First outing this year for my 58 Constellation

Thank chaps, as a designer/photographer I love to play and experiment with images. Not to everyones taste though. My point is its about the bike not the photos.

That said this old crate is a nice ride, gearing is a little high but Ive kept it original. Some gent was telling me the chainwheel is a great example of step gearing as there is little difference between the two chainwheels, you find the gears through the back sprocket - according to him. Not quite sure what he meant.

This machine was used as a TT bike in the 60s by the former owners grandfather. He sold it to me about 4 years ago for a nominal fee as he wanted the machine to be cared for and above all rode again, which is what I do. Thats said the from 'death changer' works smoothly but requires a degree of practice to get the front changes right, especially in busy traffic.
 
Seeing the gearing arrangement on the Constellation brings back memories. Back in the 60s I had a cottered Gnutti 3-arm steel chainset with 47T and 50T rings, and this arrangement of just a few teeth difference between rings was quite common at one time. My freewheel had 14-16-18-21-24 for many years. This arrangement of a close-ratio chainset and wider ratio freewheel was a means of getting ten close-ratio gears. For example, 47/16 gave a gear roughly midway between 50/16 and 50/18.

In 1967 I bought Stronglight cotterless cranks and used TA 44/52 rings. I went touring several times with quite a heavy saddlbag with 44/52 chainrings and a 24 maximum sprocket at the rear. I wince at the thought now of touring on a 44/24 bottom gear, and I do remember having to walk up a climb now and again!
 
Re:

Given this machine a bit of a spit and polish today. Hopefully the pictures meet the expectations of the photo police.

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Mileage so far this year on the bike...
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Re:

Out on this machine today for a photo shoot in Plymouth.

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Discussing the old debate of Retro vs. Modern. :mrgreen:


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