Late night fun with old Schwinn "lightweight"

[Werehatrack]

Scene: It's about 11:30PM, I'm on the way to drop off some outbound
shipping at the Post Office (it goes out when it's ready), and the
cell phone rings. The daughter-unit reports that she's at our regular
bubble tea stop, and her friend's bike has a flat; she asks if I could
swing by and provide transport since it's late and she has no flat
repair stuff along. I figure, sure, why not; I'm driving the car that
has the bike racks anyway.

The flat tire is on an ancient Schwinn with roadie bars and an
Ashtabula crank. 5-speed. Heavy. Not a good sign, if I had been
thinking about it. I ask if the owner has a flat repair kit. He says
no. With a misplaced sense of confidence that a mere flat couldn't be
much more than a minor inconvenience to fix, I suggest that we stop by
the house, and I'll patch it. Sounds good to them.

We get home, I get the wheel off and grab the speed lever to slide the
tire over the bead. No go. The tire is stretched on so tight that
the hook of the speed lever won't even get under it. Okay, two
screwdrivers and much grunting later, the tire's off. It's marked as
a 26x1 1/4 for a 590 rim. I'm thinking "that can't be a 590 rim.
Waitaminute. I wonder, maybe it's an S6?" Check Sheldon Brown's
webpage and sure enough, there it is; Schwinn lightweights used 597
rims, designated S6. Rowrbazzle. No way I'm going to put this back
together as wrong as it was when it got here. Dig around in the parts
heap a bit and voila! An old EA3 dished rear with close-enough
spacing is unearthed. Toss a freewheel on it, tape the spokes, dig
out a tube from the recycle bin, throw the victim's own tire on it,
adjust things, and the bike's serviceable again.

I admonished the bike's owner that the front tire was every bit as
wrong as the rear for the rim that it was still on, but as I didn't
have another EA3 to swap, he was on his own for fixing that. I made
sure he took the old rear wheel along so that if he ever found some of
the right tires, it could be reinstalled. The mismatched front
lash-up was holding air for the moment anyway.

At least he knows what he's got, now.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
Some gardening required to reply via email.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

 

[n5hsr]

"Werehatrack" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Scene: It's about 11:30PM, I'm on the way to drop off some outbound
> shipping at the Post Office (it goes out when it's ready), and the
> cell phone rings. The daughter-unit reports that she's at our regular
> bubble tea stop, and her friend's bike has a flat; she asks if I could
> swing by and provide transport since it's late and she has no flat
> repair stuff along. I figure, sure, why not; I'm driving the car that
> has the bike racks anyway.
>
> The flat tire is on an ancient Schwinn with roadie bars and an
> Ashtabula crank. 5-speed. Heavy. Not a good sign, if I had been
> thinking about it. I ask if the owner has a flat repair kit. He says
> no. With a misplaced sense of confidence that a mere flat couldn't be
> much more than a minor inconvenience to fix, I suggest that we stop by
> the house, and I'll patch it. Sounds good to them.
>
> We get home, I get the wheel off and grab the speed lever to slide the
> tire over the bead. No go. The tire is stretched on so tight that
> the hook of the speed lever won't even get under it. Okay, two
> screwdrivers and much grunting later, the tire's off. It's marked as
> a 26x1 1/4 for a 590 rim. I'm thinking "that can't be a 590 rim.
> Waitaminute. I wonder, maybe it's an S6?" Check Sheldon Brown's
> webpage and sure enough, there it is; Schwinn lightweights used 597
> rims, designated S6. Rowrbazzle. No way I'm going to put this back
> together as wrong as it was when it got here. Dig around in the parts
> heap a bit and voila! An old EA3 dished rear with close-enough
> spacing is unearthed. Toss a freewheel on it, tape the spokes, dig
> out a tube from the recycle bin, throw the victim's own tire on it,
> adjust things, and the bike's serviceable again.
>
> I admonished the bike's owner that the front tire was every bit as
> wrong as the rear for the rim that it was still on, but as I didn't
> have another EA3 to swap, he was on his own for fixing that. I made
> sure he took the old rear wheel along so that if he ever found some of
> the right tires, it could be reinstalled. The mismatched front
> lash-up was holding air for the moment anyway.
>
> At least he knows what he's got, now.
> --
> Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
> Some gardening required to reply via email.
> Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

Hmm, my old S-6 rims were for 26 x 1 3/8 tires. I had S-7 rims that were 27
x 1 1/4 on another Schwinn once.

Charles of Schamuburg

 

[Ken C. M.]

Werehatrack wrote:
> Scene: It's about 11:30PM, I'm on the way to drop off some outbound
> shipping at the Post Office (it goes out when it's ready), and the
> cell phone rings. The daughter-unit reports that she's at our regular
> bubble tea stop, and her friend's bike has a flat; she asks if I could
> swing by and provide transport since it's late and she has no flat
> repair stuff along. I figure, sure, why not; I'm driving the car that
> has the bike racks anyway.
>
> The flat tire is on an ancient Schwinn with roadie bars and an
> Ashtabula crank. 5-speed. Heavy. Not a good sign, if I had been
> thinking about it. I ask if the owner has a flat repair kit. He says
> no. With a misplaced sense of confidence that a mere flat couldn't be
> much more than a minor inconvenience to fix, I suggest that we stop by
> the house, and I'll patch it. Sounds good to them.
>
> We get home, I get the wheel off and grab the speed lever to slide the
> tire over the bead. No go. The tire is stretched on so tight that
> the hook of the speed lever won't even get under it. Okay, two
> screwdrivers and much grunting later, the tire's off. It's marked as
> a 26x1 1/4 for a 590 rim. I'm thinking "that can't be a 590 rim.
> Waitaminute. I wonder, maybe it's an S6?" Check Sheldon Brown's
> webpage and sure enough, there it is; Schwinn lightweights used 597
> rims, designated S6. Rowrbazzle. No way I'm going to put this back
> together as wrong as it was when it got here. Dig around in the parts
> heap a bit and voila! An old EA3 dished rear with close-enough
> spacing is unearthed. Toss a freewheel on it, tape the spokes, dig
> out a tube from the recycle bin, throw the victim's own tire on it,
> adjust things, and the bike's serviceable again.
>
> I admonished the bike's owner that the front tire was every bit as
> wrong as the rear for the rim that it was still on, but as I didn't
> have another EA3 to swap, he was on his own for fixing that. I made
> sure he took the old rear wheel along so that if he ever found some of
> the right tires, it could be reinstalled. The mismatched front
> lash-up was holding air for the moment anyway.
>
> At least he knows what he's got, now.

Interesting little story. Reminds me of a ride I glanced at the other
day while at the local grocery store. I looked at a 80'ish road bike,
bars turned upside down. No brake levers, with what looked like a 650
tire on the back and what I think was a 26 inch MTB rim and tire on the
front. I saw that thing and tried not to laugh. It was parked on my
regular parking spot locked with a generic looking u-lock.

Ken
--
You never have the wind with you - either it is against you or you're
having a good day. ~Daniel Behrman, The Man Who Loved Bicycles

Homepage: http://www.bikesandmoreonline.com/

 

[Veloise]

Ken C. M. wrote:
> ... It was ...locked ...

Why????

--Karen D.

 

[Tom Keats]

In article <[email protected]>,
"Ken C. M." <[email protected]> writes:

> Interesting little story. Reminds me of a ride I glanced at the other
> day while at the local grocery store. I looked at a 80'ish road bike,
> bars turned upside down. No brake levers, with what looked like a 650
> tire on the back and what I think was a 26 inch MTB rim and tire on the
> front. I saw that thing and tried not to laugh.

Maybe that's actually an imaginatively sensible configuration for a
snow/ice bike, at least for its owner's purposes, locale & style of
riding? Sometimes there's method to apparent madness.

Or maybe it's an interesting experiment, or perhaps the owner is
desperately financially strapped (which isn't funny at all) and
that bike represents a great effort on his or her part to make do
with what he or she has.

> It was parked on my
> regular parking spot locked with a generic looking u-lock.

Oh, the humanity!


cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

 

[Dane Buson]

Veloise <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ken C. M. wrote:
>> ... It was ...locked ...
>
> Why????

Some people would steal a 3 legged dog.

--
Dane Buson - [email protected]
Clones are people two.

 

[Tom Keats]

In article <[email protected]>,
Dane Buson <[email protected]> writes:
> Veloise <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Ken C. M. wrote:
>>> ... It was ...locked ...
>>
>> Why????
>
> Some people would steal a 3 legged dog.

Heh

Reminds me of Frankenheimer's film story: "The Horsemen".
Hayatal (Peter Jeffrey) takes the challenge
against 'the Prince Ram of the Valley'
declaring openly to Uraz: 'What a one-horned
ram can do, a one-legged chapandaz can do better!'

District Chief: "What demon has possessed you to
mock these good people with that piece of dog-bait?"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067216/

I'd like to see it again. That's in my list of good flicks
they never show on TV. On a pre-recorded medium it might
make a good double-header with 'The Beast'.

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

 

[Werehatrack]

On Sun, 19 Mar 2006 07:40:46 -0800, [email protected] (Tom Keats)
wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> "Ken C. M." <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> Interesting little story. Reminds me of a ride I glanced at the other
>> day while at the local grocery store. I looked at a 80'ish road bike,
>> bars turned upside down. No brake levers, with what looked like a 650
>> tire on the back and what I think was a 26 inch MTB rim and tire on the
>> front. I saw that thing and tried not to laugh.
>
>Maybe that's actually an imaginatively sensible configuration for a
>snow/ice bike, at least for its owner's purposes, locale & style of
>riding? Sometimes there's method to apparent madness.

And sometimes it's because "that's what I had, and it gets me around".
There's a method to that kind of madness.

>Or maybe it's an interesting experiment, or perhaps the owner is
>desperately financially strapped (which isn't funny at all) and
>that bike represents a great effort on his or her part to make do
>with what he or she has.

That's essentially what last night's Schwinn lightweight represented.
The bike was reportedly a Christmas gift (delivered with the
problematic tires already in place) from an equally strapped friend
who had seen just how badly cobbled-together this guy's immediately
prior ride had been. I suspect this had been a solid-looking garage
sale or thrift store unit, and the donor just didn't know that the
reason he had so many problems installing the tires was due to their
being just plain wrong for the bike.

>> It was parked on my
>> regular parking spot locked with a generic looking u-lock.

Better than using a cable lock IMO.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
Some gardening required to reply via email.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

 

[Werehatrack]

On Sun, 19 Mar 2006 07:54:14 -0600, "n5hsr" <[email protected]> wrote:

>Hmm, my old S-6 rims were for 26 x 1 3/8 tires.

That's the size that Schwinn marked on the 597 S-6 tires. This is
just another of the many examples of why 26 inches isn't always 26
inches in bikes. There were four different diameters of wheel that
all used fractionally designated tire sizes that were 26 by something,
and at least two of the nominal size markings were identical for tires
that were not interchangeable. The identically-sized tires for the
EA3/S6 mess were the most common source of serious confusion because
the two were close enough in physical dimensions that few people could
tell them apart by eye. (There's a difference in the rim profile
which can be spotted if you know about it, but it had been so long
since I'd last encountered an S-6 that it didn't immediately
register.) Prior to the ETRTO markings, the only clue on the tires
themselves was the "for EA3 rim" or "for S-6 rim" designation on the
sidewall.

>I had S-7 rims that were 27
>x 1 1/4 on another Schwinn once.

That was one of the places where Schwinn used a common standard but
still stuck their own designation on it.

Older Schwinn bikes and Compaq computers had one thing in common. You
could pretty much be sure that something would be done differently on
one of them for no really good reason.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
Some gardening required to reply via email.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

 

[RonSonic]

On Sun, 19 Mar 2006 08:05:45 -0800, [email protected] (Tom Keats) wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> Dane Buson <[email protected]> writes:
>> Veloise <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Ken C. M. wrote:
>>>> ... It was ...locked ...
>>>
>>> Why????
>>
>> Some people would steal a 3 legged dog.
>
>Heh
>
>Reminds me of Frankenheimer's film story: "The Horsemen".
> Hayatal (Peter Jeffrey) takes the challenge
> against 'the Prince Ram of the Valley'
> declaring openly to Uraz: 'What a one-horned
> ram can do, a one-legged chapandaz can do better!'
>
> District Chief: "What demon has possessed you to
> mock these good people with that piece of dog-bait?"
>
>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067216/
>
>I'd like to see it again. That's in my list of good flicks
>they never show on TV. On a pre-recorded medium it might
>make a good double-header with 'The Beast'.

I thought I was the only one who'd seen either or both of these movies, much
less liked them.

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains...."

Ron