Monday, October 5, 2009

Lit Fuse Tatoo Run-About

We put together a little Raleigh Colt with some vintage parts and some modern parts for Lit Fuse Tattoo over in Japanther's second home OLYMPIA, Washington. For the hills we added a fully re-conditioned Sturmey-Archer three-speed hub and NOS shifter laced to 36 hole Mavic Open Pro rims by DT Swiss spokes. The front hub is an original Atom Hub made for the Raleigh Record that I reconditioned for the front wheel. It is the opposite of the vogue high flange... the bolt-on low flange hub with the Whitsworth 3/8" Raleigh logo track(ish) nuts. We added Soma Everwears with the white stripe for the Scenester homage to Oly's own styles.

Pictured here is Victor Mendoza the LFC mechanic behind the foundational work in lacing the wheels, prepping, aligning and assembling the parts onto the frame, and testing the ride at speed. I handled the fine tuning and dishing of the wheels, the three-speed hub overhaul clinic and the rear brake fitting and overhaul. Jim handled some trouble shooting on the rear hub and shifter, the wraps and seat-post shimming. Fenders are not full-coverage but they will suffice. Bars and stem by Cinelli and tape Schwinn leather saddle are rounded out with the Japanese 165mm Tourney cranks and Shimano rear calipers with tektro dual-pivots up front. The bottom bracket shell was re-threaded for the modern English Taiwanese cartridge bottom bracket and anchors the bike with smooth reliable service.
MKS Sylvan Tour pedals and re-greased, re-torqued chainwheel screwpegs lend some effort against annoying ticks and clicks. Full-length cable housing and the absence of a cable pulley offer more reliability and longevity to the shifting.
I only wish I still had some of my stash of Scott-Matthauser salmon brake pads. I would settle for the Kool-Stop continentals in salmon but the bank account is in the red again and I got many more items to order for urgent customers. Weinman brake levers are the cherry on the top of this multi-cultural bonanza.
The British-Belgian-French-Italian-Japanese-Taiwanese-American Lit Fuse Cyclery Flyer.
We have been struggling to keep up with a greedy rent and and a neglected basement that is holding us back from being what we intend to become. We are planning some events to celebrate our existence as tenuous as it is. No time like the present to appreciate life's wonders.
I love the re-furbishements that we have been doing. It is why I wanted to build this business. I hope that the Borough can come through for this refugee from Manhattan's gentrification so we can become a fixture in the landscape here. We know that we are not perfect, but we do a damn good job here when we are allowed a little latitude to get the job done.

1 comment:

  1. wonderful blog!!! i really like the tatoo because i think they are a kind of art. they usually represent a part of ourselves. absolutely beautiful. In fact my boyfriend say a good tatoo and to
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