Tags
Budget cycling, Candidat, cycle touring, Mixte, Restoration, Utility riding, Westdeutsche Markenrad
I’ve heard people complain about the cost of starting cycling. Indeed a few years ago I read an online article suggesting that it costs in the region of €5,000 to €6,000 to begin cycling. I think this is very wide of the mark and is the results of a consumer driven society where everyone wants to sell you an upgade as that is where the bike industry can make money and it is a very easy sell to make if they promise the latest wheels or the latest electronic gear shifter can make cycling easier or faster. From my own experience, the only way to make cycling easier or faster is to put the miles in and work on your fitness and this can be done on any bike.
This arcticle is not aimed at racing cyclists. That is another subject altogether and although I have never raced nor have any intention of doing so; it would appear that costs can indeed spiral and when pitched against the stopwatch you probably do want any advantage you can find no matter how tiny it might me. I suspect that like me, most people who want to purchase a bicycle don’t have any intention of racing. This is aimed at normal people in the street – whether you want to potter along a quiet path with the kids for a few hours on a nice Sunday, want to cut petrol costs or beat the town centre congestion by commuting to work or popping to the shop or the desire to get out in the open air and explore the countryside with long day rides or maybe even overnight touring.
To do this sort of thing, you do not need an expensive racing bike – in fact I would go so far as to say it is the worst thing you could possibly buy as it’s so impractical and fragile. Skinny high pressure tyres and light wheels with low spoke count won’t like anything less than a good road surface, there is usually no clearance for mudguards and this is a country where it rains a lot. It might have twenty gears but probably racing gearing which are too high in most terrain for a normal rider. There is nowhere to attach luggage or shopping either. Modern mountain bikes mostly have suspension and unlike their steel-framed rigid predecessors I don’t feel they can be adapted into practical bikes. Hybrid type bikes are a much more practical solution but ones of decent quality can be expensive. At the cheap end of the market there are catalogue and supermarket sold bikes but most are poor quality and most are sluggish to ride. I guess they’d work if you only had a very short commute and had no intention to go further afield.
There is a further and even more cost-effective solution. Garages and sheds up and down the country often contain unwanted and sometimes little used bikes that just require some tender loving care before being put back into use. Old five and ten speed “racers” can make excellent usable bikes that are often great to ride and can often be pulled out of skips for free. If you’re really lucky you might even find one made from Reynolds tubing but don’t dismiss the “gaspipe” specials no matter what the armchair experts say as many ride really well. Old three and single speed roadsters are also plentiful but for regular use I’d avoid rod brakes. Then there are the the mountain bikes of the ‘80s and ‘90s. They are rarely lively or responsive but come with a huge range of gears as standard and when fitted with road going tyres such as the Schwalbe City Jet and rack and mudguards they are possible the most practical bike of all.
A case point is the Candidat five speed Mixte framed touring bike I’ve recently been playing with. This came to me a few years ago free of charge – covered in dust and rust. Most people would probably have thrown it back in the skip whence it came! It was unusual though, made by a defunct German manufacturer that nobody seems to have heard of. It definitely was not a high-end bike, basic grade steel and you can see that the manufacturer had closed the ends of the seatstays off at the rear drop-out by apparently hitting them with a sledge hammer! But it had Union hubs, Thun bottom bracket and headset and Sachs gear components – basic but good quality and long-lasting (moreso than anything you can buy in the shop today!) components and it was German – I have huge respect for German engineering as I feel that even their most basic products work exceptionally well. I decided to try and fix it up.
I serviced the hubs and headset and to my surpise the slightly decrepit looking 27“ tyres held air and appeared to be sound and usable. The chain was rusted solid and I removed it and dropped it in a biscuit tin and submerged it in diesel to free out. The 14-24 five-speed Regina freewheel block seemed okay and had plenty of life left in the sprockets. Someone in the past had made a hamfisted attempt at removing the cottered crank but I was able to sort it out after drilling the remains of the cotter pin out. The Thun cup and cone bottom bracket was in excellent condition but I happened to have a 40 tooth Stronglight chainset I had bought from Ebay for bargain 99p so decided to use it in preference to the 46 tooth original to lower the gear range so I purchased a cheap unbranded cartridge square taper bottom bracket to suit the new chainset. This is a worthwhile upgrade on bikes like these and can be done cheaply enough.
There was a blip in the braking surface of the back wheel which I was able hammer out of it with a small hammer (the joy of steel rims – I wouldn’t risk this on alloy rims). The newly freed out chain was shortened in respect of the smaller chainset and lubricated with engine oil and refitted. I replaced the rusty gear and brake cables, was pleased to see the brake blocks had plenty of life left and stripped and lubricated the Altenburger calipers and replaced the decaying handlebar tape with NOS Union tape which is easy to keep clean and the bike was ready for the road again. I was able to get the original Union lightset to work.
All of the above probably sounds complicated but it isn’t really and was carried out with basic tools. The late Sheldon Brown wrote many excellent articles and there are many Youtube videos to show and to guide the unitiated in the art of cycle repairs. A bike like this is an excellent teach yourself tutorial too as you are not spending any serious money if you do damage anything. I have this bike back on the road for less than the cost of a tank of petrol for my car.
I rode the bike a good bit at the time and then other projects came along and it was forgotten about until recently when I brought it out again mainly to show to a friend who has an interest in mixte frames and the unusual. I have been putting a few miles on it recently. Truth is, I had forgotten how well it rides. It has surprised anyone who test rode it. It’s no lightweight but is unbelievably responsive and handles securely. I did over forty hilly miles on it yesterday in a reasonable time (for me at least).
So if you are prepared to get your hands dirty, a perfectly usable bike can be had for a double figure sum and it will probably outlast anything you can buy new today! It is perfectly usable too – it has decent alloy mudguards, rack and dynamo lighting – ready for commuting or utility riding. You could quite happily do an all day ride or even tour on this although the gear range is a bit limited and you’d need to be prepared walk the odd hill. Chrome rims mean the brakes will never be great in the rain but that is a question of anticipation and reading the road. Basic 27“ alloy wheelsets for thread on hubs can be bought quite cheaply from Ebay if you really felt the need. The non-halogen headlamp isn’t very bright but still usable in an era when a surprising amount of cyclists ride in the dark with no lights at all! A cheap Axa Pico from Germany would fix that for €10. I don’t like the saddle on it but that is personal taste and it needn’t be expensive to swap it out for another one. If you were going to be doing long rides it may be better for peace of mind to swap out the old tyres for new but tyres are consumer parts on any bike. These are simple upgrades which could be carried out as funds allow as the bike works fine as it is.
I have fitted two old panniers and pressed it into service as a utility bike for now. It has a great advantage over any new bike as a utility machine – it’s unlikely to be stolen! Also as mentioned, the basic five speed drivetrain and simple friction shifter will cover many miles with very little maintenance other than cleaning and lubricating the chain and the freewheel block and chain will be substantially cheaper to replace than the components on a modern bike. It isn’t always the case but this bike also has a Hebie chainguard fitted which is unusual on a Derailleur geared bike and keeps your trousers clean.
So yes – normal everyday cycling can be done very cheaply with a little thinking outside the box and if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty and learning new skills to fettle a 1970s road bike. Sadly if I had taken this to a bike shop for repair they’d probably have told me it was beyond repair but I am looking forward to putting a few miles beneath it’s wheels!
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