Day 7 – Saturday 28 July

Ormskirk to Kendal

During Friday it had rained a lot and my bottom bracket had begun to bang intermittantly so on Saturday morning we rode back into Ormskirk and found a bicycle shop that allowed me to take out the bearings and regrease them in their workshop. I had used car grease before and apparently I should have used waterproof grease so that is what I bought from the shop and used. Eventually we got away and set off on our 71 mile journey to Kendal. I had tracked the A6 on smaller roads either side. Between Garstang and Lancaster we could see the western slopes of the Forest of Bowland and then as we rode through Carnforth began to see the Lakeland hills up ahead. Liz had found a swimming pool at a school in Preston. We met up in Catterall for lunch and then rode on to the excellent Ashes Lane campsite just north west of Kendal.

I have since had the bottom bracket of this bike modified to accept a sealed bearing, but when it was made Raleigh was using a narrower pitch on the thread inside the bottom bracket and the right hand fixed cup had no outer flange, the intention being that it would be screwed in tight. However, on my frame the right hand cup was being pulled into the frame so that the axle became inexorably tighter and stiffer. Several years later, after I had reset the bottom bracket a couple of times, my local bike shop modified it. Firstly they forced an over-sized cup with an outer flange into the frame, and that lasted until I needed to replace the chain rings. I discovered that the bolt circle diameter (BCD) of available chain rings no longer matched the right crank spider, so my bike shop made a cut across the width of bottom bracket, clamped it together to reduce its diameter, and welded it shut. They were then able to re-tap the inner thread of the bottom bracket with a modern standard pitch that accepted a sealed bearing.

You ask why I didn’t just buy a new frame? Well, it’s an intriguing challenge to keep an old bike working especially if there’s nothing else wrong with it.