spokes on one side and tighten one the other side a quarter of a turn. 

7. Watch the gap on the other side do the same adjustment and keep doing the same swapping sides back and forth.

8. I found the wheel is not eccentric but the remaining wobble is smaller.

9. Keep going around the tensioning the spokes - but I am told this is not usually done.

10. Check the wobble but in any case, you will be close enough and when the bike is ridden I did not see any wobble in the wheel rim looking past the tire. 

Lastly, I am advised that correcting the wobble (un-trueness) is the most important, not the spoke tension.  Ensuring that none of the spokes were too tight, because they would break.  Since adjusting the front wheel spokes, about 10 more spokes broke, mostly one at a time, over the next three years.  I doubt that any of the original front spokes remained in the 1960s, and I did not expect the front wheel spokes to continue to break frequently, and they have not done so very often for several years.  The front wheel has 32, 1.5mm spokes and the rear wheel has 40, 2mm spokes that are all original, but have stretched and could have punctured the tube.

Lacing the spokes; The bike is laced so that the spoke comes out 90' from the hole, therefore the spoke is slightly longer than the rim radius, to the diameter hub makes little difference*.  Therefore, you may be able to replace the hub type with a gear or dynomo and re-use the spokes that you could not do if the wheel is laced at a lesser angle (45' say) to the hole.  90' is evidently chosen for its strength against the twisting force of pedalling on the wheel. 

* Dynohub diameter 60mm radius is: 30mm, spoke length 300mm; these are the two short sides of a triangle

900 = 30^2, dynohub radius.

90,000=300^2, spoke

100 = 10^2 front hub radius - this is trivial 

90,800 = 90,000 + 900 - 100 {I have jumped a few steps; This is the difference of two triangles}

301.33 = 90,800 square root. (sum of the two sides less the smaller hub size)

Roughly, the spoke length would change by 1.3mm

The arithmetic for calculating spoke length is a simple Pythagorean right-angle triangle; the longest side, which is the spoke length, is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.  These calculators can do the sum for you, but it will be very similar to the radius from the inside of the wheel rim.

https://www.sapim.be/spoke-calculator

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/spocalc.htm

My local bicycle shops had a stock of exactly the right spoke length that did not need cutting down - I offered the broken spoke, and the shop matched it.  The only difference is that the thread is slightly different, so it is necessary to take the wheel off and replace the new nut and spoke (4/2020).  I found a way to replace the nut and the spoke by letting the tire down, but without taking the wheel off.  It is very noticeable that the new spokes and nuts are made to a closer tolerance, but this is true of parts all over the bike.

The rear (which has the newer 1950 FW hub) wheel's spokes are all thicker grey galvanised steel, some have a little surface rust, and some needed a little tensioning.  The wheel runs very true despite the extra weight the wheel carries, but the back wheel is stronger and does not get the shocks and hits that the front wheel gets.  A rider normally transfers their weight to the pedals, thereby transferring the shock to their bent legs away from the rider's body and the bike.

------------------------------------

Much of the serrated shield and gold outline
decoration has been worn.  But the stainless
steel hubs and other parts are almost like new. 

Anti-rust treatment - I have been recommended two products;

• ACF-50 (which leaves the metal white) and Hammerite (which turns the rust black).

• Hammerite works but leaves the metal black.

• Autosol has been recommended to me by a motorbiker for chrome, but I have not tried it.  The correct one for Chrome is Autosol M1.

• Just leave it and let the oil come out of the hubs and carry on protecting other parts.  Has worked well, but stains your fingers and clothes. 

• For chrome, I've been recommended wire wool, T-cut or Brasso, but also rub aluminium foil.

• These are drastic methods that may only work once because you rub through paint or chrome quickly. 

• I have not used these methods.

• Soaked in CLR for a bit and scrubbed with a copper scrubber.  Then used Turtle Wax Chrome cleaner and polish.  Said to be safer than aluminium foil.  The result looks very good on Facebook.

• Linseed oil [is flammable, so be careful not to leave any soaked rags in the sun] - turns rust-brown and does not look so good, but looks okay and is said to be good on the paint 

• The colour does not change, but is brought out by cleaning off the black oil and dirt.  The Heron badge is a lovely deep, tarnished brass. 

• It has been suggested to me that using linseed oil on the transfer decoration, particularly, was risky and that I should use mineral oil.
  

• Citric acid, a bit stronger than lemon juice, is said to clean rust - I've seen this on YouTube, it looks good, but I don't know how well it compares with other methods. 

• Vinegar (acetic acid) diluted is said to work better, and I have found it works in all cases and works very well in some cases.

• Acetone (such as nail varnish remover) is environmentally bad and will strip paint if not used and cleaned quickly, but it is also the most effective way of removing the sticky oil that accumulates on lubricated metal surfaces such as spokes and hubs.  But with more work, White Spirit also works and is less harmful to the paint if it inadvertently gets on the paint.

• Cleaning inside the hub can successfully restore function, I am advised.  Simply dismantling, cleaning and reassembling.  Soaking in white spirit or paraffin is unlikely to work.  An ultrasonic cleaner is probably best in this case.

• Old oil paintings and probably a dirty painted bike decoration can be cleaned with acetone with a very quick wipe-over.  I have used linseed oil as a safer option on the bike.

• Scraping with wooden lolly sticks is very effective as well and is safer than using a metal screwdriver. 

• The stitching of the saddle has deteriorated, although the leather looks exceptionally good.  By comparison, the tool pouch, saddlebag and pedal shoe grips, which had leather straps, had all deteriorated and had been discarded by 1970.  I do have a comparable quality pair of shoes, but things of this quality were available, but not at an excessive price, but you needed a recommendation.
  

• There are two particularly good shoe repairers in Tunbridge Wells;  Guest's in Mount Ephraim, Tunbridge Wells, will take on more difficult work and work that might not turn out well.  He has done a very nice job hand stitching the saddle, which looked inaccessible to stitch, and the repairer said it was difficult.  

• The comfortable Raleigh saddle fitted from the new probably weighs 1.2Kg.  A cheap but good modern saddle with memory foam can be comfortable and lighter, and I have used one of those whilst having the old saddle stitched and repaired.

Political and artistic perspectives

The decoration on the bike is new, modern, and angular to mark a new era, in keeping with the time, the Labour Government and the NHS.  The pre-World War two Lenton Sports decoration has William Morris-style swirls and curves.  Later, many more decoration styles and frame colours were added for different variants.  The bike was made at the beginning of the period 1945 to 1979, called "The post-war (political) consensus".

The price of the Lenton Sports £19/14/- was more than double its 1939 price.  In turn, a basic Raleigh single-speed bike cost £10 in 1947, was purchased for my mother to share with her sister in Brighton, England.  This bike was taken back to Scotland because a bike could not be purchased where she lived.  My mum says it was hard to pedal the 7 miles to where she worked fruit picking, which was undoubtedly because the seat height was set as a compromise for her and her younger sister.  In the late 1940s of the prices of the Lenton models came down a little.

At the time wealthy classes and the working classes had a bond of mutual support because a person from one class could be rescued from a bombed building by someone from another class.  Men had been billeted together and talked about what they wanted after this war, but they did not get it after WW1.  At the same time, the government did not want to make the mistake of the post-WW1, where the Germans and Allied people suffered badly, and Hitler rose out of that.  Similar things were happening in Britain.  The warnings King George V made after WW1 were ignored then, but were heeded after WW2. 

At the height of the war in 1943, greater restrictions
were imposed.  Gear hubs stopped being made, and 
metals like chrome were reserved for military use.

The 1945 Labour manifesto captured the mood of the people.  Raleigh had been making munitions, but was still also making 280,000 bikes a year.  In 1943, when Sturmey-Archer stopped making gear hubs and customers were advised to have their hubs repaired instead, compared to 400,000 and 1.1 million bikes a year in 1939 and 1951, respectively. 

In reality, Winston Churchill may have wished to give the people the NHS just the same as the Labour Government did.  There were a lot of Conservative Doctors opposed to the NHS, though, so it is unlikely that a Conservative government would have brought in the NHS.  It was an easier job for the Labour Government, with mass popular support, it had to make those changes at that time.
https://www.military-history.org/articles/5-key-reasons-churchill-lost-the-1945-general-election.htm

During the 5 years or so after WW2, materials for parts became in short supply, so other good materials were substituted.  The bicycle has galvanised steel rear and bright or stainless steel front spokes, changed to stainless steel front and back wheels on some bikes made during this period.  None of the front spokes are original, but I guess they have been replaced many times.  All the original spokes with the 1950 rear wheel look original; this is the standard, stronger 40-spoke wheel.

The Lenton sports MK II was made for just two years, 1946 and 1947, although the Lenton sports bikes were made for two decades.  Briefly, the world was not at war, the USSR were an ally, and British soldiers were seconded to the Palestine police in 1948 until new friends and enemies were found.  Wars are manufactured to sell weapons, and the methods remain bad.  Rationing ended in 1954, in 1956 bread price control and the subsidy were lifted, and in 1960 military conscription in the UK ended.  In the 1970s, it was stated that the UK would change to a post-manufacturing exporter of financial services.  Since 1998, Sturmey-Archer has stopped being British-owned, making gear hubs, and since 2012, Raleigh has stopped being British-owned and making bikes in the UK.

Comparison of modern and old bikes, mostly 1902-1910

I will do more cleaning, making 
the badge and pedals look better.

History

The name of the range of bikes, Lenton, is probably connected to Lenton Priory, Nottingham, which existed in the 12th to 14th centuries.  Raleigh and Sturmey-Archer were located at Lenton Boulevard, Nottingham, at the time of the bike's manufacture.  Raleigh also manufactured using the brands Sturmey-Archer,  Brooks, plus a range of bicycle brands.  Raleigh's 1930s Nottingham head office

Notice the knurled brake adjuster and lock nut.  I have re-soldered the brake cable end, but this repair has not lasted.  Every nut and bolt, including adjusting the saddle and handlebars, moves as easily as a new bike, although some of those parts have never been touched, greased or oiled in 40 to 70 years.  As a teenager, I had lost some ball bearings while preparing to service the steering bearings and had decided to leave them alone.

The metal grip pedals are good at preventing your shoes from slipping on the pedal, even when it is wet, unlike rubber block grip pedals.  Move the pedal upwards to be ready to move off; others wise it spins till it hits your shin, but you soon learn how to overcome that.  Pushing your ankle into the pedal and moving the pedal upward seems to work.  The modern open-frame plastic pedals are even better.

Many patents were registered by Sturmey-Archer but were not implemented.  Interchangeability of replacement parts was important, and this aspect was common in British manufacturing.  Raleigh was a conservative company, but customers expected and imposed conservatism on the company, by not always taking up new, technically leading products offered at times.

How a Bicycle is Made (1945) Part 1 and Part II above.  This documentary is 

dated 1945, but evidently, these would mostly be pre-World War II model 

bikes being made.  You can see the hub gear parts being made.  

 

Even in 1910, the quality of the tempering of the gear parts was very high by the standards of the time; a part should not be scratchable with a file, and when bent, should spring back.  Steel improved greatly at the beginning of the 20th century and then improved considerably after each of the world wars.  By comparison, pre-1914 cars' gears usually had bits broken off the teeth.  This is mitigated in the Sturmey-Archer gear hubs by having the gears in constant mesh, using dog clutches, disengaging the appropriate sets of freewheel pawls and very good quality control of the metal tempering.

A perspective of a Raleigh shop steward whose career spanned the merger with Tube Investments in 1960 is that the company always had a "them and us" attitude.  That view was probably held by the management as well.  https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-raleigh-fred-mitchell-1980-online  There was a lot of repetitive work for workers at Raleigh, but this is also true of many companies.  I heard an anecdote from the 1970s of two workers in the car factory visualising a chessboard and playing chess, exchanging moves at break times.  I have also been told that some companies move people about to avoid repetitive work, but some people like the continuity and can choose to not move.

Some adjustable spanners are good, many spring open and slip and a mole wrench is good.   The metric spanners fit many nuts and bolt heads, but not all, and there appears to be no correct spanner for some nuts and bolts. 

With all types of adjustable spanners or grips, always hold them near the nut or bolt to ensure they don't slip.  If you do need to use an adjustable spanner, the vintage King Dicks (right) is very good because it has a long slide and consequently the jaws do not spring apart.  These were part of a 1950s P4 Rover car tool kit.

The correct tools;

Use YouTube to see what is inside, but be cautious with the advice given; much of it is very wrong.  Haynes car manuals give sound general advice; also, use them. 

Nuts and bolts. The threads will cross if you mix them, and the part will be ruined.

• British Standard Cycle (bikes and motorbikes) - Apparently, Raleigh did not use these sizes.
• Whitworth.
• British Standard Whitworth, which uses smaller spanners.
• British Association (BA) - Some 2BA and 8BA are used on the hub-dynamo.
• American Fine (AF)
• Unified fine (UNF)
• Metric (M) is the width including the thread in millimetres, but there are regular pitch and fine pitch threads alternative.

Crank or bottom bracket;

The important things are a little grease to hold the ball bearings in place when reassembling, oil, C-spanner and possibly a wide spanner to turn the bearing cap (it should move freely with your fingers).

• Then screw the cap and bottom bracket back together finger tight, check the bottom bracket turns and check the tightness again. 

• Loosen the ball cap 1/4 to 1/8 turn and tighten the ring nut with the c-spanner.  With a wheel bearing, similarly turn the shaft with your fingers and loosen the nut until there are no tight spots - the ball bearings wear oval and will pit the bearing shells if there are tight spots, hence the tolerance of 1/4 to 1/8 turn of slack.  If there are still tight spots, you need to replace the ball bearings, but if the shells are pitted, that is another problem, and I have no experience with either issue.  This is less slack than recommended but will ensure that the chain wheel does not brush the frame.  Otherwise set the slack should be set to 1/4 to 1/2 a turn.
  

• NOTE: bearings on some bikes are tightened more than this, no doubt for aesthetic reasons.  It seems the nuts can be loosened by only 1/8 turn without causing the brake pads to rub.   The bearing does not feel so wobbly compared with a correctly adjusted car wheel bearing, consequently.

• Gear Hub bearings are set with less slack, 1/16th turn on the drive side and 1/8th turn on the other side.  I have read more slack elsewhere.  It may depend on the hub?

• The sprocket will wobble a little, but that was unchanged after I opened the bottom bracket for the first time ever.  The chain is in good order.

• Otherwise, assemble dry then oil normally (the small amount of grease will wash out in time and the extra friction is trivial anyway) - this is different from the correct advice because the bearings are oversized compared to a car and it is more important that everything is kept free of grit than everything be lubricated as it is assembled as you would do with an engine or gearbox.

I damaged a cotter pin as a teenager - hence my warning and my example based on the Haynes Car manual on assembling a bearing.  I've crossed threads by mixing the wrong thread pitch nuts and bolts, but in this case, I probably crossed the thread having hammered the cotter pin out to remove the pedal.  I then stopped and did not proceed to check inside the bottom bracket, thinking it better to leave well alone.

Sturmey-Archer maintenance 1957

Car Foot-pumps may not be able to attain a high enough pressure for a bike.  I had one that did not, but I have recently purchased another car foot pump, which claims and be suitable.  Unfortunately, that foot pump worked very well but broke after a year or two.  I have replaced it with a high-pressure bicycle stirrup pump that also did not last many years, but a third cheap stirrup pump is lasting well.  Not all clip-on bicycle-type pumps can reach a high enough pressure either some might just achieve that pressure.

The short air pipe on most modern hand bicycle pumps will pull on the tube valve and break it off as you pump.   Old tubes made before 1970 were fine; the valve is much more securely anchored.

Hub Gears adjustment;

 

FW Hub indicator rod (broken) on the left.  See the N-speed indicator mark just below the end, and the L-speed indicator is at the end of the indicator rod.  The shoulder of the toggle chain (on the right), level with the end of the hole, also tells you when the low gear is set.  Although people warn that the indicator rod can come loose, I have not experienced that, but it is best to check that it is not loose.  Do not tighten it too much; it is a thin, fine pitch thread.

Along with all the cables, levers and selectors, the linkage entering the hub should be greased periodically.  There is an inspection hole for setting the cable in the lock nut or in both lock nuts.

Old hubs with an indicator rod, such as the FW - Even though I have only ever tightened it with a fine pitch screw-drive, one broke on my bike.  I had also broken a gear selector cable over-tightening it decades ago.   I have not experienced the indicator rod come loose except before the rod stretched and broke, but I am told they do, and then they spring out and can be lost. 

• Put the selector into L on an FW hub.
• Adjust the cable so that the screw head of the indicator rod is level with the end of the shaft.

Alternative method;

• Select N on an FW hub.
• Adjust the cable so that the indicator rod step (below the end of the rod) is level with the end of the shaft.

AW 3-speed hubs - Do not have an indicator rod, but you can check the adjustment by looking at the shoulder of the toggle chain through the inspection hole.  When replacing a rear-wheel screw, the toggle chain in to the hub, then loosened up to half a turn to prevent twisting the toggle chain.

• The recommended method: Adjust the cable so that the shoulder of the toggle chain is level with the end of the shaft with N (2) gear selected.
  

Adjustment - As you screw up the adjuster, you will tend to wind up the cable.  After you have set them, lock the adjuster.  Then select top gear so that the cable is slack, so that the spinner assembly can then be helped to unwind the wound-up cable.

An alternative method for setting an AW 3-speed hub gear.

• Put the gear lever into second gear. 

• Undo the barrel adjuster on the toggle chain until the hub goes into the no-gear position.  Now turn the opposite way until the hub engages second gear again. 

• At this point, turn the barrel another full circle and a half.  Lock off the barrel.

• Put the hub into first gear.  Ensure the gear lever will select first without the cable being very tight.  You should be able to pull a tiny amount of the toggle chain out of the axle by hand.

• If you can't detect a little slack in Low (1), then turn the barrel back half a turn.
  

• I think this method is the best method because you are factoring in any extra slack, such as how far the toggle chain is screwed in.  The toggle chain should not be screwed in tightly, but so that it does not cause a twist in the chain and the cable.
  

The simplest method when you gain the knack is: Move the selector to high gear and adjust the cable to be just slack. 

Do check elsewhere for the correct way to set up your particular variable gear hub.

How Sturmey-Archer variable hub gears work;

From the Sturmey-Archer Story on the S5, five-speed hub - this S5 is very similar to the FW 
4-speed hub.  Notice that the Bottom Gear's name has changed to Super Low, along with the
new speed brought out, Super High.  (sturmey-archerheritage.com)  

My bike has an FW (4-speed hub), pictured right, which is virtually identical to the five-speed twin cable hub introduced in 1966.  Parts are fairly interchangeable between the two hub types.  Early FW hubs can be adapted to 5-speed hubs, later model date about 1950, in addition need one of the sun pinions changed and some work carried out on it.  The extra cable selects between the normal sun gear locked and the super/high/low sun gear locked.  Notice the oil port pictured is different from my bike and has a spring-loaded cap.  My bike has a brass oil port, and the one in the bottom bracket has a sprung ball.  The cable setting gauge can be seen through the left-hand nut in this picture.

The Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub gear of 1902 succeeded later variants because of its efficiency and robustness.  A combination of designs by William Reilly, but patented in the name of Sturmey and Archer designs, plus others and some of the financing from the Raleigh cycle company.  I get an impression that William Reilly had an amazing capability in design, of metals and tempering steel, but he was not generally liked as a person, a personality problem possibly now better understood.  Good scientific companies have always had a good understanding of this.

There is plenty of information on the web, but I could not see precisely how the hub gears work.  I have included several videos below-showing variations of similar things.  Some of this was explained to me in relevant Facebook groups.

All hub gears are based on the original 3-speed, epicyclic gear constant mesh design.  The gears are selected with dog clutches and a mechanism for disabling one of two pairs of free-wheel ratchets called pawls in the diagram.  Three of the seven combinations of gear ratios are of practical use.  Bathed in light oil, if you were to over-oil the hub, the oil will run back out of the filler; otherwise, oil constantly comes out of the hub through the bearings if it is being oiled adequately.

Although meshing the teeth of gears is inefficient, epicyclic gears are efficient.  This is because only a fraction of the power is carried through the meshing gears.  That fraction of power is the percentage increase or decrease in speed of the selected gear.

FW Hub – has two sun pinions and the planet idler gears are pairs of large and small gears.  There is a single outer ring gear that meshes with one set of planet idler gears.

• Normal gear - No power is transferred through the gears.

• Low Gear & High Gear - use the same larger sun pinion.

• Bottom – The larger sun pinion is de-clutched from the shaft, and the other smaller sun pinion is clutched to the shaft.  The relative speeds are low as well, and the gears being lubricated with cycle oil make this extra pinion also efficient.  Their clutch mechanism is based on ball bearings that are pushed out of holes in the fixed shaft by the movement of the operating cable.

An FW hub will change up B to L only without taking the power off the pedals, and the hub does not feel compromised.  This is the nature of dog clutches and is also true of motorbike gears, which use them.  But between other speeds on an AW or FW is likely to stay in the lower speed until the cyclist takes his power off the pedals, but the hub can feel compromised and could slip.  Even so, don't ignore the basic advice: you should pedal gently or not at all when moving and changing gear.

  

Three-speed epicyclic gear operation explained

There is space for movement to prevent side thrust on the gear assembly bearings, so there is no-load carrying through the meshing of the gears, but for the turning forces.  There are separate bearings to carry the weight of the bike and the rider, called side thrust.  Some pre-World War 1 bikes are fixed wheel on some speeds and freewheel on other speeds. 

The 5-speed hub uses, I understand from the web, mostly the same parts, but there is a separate cable to select which sun pinion to de-clutch and to clutch to the shaft.  The selector is called super-low/super-high in the lever's other position is the usual medium called wide three gears.  The S5 was launched in 1966 and withdrawn in 1974, and replaced in 1977 by S5/1, but the 1982 to 1991 S5/2 introduced made the repair simply the replacement of the whole assembly.  Also, a stronger spring and better sun pinions fitting locking clip, but primarily were different efficiently having two epicyclic gear sets, using one or the other, not passing the power through both [I have misunderstood that last point, the video below does not show two epicyclic gear sets on the S5/2]. 

The S5/2 hub explained is very similar to the FW hub  
  This video is the clearest I have seen, although I do not understand 
German.  The ball-bearing sun pinion clutch mechanism is not shown.

[FOLLOW THE LINK TO WATCH THIS VIDEO]

Bright Red - Low & Bottom - Pushes the ring gear pawls to disengage them so that High gear pawls are disabled.  Power input to the ring gear and power output from the planet gear through the low-speed pawls.

Orange - Normal - Engages the input power to the ring gear, and the pawls are engaged.  Direct drive is engaged.  Both pairs of pawls may be carrying the power. 

Blue - high - Engages power input to the planet gear, and power is taken from the ring gear through the red pawls.  The planet's pawls turn more slowly and are therefore overrun.  The low-speed pawls are overrun and tick.

The other cable locks one or the other sun pinion to the shaft.  The difference in the FW hub is that there is one cable, so the super-high-speed cannot be reached by this mechanism.  When the cable is slack, the selector plate is to the left and engages the planet, but as the cable is progressively pulled through each gear to the left, H-N-L and the Red low ratio sun pinion carry the power.  When the cable is pulled against a spring, L remains engaged, but the cable then pulls the ball clutch to lock the dark-yellow sun pinion and thereby give Bottom gear (super low).

 

FW gear hubs wear out, no doubt because as the gears wear, it is observed that increasing cable force is needed to hold the bottom gear, thereby pulling the mechanism further away from alignment for normal gear.   So Normal gear either slips or Bottom gear slips.   This problem is resolved in the S5 or FW modified to an S5 with the second cable bottom, and the super high speed option is selected using a second cable.   Both the FW's cable and the indicator rod have broken on my Lenton in the past.  Evidently, Sturmey-Archer did not want to make helical gears and mating cups dog clutches at this time; these would have held the dog clutches tighter with pedal force rather than allow wear and slip.

Ball clutch mechanism S5 single cable type and other details.

5-speed hub 1921 Henry Sturmey, slightly wider ratios than the model launched in 1966?  The same method of super-low and Super-high by sun-pinion selection is used.  This model was reported in Cycling in 1924, but was not made.  This used a single cable and was not introduced again for another 60 years.  I could not follow the description, but I don't think there is a gear in which the gears are not moving in the mesh.  Launched for a year, then withdrawn in 1974 with no 5-gear hub offered. (pg. 156).  The five-speed gear patent 1940 (page 111) selected two gears overrunning two of the pawls to take power from the faster ratio, then tripping out the slower pawls. 

Hub gear configurations and arithmetic  (PDF) - This is a very good explanation of the drive paths with a lot of detail.  This PDF is an addendum to the Sturmey-Archer Story by Tony Hadland.

This link may be interesting, it is a new website and the author is said to be well-informed; https://britishhubgears.co.uk/

Anecdotally, I am told that two lever type 5 speed hubs are reliable and the cable does not need adjusting often.  I spoke to three people on Facebook in 2019 and May 2020 who have bikes from the 1960s with those hubs. This is not a very significant sample, though.  This is the S5/2. 

---------------------------------

 The Indian motorbike was named in honour of First Nations people of the United States. The rear suspension makes a mountain bike less controllable, I am advised, than the Indian motorbike.  The Wall-of-Death motorbike show runs these 1920s and 1930s "Indian" solid frame bikes because the motorbikes are more manageable.  The Indian has a low centre of gravity, the Wall-of-death has adapted a modern motorbike to make it a solid frame, they use that bike, but say it is not so predictable to ride.  The Wall-of-death show visited Hastings, East Sussex, in May 2018.

 

Mountain bicycle - If, by sitting on a sprung bike, your leg reach is shortened, then peddling will become hard work, consequently.  I have also found, as I was advised, that the chain comes off easily or fouls up, so it is a good idea to always carry a rag.   The chain will stay on better if everything is kept clean and adjusted, and that is my experience with the bike since doing that maintenance.  The chain and sprockets are made of comparatively much thinner metal, so they are sharp and cut my fingers.  The bike pictured is heavy to pedal, low speed, but is easy to ride; you can virtually lift both feet off the ground to the pedals, pedal and go.

 

Cheap mountain bike looks good, the front disk brake is good, ridden for a short time, then discarded.

Left and right - car cycle rack.  I have adapted it by drilling more holes so that it is now a fold-up bicycle maintenance stand. 

The bike maintenance stand is necessary for derailleur geared bike maintenance so that the chain hangs normally and the adjustments can be reached.  Otherwise, turning any other bike upside down to work on it works fine.  The stand is still useful for any bike, and particularly a bike with drop handlebars.

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Another comparison on Facebook was that the 1930s bicycle, the other recently acquired, is lighter to pedal than his superbike.  All around, a nicer bike to ride.

Similar bike (to my Lenton sports); My 1959 (Elswick) Hopper is the bike that rides most like you describe your Lenton. It just goes and glides.  I sit in it, not on it.  I found that also when I made a direct back-to-back test of my 83 Superbe and a similar age and spec Gazelle sports roadster.  It turned out the Gazelle was noticeably longer.  Let’s not underestimate the effect of the fork, too.

A few other comments on Facebook: A good frame will always be a good frame, but a good modern bike will outperform an old frame.  (I don't agree, but I do not have the personal experience to be certain).

  -------------------------------------

Change;
I mentioned hubs and bottom brackets changed from thin oil or grease to being lubricated with grease.  The S7-7 gear hub was introduced in 1973 with the no-slip between gears feature.  This hub incorporated three epicyclic gear assemblies, and the drive path was through many meshing gears.  The non-slip feature was considered not to have merit previously, but bikes with hub gears were being marketed to regular cyclists as easy, strong and reliable compared to derailleur gears, having become fashionable on sport bikes.  The 7-speed gear hub of about 1997/2000 uses a third sun pinion and a third cog on each of the planet pinions to form super and ultra high, and low speeds.  The hubs are lubricated with a thin grease with no lubrication port in the hubs.  1973, S7 cable rotated a shaft operating cams rather than pulling a rod, but the later seven-speed has low and high, super-low and super-high, and ultra-low and ultra-high gears by the selection of one of three sun pinions.

The advantage of having no slip between speeds seems obvious, but the advantage of having a no-gear selected position if the cable is not set properly is that it makes the adjustment clear and unambiguous.

The Sturmey-Archer hubs from about 1990, which don't have an oil port, can be lubricated once a year by removing the drive side cog and bearing cover and putting a little engine oil in that side.   They are said to not be well made, but the 1997 AW on the Universal further above works very nicely, as I said above.  The gears change precisely and with a gentle forward touch when stationary, as they should.

--------------------------------------

The Raleigh bike lifetime guarantee became guaranteed forever.  

 

Offered since 1902 were not transferable and lasted for the lifetime of the original purchaser of the bike.  Such guarantees were fairly common on high-quality British products.  Because they were on parts, only a shop may resist carrying out a repair at its own cost or try to justify passing on that cost to the customer.  Some were said not to be worth the paper they were written but I expect they were carried out, although there is a subjective judgment that a manufacturer would make to determine if the cause was due to normal wear-and-tear or damage.  It did not apply to bicycles leased or rented out.

 

I don't know how well Raleigh compared with other manufacturers' Guarantees, but I have heard an anecdote that a postman's bike was repaired all his working life (1910-1960, 75 miles a day, I believe? Facebook 2020), and Raleigh always supplied parts at no charge.  

• Assuming  30 days holiday or illness, 5- 6 days a week, gives a working 46-week year.
• 20,700 = 6 x 46 x 75 miles a year.
• 1 million miles = x 50 years.
  

By 1907, the policy changed, and the non-transferable part was dropped, and the Guarantee was "forever", but between 1951 and 1957, the Guarantee was reduced to just one year. (Facebook August 2020).  Raleigh merged with Tube Investments in 1960.

Sturmey-Archer hubs, sold separately, had a 50-year Guarantee in 1951.

In about 1990, I believe the frame had a 15-year guarantee, and the representative handbook described how to check a frame for wrinkles caused by damage rather than by a manufacturing defect.

I have read in a Raleigh document that they would charge for re-magnetising a returned dynamo that had been let demagnetise.  That is, put a soft iron keeper with the magnet.  That suggests that Raleigh might replace anything in exchange for the broken part that has not been broken by misuse.

End of Sturmey-Archer in the UK;  Ownership changed, and the equipment and manufacturing shifted to Taiwan in about 2000, turning around from what had become a make-do, poor quality and returning to good quality control in manufacturing again.  This story can be retold for so many companies from 1970 to the present.  Gear hubs were not made for very high endurance any more, though some were still very good.  Raleigh became Dutch-owned for a while, then finally ended manufacturing in the UK in 2012 and is now manufactured in Taiwan.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/sturmey-archer.html

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Probably the most efficient geared bike transmission 

The shaft drive bicycle is not new, but the one in this 

video claims 99% transmission efficiency (if enclosed 
and kept clean).  https://youtu.be/-9gQ1KRhesM

Ceramic speed - I can see that the gear teeth are slotting in on roller bearings rather than sliding up the tooth that a conventional straight gear does, so there does not seem to be any velocity modulation that conventional tooth gears have.  The velocity modulation in straight gears can make a machine wine.  Presumably, the transmission is normally enclosed in order to keep it clean so thereby staying a low-friction transmission in order to make the maker's claim meaningful?  Lloyd's cross roller gear is as above, but is a single-speed version that was patented in 1897.  This was an expensive option offered by some bicycle makers, including The Quadrant Cycle Co. and some 1920s Rover bicycles.

The gear changing occurs by timing the slide of the pinion across the crown disk at an appropriate time.  Hopefully, a cable-operated variant will be developed.  Also, I suppose if a speed change operation can be carried out by lifting and dropping the shaft, then the gears could be changed when the bike is stationary.

A single-speed shaft drive bicycle, such as the Columbia bicycle of 1900.  At that time, chain drive was very new, having only been developed in about 1880 and may have had a poor reputation because originally the couplings swivelled at two points rather than having a shaft inside a tube to form longer bearings as modern chains are made. 

There are many types of continuously variable transmission, some of them require the cyclist to continue pedalling others allow gear changes can be carried out with the bike stationary or moving.  The drive does not look to be as smooth as it could be or novel, but the principle is clear in the video.  Here is another, but unfortunately, it needs a battery Bicycle transmission

My preference would probably remain with a chain and hub gear with mostly reduction speeds from Normal.  32mm wide tires pumped to high pressure are good sports, road and dry bike track tires.  40mm wide is a little better on grass and road.  Tire friction is generally minimised by pumping the tires to high pressure and a nice, comfortable, light-to-pedal long wheelbase, flexible steel frame.

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Picture Right: The bike is cleaner now (summer 2019), and some of the colour and decoration can be seen.  The Brite-steel spokes are brilliant, old but not original.  I have put the pump back on the bike

Other Sturmey-Archer bike components and assemblies;

• Hub brakes were reckoned to be very good, smooth, progressive and powerful.  Some variants were operated by back-pedal, others by cable, and they could also include a gear hub, the KB hub.

• The hub dynamo was introduced in 1935 and is claimed not to add friction, but a few people I've spoken to say that it does, but I found it to be modest.  The power taken is very little and no more than the power output of 2W used in the lamps.  If pedalling at a reasonable pace puts in the same effort as walking, then 50W of effort then 4% would be used, which is more losses than N gear and similar to B  gear (guess?).

• 1982 XAG 3W, 6V meeting new lighting standards and 4 times more efficient 30 poles, alloy Dynohub sampled but not introduced.  Then all Dynohubs were withdrawn in 1984. 

• During the 1980's permanent magnet motors became much more efficient; consequently, motors and generators required less copper.  They used more powerful magnets.  Also, much smaller air gaps were possible due to better engineering tolerance and bearings with very little play.  Greater power density and efficiency were achieved, provided those motors or generators did not drive directly but had flexible couplings. 

• Basic generator theory determines that the output is a constant current, but the voltage (with no load) is proportional to the speed of the wheel.  That is, 300mA = 2W / 6V.  With an old-fashioned series lighting circuit, open lamp, fails, all lights will go out, but with a modern parallel lamp connection one lamp fails, the other lamp will receive too much current.  The ratings vary depending on the age of the bike. Blog Bicycle hub-dynamo maintenance - Includes suggestions and making a magnet keeper and re-magnetising a dynamo.

• Motorbike gears briefly. https://cybermotorcycle.com/gallery/norton-1930/Norton-1930-16H-500cc-Motomania-5.htm  

• An internal combustion engine was briefly badged Sturmey-Archer.

• 
  

  Each batch of Lenton bicycles made is different.  The brake cables on my 1946 Lenton are more elegant with the knurled adjuster and knurled lock nut, and easier to use than the later ones also pictured above.  I do not know the age of the last two, but it has an oiler to oil the cable; you turn the spring clip to expose the oil hole.  The second picture is the barrel nipple that has been re-soldered a second time - I cut the wire and made sure all the strands were used the second time - the end of each strand was turned over like a wilted daisy pushed into the barrel nipple to trap it before soldering on a gas hob using long nose pliers electrical solder and active flux.  

  
  

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References

The Sturmey-Archer Story, Tony Hadland, ISBN: O 9507431 2 7

History timeline

• 1887 - 3 bikes a week were made.  The shop in Raleigh Street, Victoria, was purchased and renamed the Raleigh Cycle Company.
• During the Victorian times, healthy living and exercise had become important, sanitation systems were built, and excellence in bicycle making was surely part of that movement.
• https://www.bdonline.co.uk/nottingham-bike-hq-is-englands-400000th-listed-building/5095200.article
  

• 1889 - A wealthy lawyer called Frank Bowden bought a controlling interest in a small Nottingham bicycle company called Woodhead, Angois & Ellis, renaming it the Raleigh Cycling Company.

• There is a little variation in the history.
• https://leftlion.co.uk/features/2015/01/cycling-in-nottingham-history-of-raleigh-bikes/
  

• 1896 - 30,000 bikes were made this year.

• 1914 - Over 50-60,000 bikes were made that year.  My Grandfather had a three-speed before WW1.  Raleigh was the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world.

• 1939 - 400,000 bikes made a year.

• World War Two - 280,000 bikes were made a year.

• World War Two from 1943 - Bicycle hub manufacturing stopped until the end of the war, and Sturmey-Archer published a leaflet advising people to keep their hubs maintained and have them repaired.

• 1951 - 1.1 million bikes made a year.

• 1960 - Raleigh merges with Tube Investments.

• The 1950s and 60s - After World War Two, many people from all over the British Empire, plus Polish and others who had fought in that war, married and remained in the UK.  Until WW2, most British people had not seen a black person, but among the many US armed forces were blacks who also remained.  Raleigh operated a policy of not employing black people at the instigation of the unions (I understand).  The company reversed that policy and became a leading employer of black people.

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-45207246
• https://road.cc/content/news/247273-raleighs-1930s-nottingham-head-office-becomes-englands-400000th-listed-site 

• 1980 - 1.5 million bikes were made a year. Nearly as many as car sales.

1955 bikes were ridden 20 million KM/yr but during the 1970's the figure was only 4 million KM/yr and this amounted to only 20cm/year.

• 2000 - Sturmey-Archer - Government minister David Blunkett discusses rescue plan.  Ultimately, Sturmey-Archer was purchased by a private company, and the machinery was sent to Taiwan.

• 2012 - Raleigh company leaves the UK.

• https://www.raleigh.co.uk/raleigh-history/

• 2018 - The Raleigh building is listed.

• https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1454941

• https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/former-heart-raleigh-manufacturing-empire-1923642

Dating your bike, if it is Raleigh or another brand made by Raleigh, is best to ask on some of the Facebook groups.  This all helps.

You need the date from the gear hub, e.g., 1 50 is January 1950.

Picture of the gear selector trigger.

The frame number is under the saddle.

The frame number is under the bottom bracket.

I quote from a Facebook member;

Tables are circulating and on the internet, and they have gaps; some are wrong.  There are multiple frame numbers for certain years; they are omitted in favour of the one which best "fits" into a sequence. A typical case of trying to make the evidence fit the theory.

In reality, from 1937 onward, there were many patterns in use, all unrecorded.

Kurt Kaminer is the most comprehensive effort to document them online, but he makes no attempt to delve into the War years' black hole simply due to not having anything to contribute.  Similarly, there is no attempt to explain the intricacies of the many unrecorded 1950s/60s patterns for the same reason.  As an American, his access to surviving bikes was limited.  But nevertheless, it covers most and hasn't been updated for years, so he did well.  Sheldon Brown didn't know anything about frame numbers and used information available online, as did Tony Hadland.  It's a very specialised area! Indeed, both he and Kurt made one big mistake, where they misinterpreted the month code in the 1973 onward standardised pattern.  This is today, the best-known and understood one of all, so it shows best how little info they had at the time.

Comparison of efficiency (appendix gives a range of different figures - these seem most relevant)

• N-gear is 1% and more efficient than derailleur gear.

• AW 92.5-96% but derailleur 92% 95%.S5, FW B 87%

• Losses 5-10% for both gear types. over a gear ratio range of +33 -25%

Tony Hadland blog supplement to the book.

The bike's transmission is all lubricated with 20 SAE oil, but the 3-in-one brand turns out to be a very bad choice in the hub long term, but okay everywhere else, putting a protective coating on the paint and chrome.  The drawing in the link further down this page below shows another type of oil port on the bottom bracket and hub.  But there are different styles of oil ports, such as the ones on this bike.  It is a brass hole, and the one in the bottom bracket also has a ball that needs to be pushed down with a special oil can.  You can see further down the page that I have adapted an old oil can filler to form a funnel in order to make lubricating the hubs easier.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/sturmey-archer/fw.html

Picture Right: the Polychromic green paint has mostly fallen off, which is typical of the 1946 MK II Lenton Sports bike.  The enamel undercoat is exposed with some light rust on most of the bike.

The original mudguards were cream in colour, made of cellulite and were brittle.  These replacement Bluemel's Lightweight mudguards have remained plastic and are much better.   The mudguards look right, but there was no reflector on these replacement mudguards.  They were fitted in about 1970.

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Gears have been used in church clocks and windmills as early as 500AD. Making gears involved too much work to be developed into anything other than very well-financed work, but may not have been developed further than ideas drawn on paper.  Only a tiny number of those ideas have survived, such as those drawn by Archimedes, and novelty such as Hero's (steam) engine, no doubt would not have had practical use and would not have been developed.  The Chinese South-Pointing Chariot is based on a differential gear built in the 3rd century but could have been developed in the 27th century B.C.E.  Drawings that looked like epicyclic gears, although no physical machine was intended, were carved into stone as Mayan calendar with a cycle of a little over 5,000 years.

In Britain, metal was used for tools and weapons, but machines were usually made of wood.  British Kings in the 12th century were finding quests abroad and bringing back strange wonders, maths and astronomy to the British Isles.  Tempering the swords very rarely got it right; they chipped and shattered. 

1418 Giovanni Fontana is credited with building the first human-powered four-wheel land vehicle 

Some bicycles began to be manufactured in the 18th century; these were wooden and had no pedals.  The first sketch known is much earlier, drawn by Gian Giacomo Caprotti, a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci.

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The crossbar quadrant gear selector remained available for a long time.  The gear selector pictured was replaced by a new modern gear selector that was numbered (1, 2, 3, 4) and the numbers rotated and placed so it is readable with the selector mounted as it is on my bike.  That was instead of named gears using the letters (B, L, N, H).  The earliest type of selector was the barrel type with a lever that rotates in a barrel with notches fitted to the handlebars.

The British Empire was formed in the 16th century, and Britain started ruling the seas and thereby ruled most of the world.  It may be said that India received fair rule of law in exchange for profit returned to the UK, but the rulers became corrupt.  A large class of wealthy British men, clergymen and sometimes women with an income developed many ideas that had no use until long after their death.  One of those was Erasmus Darwin's Hydrogen and oxygen pumped to an expansion chamber rocket motor, which had no application until the 20th century.  The 17th and 18th Centuries gave Britain steam power.  Steam power improved greatly and gave us the power to build machines that powered the Industrial Revolution.  The Newcomen Engine was used to pump water out of mines despite its inefficiency (0.5% versus 35% or higher for a modern steam turbine).  This was the change that turned many centuries-old ideas or toys to entertain emperors and kings turned to practical use.  The most modern steam trains reached 20% efficiency, but diesel is more efficient, and electricity is much more efficient and can take and return power to the rail grid in some cases.

History of bicycling in pictures. Much engineering was developed by amateurs with a lot of leisure time and money.  This is in addition to commercial or, more often, military research.  All funding was from the exploitation of the world by the Empire nations.

In the cold, about 30 years ago, a spring broke in the gear selector, but I only recently 2018, thought of a better fix.  This time the fix worked.  The bike was stored in a shed and deteriorated in that period, but the wheels move more freely than any new bike or any other bike I have looked at.  The front brake cable broke 40 years ago, and I re-soldered it, but not that well, so I replaced the cable in 2019.

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The 19th Century marked the start of the unification of measurement and parts with Whitworth thread sizes.  Metrication was proposed and started throughout the sciences, although the Russian Rouble (PDF) had already been decimalised in the 16th century.

Britain is credited with the first automobile in 1801, but there seem to be others in the USA and one in Paris using the first Internal Combustion Engine, although steam or electricity was used generally.  Many types of bicycles were developed.  1896 The flash-boiler was patented, which meant steam cars could go from turn-on after 90 seconds and then move silently and in a gentle way, but the very fast steam cars, such as Stanley Streamer and Doble, that were also silent had no gears but took 10 minutes before the steam pressure was enough to go.

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There were also 100's of bicycle and bike gear patents registered;
The first practical epicyclic gear hub was made by Scott and Philpot in 1878. At this time, there were many bike inventions patented, but an American machinist, Johnson, made the first commercially successful epicyclic gear hub in 1895.  Depending on what you read, between 500 and 1,000 patients in the last two decades of the 19th century, but another significant factor was that the quality of metals was going to improve greatly over the next two decades.  The ideas were re-invented for thousands of years capability and the wealthy all came together to implement them.

William Reilly invented much more robust and cost-effective epicyclic hub variable gears some years after leaving the Hub and Two-speed gear Co, which later became owned by BSA.  Reilly asked his fellow engineer, James Archer, to patent it in his name instead.  William Reilly had signed a condition that bound him even after leaving that company 2-3 years earlier, which was resolved when patents and cross-licensing were negotiated between BSA and Sturmey-Archer years later.  But in Reilly's opinion, his invention was never fully attributed to him.  The 1902 patent three-speed hub proved to be the lightweight, efficient, robust hub that the Raleigh Bicycle Company were looking for.  They returned to the original design after making changes and mostly kept to that design, but with improvements [pg 78].

William Reilly was employed at Sturmey-Archer and significantly ensured the process of tempering the hub gear parts was of a high standard.  The components should bend and spring back, but not crack.  Gears made by car manufacturers at that time generally cracked, and pieces broke off.  He seems to have been passed over, perhaps because of his demanding standards, but tolerated when necessary, but that is not recorded.  I observe that people who do a job efficiently and very well are often not liked.

 - Reference: The Sturmey-Archer Story, Tony Hadland (dedicated to William Reilly, the unaccredited inventor of the modern bike epicyclic gears hub).

The bicycle chain was invented in 1880.  These earliest chains were less robust until the type with a shaft slid inside a tube was developed.  At first, each link pivoted on the two thin metal link points on each side {references to follow}.  Modern chains also include a roller, and chains for derailleur gears have more sideways movement.

Derailleur gears were developed in 1905, but there was some form of derailleur gear in 1899.  This type of gear provides a close speed ratio, but Sturmey-Archer did not provide it until the 1930s, when there was an interest in close speed ratios.  Derailleur gears became fashionable in the 1970s.  The mechanism is not protected, so it gets damaged, dirty, needs adjustment and requires skill to use, which probably is an attraction and why derailleur gears became popular.  Derailleur gears are the cheap high maintenance option, and hub gears are expensive and have now become even lower-maintenance options (because they now don't need frequent oiling).

• See http://www.disraeligears.co.uk/

Sturmey-Archer used to make parts for hybrid hubs and derailleur gears.  The hub gear can be used to get you started from stationary, so a wide-ratio hub is most suitable.  I have read elsewhere that close or medium-ratio hubs put back a little force in the free-wheel onto the chain that may cause it to come off with derailleur gears. 

• The advantages are: Derailleur close speed ratios, being able to start with the derailleur at a high speed by selecting a low speed with the hub gear when stationary.   Disadvantages of the vulnerable and slower gear change of the derailleur and the dead weight of the hub gear.

•  Lenton Sports 1946/47 with a hybrid hub and derailleur gears;
  https://www.flickr.com/photos/cv-6enterprises/sets/72157632528362251/with/8383798141/

• Modern hybrid - this one is operated by wireless and is self-powered with a rechargeable battery.

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20th Century -  from about 1910, cars with internal combustion engines had a starter motor fitted, but required a lot of maintenance and preparation first.  Petrol cars were fun and had to be driven with skill, and these were different from silent cycling, electric or a steam car.  Meanwhile, in France, car manufacturers had not been stalled by the horse lobby as it had been in Britain and small 500cc, £600 cars.  These cars were petrol, steam, and electric, were also being made.

Bikes were really developing fast with the lightest weight hub gears, frames, and the lightest pedal bikes succeeded.  Raleigh and Sturmey-Archer made the best for a very long time.  At the beginning of the 20th Century, there were many excellent bikes and gears being made. BSA made a Sturmey-Archer gear hub under license, but with ball races in the planet gears that hardly reduced the now very low friction any more.  Helical gears to reduce friction and gear whine did not seem to exist at all in British-made bikes and not in cars until after WW1?  The Sturmey-Archer gear hubs use straight gears, but the hub operates very quietly.

Picture right FW hub;  By 1945, bikes had reached their ultimate with the FW gear hub.  The oiling port on my bike is a simple brass hole, but some bikes have an oil port with a spring cap.  If you look through the hole, the metal is bright silver and brass inside.  The wheels moved easily after 25+ years unused in the shed, and they moved back to their balanced position. 

 

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Pictured right is a 1950 Lenton sports, and it is mostly original.

I am advised by Rob Lucky (Facebook) - "This is a 1950 and mostly original, as I got it here in Canada, it was likely sold by the Eaton's Department store that was a huge importer of Raleigh. Fenders still had Raleigh transfer, and I switched to similar drop bars to what it would have had. It had an AW S/A, but I got an FM as the upgrade was often. I attached the as-found even had the front Raleigh hub knock-offs. Whatever you can do to promote these bikes is great."

British manufacturers were exporting as much as possible after World War Two, and it was vital for the country to pay off the vast war debt.  Chrome and I guess, therefore,  Gold and Reynolds 531 lightweight steel could be used again, although the bikes were still "utility" and the tires were war-grade tires.  For example, the price of a loaf of bread was still regulated until the early 1960s, when I was very young.  All the bright parts did not have to be painted black for the blackout, now that the war had ended.

The paint on this Canadian bike is in better condition than the paint on my bike.  The paint on my bike has mostly fallen off. 

Rob also tells me the chain guard that was added on was the wrong colour.  By comparison, my bike does not have space between the tubing and the big sprocket for a chain guard, and the sprocket brushes the bike frame slightly.

The more modern frame on Rob's bike is said to be even better; that's amazing because mine feels like it is as good as possible.  But the forward link on the steering post will make an already very stable bike even more stable. 

Left the 1950 Lenton sports bike after restoration.  Note: Lenton Sports decoration 3D text on the saddle tube section is the same as my bike.  The bottom bracket to the steering tubing is different; my bike is ALL STEEL in red 3D.  The main decoration on the tube from the bottom bracket to the saddle is very similar but different.  I think the lettering size has been corrected, and the outline is not gold. 

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Maintenance;

Although oiling the bike is quick and easy, if you do not clean the grime it attracts, then you will get dirty black stains on anything that touches it.  The big drawback with modern bikes is how heavy they can be to pedal, in order to make adult bikes easy to learn to ride.  Using greased bearings instead of light oil transmission has added very little friction.  This happened;

• The bottom bracket in 1961(USA Facebook) and the front hub after 1960 (this part of the Raleigh history and Tube Investments merger with Raleigh in 1960 is not well documented).

• At some point, the viscosity of the oil recommended increased to 30AE - I understand.  It is better to use thinner oil than risk parts within the hub not operating correctly.  Oil is often discussed in social media, but bear in mind that oil for outdoor general use is what is recommended by bike makers, but is not recommended by people who use and maintain a lot of old bikes. 

• 3-in-one oil is a good oil, but it should not be used in a gear hub.   After 20 or 30 years, it will have coated things like black paint and stop the hub gear selection from working properly.  The tin used to have a picture of a bicycle on it in the 1960s, and it is okay for anything else, protecting chains, house and shed hinges, coating what is used on black.  The black residue from using 3-in-one oil up until 50 years ago was all over the bike and seems to need a chisel and a wire brush to remove it, but it protected the steel and the paint underneath.

• By comparison, modern engine or gearbox oils have micro-beads that help the oils adhere to the surfaces, and I guess you do not need to or probably should not oil the bike so often, consequently.  10W40 engine oil is thin, but it is thicker than bicycle oil I am advised is okay.   Hair clipper oil is probably the most suitable, but I have not used this oil; any of the bicycle oils should be suitable.

• The Sturmey-Archer gear hubs stopped fitting with oil ports from 1991/2 (Facebook).  Modern bikes with grease used in the transmission are consequently hard to pedal.

Pictured right below, Cotter pins are made of mild steel and bend easily; the threads are easily ruined.  The only way to remove or fit them is with a press tool.  I ruined the thread on the cotter pin in my teens decades ago, but that happens easily anyway if you don't use a press tool to remove and fit them.  See if you can use one from a bike shop.  Alternatively, use a vice, a piece of tubing to increase the leverage and a ring spanner or socket to press the cotter pin enough to move it easily, but don't use too much force, such as an extra lever, refitting a pin.  There is a right way and a wrong way to push the pin in, and the right way is less likely to catch your trouser turn-ups, I understand.  

The modification of a 4-speed FW to a five-speed hub.
https://hadland.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/converting-the-sturmey-archer-fw-4-speed-hub-into-a-5-speed/?fbclid=IwAR1usc98KHQMs8g1R5Ael03qzrprN_3XTpxguSUkskwAmODOWlu1haC0wU0


A critical and found review of Sturmey-Archer's management.  Interestingly,  lightly oiled SA is more efficient than a derailleur as measured in 2000.
https://hadland.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/elegy-for-sturmey-archer/?fbclid=IwAR05tk_MQhQ8JHUmUQDUuqOMQpjH4Z2sfjHErcnfr0hZ4XDQ9ZTD0Mnc1OY


Lots of old bike-related pictures
http://www.oldbike.eu/

https://www.cyclemuseum.org.uk/

Bike discussion forum.
http://www.retrobike.co.uk

Catalogue pages of bikes around 1939 to 1950, including the Lenton Sports.
https://on-the-drops.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-clubmans-1946-1951.html

Supplier of old bike transfers.
https://h-lloyd-cycles.myshopify.com/collections/raleigh
https://h-lloyd-cycles.myshopify.com/

Archive of Sturmey-Archer catalogue pages and technical data.
http://www.sturmey-archerheritage.com/index.php?page=history-detail&id=176

Reg Harris OBE, Cyclist, trains on a Lenton sports bicycle with an FM hub;
https://on-the-drops.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-raleigh-lentons-1948-1960.html

When were bicycle gears invented - Guardian Newspaper.
https://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/when-were-bicycle-gears-invented-35989/

Drive train history - Velo News.
https://www.velonews.com/the-drivetrain-wars

YMCA, Recycle - Bike project;

Lenton Sports Ladies' sports bike was first introduced in 1940, Model 44. Then the MKII in 1946 bike, but the first with Reynolds 531 Steel frame bikes were introduced in 1936 as aircraft steel frame, I understand, but before that, molybdenum steel was used on sports bikes weighing a little more at 15.5Kg.  https://on-the-drops.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-clubmans-1946-1951.html

1943 We are making no more gear hubs until the end of the war
http://www.sturmey-archerheritage.com/index.php?page=history-detail&id=744
http://www.sturmey-archerheritage.com/index.php?page=history-detail&id=978

Three and four-speed hubs, 1947. 
http://www.sturmey-archerheritage.com/index.php?page=history-detail&id=227

 

Review of copied AW hubs 1940s-1960s;
http://www.sturmey-archerheritage.com/files/view-1369.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2vjBRMwkHM_DeDKr0U6_ZQoueXTPgFMcXrILVd_1yYxH1g1pUW7MMsMpY


About some of the comments I have made in the text;

• S-A Sprinter S7, 1997-2000 has a single ring gear, a single epicyclic cage, each planet gear is a single 3-cog component, and 3 sun gears. Give 3 speeds + 2 more super-wide speeds + 2 more ultra-wide speeds.

• 1966, S5 two cable hub launched.  Note Tony Hadland's book draws attention to the point that the single cable version was not launched until the 1980s, but I add that old patents, such as the 1921 Henry Sturmey's patent on the single cable 5-speed hub, may have still been active or recently expired.  I have read that patents used to be granted with a life of 40 years before WW2.

• Selectors and hubs, and some other parts, are often made under license by different makers and are mostly interchangeable with British-made versions of Sturmey-Archer.  The important point is that parts made since Sturmey-Archer closed in the UK and relocated to Taiwan are very unlikely to be interchangeable with parts made in the UK over the previous century.  I say most but not all Sturmey-Archer gear selectors can be used with all Sturmey-Archer hubs.

The bike decoration;
The postwar period was exciting with the finest quality made for the people, up to a point, just for the white English.   The deferred Olympics were to be held in London in 1948 and the Festival of Britain in 1951.  The lovely 1946 Lenton Sports bike with its modern golden serrated shield.

• Up to 1945 --- Feature of the bike frame was a gold line stencilled on some of the tube sections.  Decorations were more curls and swirls influenced by William Morris.

• Right; MK II, 1946-1947  --- Looks like a serrated shield with a gold stencil outline on mustard yellow with deep blue shadow and green text.  This decoration is also on some Lenton MK III made before the 1948 London Olympics. 

• The 1948 London Olympics had been postponed from 1939 due to the war.

• There are many other decorations around the 1949 Lenton Clubman (the successor to the Lenton Sports), and the 1950s Reg Harris Lenton is an Olympic torch with a red flame. There is a very similar decoration to the one pictured right used on the later Lenton sports, but without the gold outline. 

 LENTON SPORTS

• Above, MK III from 1950 --- Clean plain italic text.  But there were many more different decorations.

Bicycling statistics;

Road Safety;

In the picture above, the reflective jacket on the left and the reflective bike clips are from the early 1970s. The helmet and reflective jacket on the right were bought in 2018.

• The Highway Code advises cyclists to stop at the left-hand side before turning left, right or going straight on, but the new highway code says move to the right lane when turning right.  But you need to judge the traffic and the situation.  A junction near me had the drain hole fitted the wrong way so that a narrow-width tire wheel could jam between the grating.  What was particularly bad in this case was that cars were parked so that the problem could not be seen in advance.

• Learn to get on and move off with your left or right sides and feet.  A step-thru bike is easier to get on and off, but they are a bit heavier, which does not matter.  A full-size bike will ride the potholes better, but the vibration on a regular bike is harsher, and road holding is poorer than with a sport bike.  So don't be shy if you are a bloke about riding one.  

• High visibility is important.  Wearing a silly hat is okay if it gets you noticed, but helmets do encourage you to go faster because they give a false sense of safety.  Helmets are not required for the cyclist, but they do change the type of injury you might get in a fall or crash.

• The low-down kerb light on old bikes is very useful if you have to cycle in the dark.

• Wearing a cloth cap offers no physical protection, but the cyclist will have a slow, careful, gentle pace outlook in mind.  Anyway, if he could not cycle fast, the hat would not blow off.

Some lorries carry a label FIR - I understand this is for cities like London, and it is a cyclist awareness programme in which the driver gets to ride a bike in order to appreciate cycling. 

Notably, people seem much more tolerant and courteous of cyclists.  Cycle lanes, cycling on the pavement and on-road is mostly done with a lot of care on all sides.  

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Buyer beware.  There have always been poorly made things for sale that were not fit for purpose.  There are still things made to last, and it is an ethical buying judgment to buy them.  But there is always pleasure when some of those things turn out to do what they do well and for a very long time.  The Lenton Sport, like all bikes of its time, is exceptional even by the highest standards,  remaining fit for purpose.  

 

Cheap mountain bicycles are purchased, worked hard and thrown away when they wear out after five years. This has been a financially prudent strategy.

 

My understanding, though, is that an adult bike designed or made before the 1930s is likely to be quite hard to cycle, but a comfortable ride the same.

Conclusion;

Having a liking for well-made things, keeping them reduces waste and leads to looking after a bigger spares and repair industry.  More importantly, making and maintaining things empowers people, but buying new things with a short design and non-repairable life reinforces helplessness.   But economies of large amounts of waste have made the costs of doing this low and profits high.

 

I have been rubbing the Lenton Sports down with linseed oil, and doing that has improved all surfaces, enhanced the decoration and given the heron badge a lovely tarnished brass lustre.  The Ever Ready lamp rattles, it always did, so I put some rubber inner tube over the hook, and in the battery compartment, which has helped.  I do not have the original green tin lamp.  I have adapted a modern head wearable lamp to light the curb edge and fitted a flashing red lamp to the rear rack.

The front tire is new, but worryingly, it has much less tread than the old war-grade tandem tire I was using last year (2018).  It has been suggested to me that the tread on a bicycle is not important because the tire is round in section, so naturally pushes water away, compared with a motorbike or car tire is flat and reinforced by a steel band, so tends to trap water if there is little tire tread.

In nature, Gaia works where life manages and looks after the environment.  A badger, fox or a human can leave a village or set then return to it some years later, and it has all been cleaned up again by nature.  But modern humans just come back to the mess they leave.  I leave the final sensible words to Carl Sagan;

The cosmologist Carl Sagan's lessons from space exploration and mythology speak on caring for the climate being possible.

The benefit of cycling compared to walking is that it is gentle on your joints, like swimming and can alleviate aching ankles, for example.  Cycling complements walking and life.  Drop handlebars might cause your wrists to ache instead, though. 

Picture right: The Bike was cleaned a little more using Linseed oil and photographed from a different 
angle so the polychromic green frame colour and gold outline stylised Olympic torch can be seen.

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1976 Bickerton-folding-bicycle