I wanted a cheap pub / station / commuter bike and had gone around a couple of local second hand shops, without success, when a friend’s dad said he had ‘an old clunker’ in his shed that he was going to dump. Did I want to have a look?
Turns out I’ve got myself a little bit of a gem. It still had on the classic 70s everyready front and rear lights and while it was very dirty, it had actually been looked after quite well. It’s a Coventry Eagle, but as it’s got a foil badge on the head tube and not a metal one, it’s probably from the late 70s / early 80s.
Someone at some point in time has put a Campagnolo front mech on (think it’s a Grand Tour push rod type) while it’s got a Shimano rear mech, and the most horrible Brooks Vitesse saddle.
Not going for a respray but will just clean up, install new bearings all over and reassemble.
Think I might change the downtube shifters to bar end ones. Hopefully will not be a troublesome as Jorgan’s Frankenbike.
Have no fear @Poet, once the Magnolia has dropped all its leaves, I’ll be out there with the rake. Jet washing will happen in the spring
Ok, so a couple of hours last night, stripping down the brakes, cleaning and reassembling.
Same with the chain set. It’s an odd one as it’s got a 48/46 double! Can’t quite understand why you’d have two such close chainrings although when looking on a few YouTube videos of classic bikes, it seems that they were quite common. The crud caught between the two rings took a lot of faffing about to get out as it was packed in so hard.
Brings back memories, I bought a red Coventry Eagle from junk shop in the late 1980’s and built it up. Not sure what happened to that bike though… I suspect that it got left in the shed when my parents sold their house
Back in the 80s my first road bike which I bought from Kingston Cycles (then became an Evans) was a Clements. Lovely steel frame with 531 tubing. When researching this bike, a few websites mentioned one of the main Coventry Eagle people being called Clements. Got me wondering if there was a connection?
Ended up having to bin the frame after crashing it.
Next couple of jobs are to have a look at the wheel bearings and give the rims a clean. Strip and clean the rear deralliuer and then start building back up. The only problem I can foresee is I’ve got to find some ferrules the go into the brake hoods to connect the brake outer cables. Hopefully another week or so and it will be finished.
A couple of hours last night putting the Campag front mech back together and stripping and cleaning the front shifters. Pretty certain they had been assembled wrongly in the past but will see if I can dig out an exploded diagram from somewhere.
I spent the most on it today, with a £40 set of full length mudguards. I was amazed at how well the rims came up. A little bit of surface rust but nearly all of it came off with some fine wire wool.
