Monthly Archives: July 2026

July 18, 2026 · 4:32 pm

Retro Folding Technostalgia

I’ve wanted one of these for years and I recently devised an excuse to buy one. I’m going camping next month and this bike will fold in half and fit inside my Westfalia. No need to buy a bike rack. What I saved on the rack, I spent on this bike. Actually, the bike was free, all I paid for were the new tires that the previous owner installed on the bike, having got it for free. As with many old things I’ve bought over the years, as soon as I acquired this Raleigh I was finding out all about it from various websites. They can be tricked out, modified and kept going forever if you have the skills, money and the desire.

`Sturmey Archer 3 speed AW hub, with 20 tooth cog installed`

The heart of the bike is the old reliable Sturmey Archer 3 speed internal geared hub. These things are next to immortal, it seems. The one problem I soon discovered was that the lowest gear was not low enough for the slight grade on my street. The solution was simple enough, as I have some experience with fixing bikes, chains and gears and all that. I removed the 15 tooth cog on the hub and swapped it for a 20 tooth cog. That was the easy part. The chain was then too short, so I added about 4 teeth to it, using a free bit of chain I got from my local bike shop, where I also got the used 20 tooth cog. Because the world is full of Sturmey Archer hubs, cogs of various sizes are dead easy to find. I have a toolbox full of bike tools from long ago, and there I found my old chain tool, among other things.

`Raleigh of Nottingham - just like Robin Hood rode`

This bikes reeks of nostalgia for me, having grown up in the era when a 3 speed bike made in England was a luxury item. I had a 3 speed as a youngster in a town that was dead flat. One day when I was a teen I bought a single speed bike, since gears were of no use to me at the time. Then came the 10 speed craze of the 1970’s, so I bought a “Torpado” Italian 10 speed, which was like getting a sports car for slightly older males who had some money. The Torpado served me well for decades, but eventually I sold it because the riding position was too radical for my neck, wrists and butt. I moved to a mountain bike, and eventually to a very comfy Townie e-bike, which is still my main ride today, and likely will be for the foreseeable future.

There are Raleigh symbols all over the bike, pedals and handlebars, frame tubes, etc.

They plastered the bike with symbols wherever they could find an empty spot.

When I got the new gear installed, added the chain links and adjusted the brakes, I took the bike out for a test ride to the closest thrift store. The hills on the route are fairly big, but the new low gear enabled me to make it over without too much knee strain. Perhaps an even lower gear would have been better, but this should work for now. The top gear is still more than high enough for my needs. This is a bike on which one rides at a leisurely pace and not one wit faster. My treasures of the day were a ball of jute twine, a plastic outdoor thermometer, and an old post card of an English village. The postcard seemed appropriate for this bike, which was designed for short jaunts to the shops, or outings to the country, with the bike going into the boot for the trip.

`The perfect place to go on a Raleigh "Twenty".`

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Filed under Bicycles, Technology, Thrift shop finds, Uncategorized

Tagged as 3 speeds, cycling, folding bikes, Made in England, Raleigh Twenty folding bike, sturmey archer

July 12, 2026 · 5:28 pm

To The Meadow

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Filed under Painting, Philosophy, Sketching, Typecasting, Uncategorized

Tagged as Christmas Hill, gary oak meadow

July 5, 2026 · 1:44 pm

Lone Oak 2

I saw the lone oak again today on my hike up the hill. It is an unmistakable tree. From a very different place on the hill I recognized it like an old friend. I took the opportunity to compose another poem about it.

Poem typed on the Royal typewriter featured in the previous blog post. Turns out the typewriter was not a refurbished “P” after all, but a lesser known 1940 bargain model called “Signet”. So it’s only 86…

The Royal Montreal _____?

My father enlisted in the Royal Montreal Regiment in 1939 and was promptly shipped off to England to defend the British Isles from the demon Nazis. He didn’t get back until 1944, but he survived and made me. But this has nothing much to do with that. This has to do with a very unusual typewriter that I found this afternoon at a thrift store; a Montreal made Royal P, from 1929. The serial number E-159xxx indicates a Canadian made Royal, which could be exported to the British Empire duty free from Canada. This one ended up here on the west coast in Victoria, where it was plunked on a shelf today, not long before I arrived to grab it. It was not working, so I got it cheap. Non-working typewriters can be the best ones, if you get them at a good discount, and know how to go about fixing them. I have been at this for many years, so I had a hunch this one could be got into working condition. If not, no big loss.

Once I fixed the problem, a stuck loose dog (familiar eh?), I stuck in a brand new Chinese ribbon and put it to the test. Well, it passed with flying colours! One oddity struck me; how could a 1929 Royal portable look like a WWII era machine? The answer came from Google’s AI service, which told me this is a refurbished unit onto which a later shell was attached, likely around WWII. The model P shell and the later shells were interchangeable. Another clue was the fact that the keys are 1929 style, round glass in steel rings that is. By the time this was rebuilt/refurbished or whatever they did to it, the keys were plastic.

The front feet were missing so I quickly kluged some from a pair of old rubber wine bungs, attached with wire. The action on this is flawless, and the type is remarkably clear and even. The ribbon I got this time round was well inked, unlike some I’ve bought from China before. The vendor claimed that their ribbons had lots of ink, which was the reason I selected that particular one among the numerous others. A ribbon with poor inking is worthless!

So there it is, a Royal Montreal Typewriter. The damn thing is 97 years old and it is still working well; better than many that are not half that old. I previously blogged about the Royal Factory in Montreal before, and the connection to my Dad, who was a machinery dealer for many years and who no doubt had been in the place and almost certainly sold or bought some machines there.

Manufacturers were always buying and selling and refurbishing stuff in those days. Nowadays, well, into the trash, right? You know the routine. So much junk it is a crying shame. Bring back carburettors, bring back shiny shoes, bring down the Iron Curtain, I got the Modern Day Blues!