It's not n+1, because the Orbit has gone to LEE, so it's just n again
Bikenerd's old 50s/60s frame of unknown make and construction is begging to be turned back into what it probably was originally - a club racer with a hub gear. The hubs are as cheap as chips and easy enough to pull apart (a 16mm cone spanner and a special ball ring spanner are all you need). The bits that wear (pawls, pawl springs, dog clutch and planet pins) are well known and also cheap as chips to buy as spares from Derek at Old Bike Trader. Best of all, the old hubs run in oil so they never have to be opened up again unless they go wrong; new ones use grease, which goes dry and hard after a couple of years.
It'll have a new Shimano DH-3N80 dynamo hub on the front (they've overtaken Schmidt in the weight stakes now, and are only £50 from Germany) and some narrowish 700c rims in silver. Probably Marathon Pluses when the winter comes around, although I'll try it with skinnies first to see how it goes. It has mudguards and a Brooks saddle. The geometry is odd - a 21.5" seat tube, which is ideal, but with an enormous top tube which means the 6.5cm (I think) stem on there is actually necessary to give correct reach for an normally-proportioned human rider. I can forgive it that for the enormous spearpoint lugs.
The only other thing I'm buying it at the moment is a longer seatpost, because I don't *quite* have an inch of post below the bottom of the top tube, and it's not worth taking the risk of a broken seat cluster. It's begging for a really good respray in smooth enamel plus lug lining, but that will have to wait until it's proved itself over a winter of hard commuting. The Thorn is too much of a faff to clean and the Frankendale, originally built up as a commuter, is more fun without mudguards rattling.
