Fixing a Mixte

 

Mixte as traded

Huashen folding bike as traded

Mixte at home with home-painted handlebars and stem.

Initial weigh in with steel brakes, brake levers, front mudguard, cotter pin cranks and steel 27" wheels, 15.28kg

To accommodate more bikes I disposed of these ones - mixte bottom bracket is from the pink bike, and rack is from the teal bike.

Hi

Bicycles are poetry! Bikes are quite small thing compared to other transporters of goods and people (ships, cars, submarines, trams, trains), and don't even have their own motors, but they can accomplish much. If a car is a novel, then a bike is a poem, it often does the same thing, but just in an abbreviated form. Please excuse the philosophy, but my design blog post has similar themes and got me thinking about all this!

But you know, if you are surrounded by bikes all the time, the fact that they might be poetry wears off, and you just deal with them as highly repairable, highly malleable, enjoyable objects. But every now and then, a nice bike comes along and reminds you of the poetry, which is why I still muck around with them I guess.  I consider Mixtes a great design and have enjoyed resuscitating this one. I like the position of the rear brake in some mixtes. They are just in a direct pull line along the top tubes so there's a bit less fuss there compared to other bikes. Here is a link to another Mixte from a Hobart public bike shed.

A few weeks ago, a friend texted me with a "dead bike alert" including the top 2 pics as follows:  

"Bikes in hard rubbish halfway up my streer" . I'm pretty sure she meant street! Anyway, despite the fact that my house often looks like a hell for bicycles that have misbehaved - with bikes left languishing and half disassembled - I took up her tip and put the bikes in the back of my small Kia on the way to visit my Dad.

The bikes were an old mixte which I thought I could fix up, and a white folding bike. I have been eying off this style of folding bike (on Facebook Marketplace) for a while because it has rear suspension a lot like my Cruzbike Quest, and I thought they could be mined for parts. More on that later...

When I got the bikes home, I weighed and photographed the mixte. It had been partly spray painted grey and looked a bit manky.

Scavenged parts fitted were alu centre - pull brakes, cassette bottom bracket with square taper shaft, alu crankset, steel handlebars, shifters, Alu brake levers, alu 700C wheels, rack and rack adapter for milk crate,

The "after" photos follow, I'm happy with the result but I haven't ridden it yet. Still on the to do list are 

Attach rear reflector

Fit bell

Reattach rear derailleur  by drilling and tapping into frame. This is to move the back wheel further back to fit in with the size of rear brake I've fitted.

 

 

 

New brake position is under top tubes to avoid damage to brake cables when mounting the bike. (Practical but sightly less pretty and poetic) Also, wooden rack adapter is shown

Crate mounting detail.

Bike with crate attached

Woohoo, I have bling! A full set of brake and gear cable outers was gleaned from the white folder.

Just about finished

With rack and crate adapter, the bike weighs just a bit more than the original

 

Racing bike refit

 

Almost there, with new seat.

Some more detail of the

new gearing setup with orange 3d printed cable guide.

The first seat I put on was pretty manky.

Last Saturday during my volunteer work at Wecycle, a gentleman came and donated a small framed racing bike in good condition. The shed was quite full and an executive decision was made to recycle this bike for parts. After the brakes, handlebars, quill stem, seat post, seat and wheels had been removed, I jumped in and asked if I could take the rest home as the frame looked quite good.

As the bike came to me without handlebars, I felt free to change it however I liked, and chose bars from a town bike. These are completely different to race bars with the hand grips at least 20cm above the racing bike drop position. But unlike the racing bike bars which prioritize speed, with these bars the bike could actually be quite comfortable to ride. Along with the wider handlebars came a better brake position, and also the need for a better gear position. There are some bolt on kits available for adapting downtube shifters to shifters on handlebars, and a local shop is selling them for a good price.  

But I realised that adapters weren't necessary, as a gear cable outer can easily start at the top of the existing shift lever. I only modified the right hand shifting mech, as this control is for the rear derailleur, which is activated far more often than the front derailleur. So suffer slightly if you have to change gears at the front with the left hand control!

There's not much of the new gear change cable sticking into the downtube shifter, so to secure it I designed and 3d printed a cable guide which fits neatly into the lugged frame. The cable guide and cable outer are lashed to the frame with cable ties. Although a few cable ties on their own would have done the job, I think this looks a bit more elegant and says "don't touch!".

The bike's finished now, it rides quite nicely, and on Saturday I'll see if it gets the thumbs up from my fellow volunteers. 

Regards Steve Nurse

Rad bike centre and cycling in Christchurch

 

Flyer and Sticker

Nearby bike sculpture

Koha can be roughly translated as "consideration". Its not a payment or a price, more a tribute for services rendered.

Lots of donated bikes, there's an old Raleigh 20" in there somewhere.

It was lively...

all afternoon, with a wating room complete with bike books and toys for people waiting for bike service, repairs or access to parts.

From the front: roadwork is in anticipation of the Te Kaha stadium due to be opened in April 2026

I mostly fixed this one! Removed and replaced a broken ferrule in the shifter and shortened the chain by 2 links. Not sure the 9 speed shifter was compatible with the 8 speed cluster though!

How it works!

All the bits.

Stadium within a stone's throw.

Temporary cathedral and stadium

Latimer Square

Home of Buycycles is nearby

Hi

 My girlfriend and I have just come back from New Zealand, and while there, I was in touch with some recumbent enthusiasts, and also volunteered at RAD (Recycle a Dunger), a community bike workshop in Central Christchurch.

RAD  were very accepting of me as a volunteer (I'm experienced and have had paid work in not-for-profit bike servicing and restoration), and in about 2 1/2 hours I had progressed from stripping bikes for parts to fixing a mostly-finished town bike with a single front chainring. Most of Christchurch is very flat and a single speed bike would do the job in most cases - I think load carrying would be more of a priority than heaps of gears.

Old parts were kept from bikes that were stripped, and this was important. Many of the bikes that came in had mismatched brake and gear levers but this wasn't seen as a problem.

Thanks to RAD! Was very glad to pootle into town and meet like minded folk.

Regards

 

Steve Nurse

Speed Banking!

 

Hi

My friends Carole and John up the road have been passing their "New Scientist" magazines on to me, and a question that came up in the Back Pages section intrigued me. The question and some of the replies received is shown in the pic above - to me the replies don't answer things thoroughly from a scientific (ie nerdy recumbent cyclist) point of view, so here is my 20c worth!

The question is "Cycling on hilly roads, what is the best option to save energy: go as fast as possible downhill to gain momentum for the next climb, or stop pedalling to have a rest and regain some strength?"

Here is my answer!

The question really ends at the word "energy". "Go as fast as possible downhill to save energy for the next climb" can be done in a few ways, and it needs to be considered that there are 2 categories of things making bikes go faster. These are: reduce things holding a bike back (aerodynamic forces as well as rolling resistance, mechanical friction and inertia and gravity forces, Chris Daniels mentions some of these in the first pic.) and increase things pushing a bike forward (pedalling, electric assist).  

 

From the classic Aerodynamics of Human Powered Vehicles, Scientific American, December 1983: Picss 2, 3, 4 and 5 show postures which decrease frontal area but may be uncomfortable.   Image 7 is a recumbent with frontal area comparable to racing positions but with a larger seat and a more comfortable ride, at least over long distances.

On most bikes we can control wind resistance through posture and frontal area  - being very vertical on a bike increases wind resistance, crouching low over the handlebars decreases wind resistance. However the aerodynamic low crouch which decreases frontal area can be painful for some riders. Unlike pedalling harder, this is a way of going faster that does not use extra energy, however it can come at the cost of comfort so is not always used.

However in cycling, and even in road going cycling, there are cycles which have decreased wind resistance compared to most bicycles. These are called recumbent cycles, and the best ones improve aerodynamics in both of the possible ways, that is by decreasing frontal area, and improving the aerodynamic shape (reducing the drag coefficient) without significantly increasing weight or causing physical discomfort. The result of inherently improved aerodynamics is to make downhill descents faster and to gain momentum for the next climb without any extra exertion or discomfort.

 

So why don't we see more recumbents on the road? That is a question as old as the recumbent bicycle itself (1930's) and the sets of answers to that question are almost as old. Answers - and disputable answers  - also date from the 1930's, and The Player's cigarette card series (1939) pictures renowned cyclist Evelyn Hamilton on a recumbent but has the following to say against recumbents: riders tire more quickly due to greater exertion due to use of back muscles, and due to the low position, riders gather more dust.

The quick answer (to why don't we see more recumbents on the road) might be that although they commonly reduce effort and physical exertion and anguish, they induce mental anguish in many people! Recumbents are a minority set of vehicles amongst the minority transport option of cycling, and it is almost unimaginable that a Tour De France devotee would mention to his or her bicycle racing mates that recumbents are faster.

 As a recumbent cyclist I advocate for recumbent cycling and think of the great Mark Seymour / Vika and Linda song, When will you come to your senses? (When will you come to your senses, when will you fall for me?) in regard to recumbent cycling, that is, it would be great if you could change peoples' minds but unfortunately you can't!