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"Bluemels celluoid mudguards" - I had them on my second bike from new, and after a couple of years they cracked up so much that I had to remove them. I replaced them with a pair of short aluminium mudguards.

Here in Poland I often have no idea how original the tires are - under communism about the only tires you could buy were Stomil ('sto' = 100, 'mil' = miles), new or replacements. I do wonder, though, how many miles some of my bikes saw. In Britain in the 1970s I do remember changing tires on my...

I live in Poland now, everything safely metric - except those damn bikes still have some of those old measures, of course.

It is a funny episode, but most of them were still stock British measures until I were young. I remember being taught that an inch was originally the length of three grains of wheat, but I never checked despite having spent my summers lying in the grain trailers as they cut the corn (wheat) in...

We used baler twine, our bales must have been smaller :)

I just love watching someone else do what I never want to do, and do it seemingly so easily and beautifully :)

I have recently replaced the crank and BB, as while it was relatively low mileage there was some damage to the unreplaceable crank side bearing. So now it has a new BB and a BB adapter tube to get it to fit, and some massive filing of where the rear tubes intrude into the BB tube to get the...

Yes, that would solve any issues with the fork legs, I was considering balancing the forks on some frame - but with the forks upside down in a tube then all you would need is a piece of wood or something to tap the forks with the race structure resting on the tube. I like it!

Sometimes it seems a deliberate change to make bicycles more expensive or whatever, but I live in Poland and the almost sole producer of bicycles between about 1947 and 1990 was Romet. Below you can see a pair of identical Romet sprocket/BBs, and while the one on the left is almost like new they...

Yes, welding is fun, and with all my engineering courses there always seemed to be some welding to be learned - gas, stick, MIG etc. I would have loved to try some TIG, but I have been away from engineering for over 25 years now. I always loved the brazing kit I had for my my arc welder, it let...

Have you considered using a tube instead of a ring spanner?

If you can bend the back and front edges of the metal sheet up, it will make that plate very much stiffer - the greater the depth you can bend up, the better. No matter how thick the sheet is, it will bend when you sit on it.

Try it and decide, it might look good with a chrome fork.

The red stripe on the front of the ape shows that this was sold in Italy as a commercial vehicle.

If the frame is straight, then I would build it anyway - and never fail to point out the build inconsistency.

#7 ;)

Yes, some real sunlight would be nice if you live that far north ;)

Slap a chain and a front wheel on, and you'll be pedalling around the block in no time!

I would like to see that tool case on its side, on a plain rack, or even mounted on its side at the front. I am also not sure it is going to suit the look you are going for with this bike, but it might be a good option for the future.

Well it is funny that the plastic disc is going on the wheel after all, hopefully it will look good when it has been painted, and stand out well among all those metal ones.