Finally got out for a decent ride this past Sunday . The weather was warm and sunny with low humidity. I took the opportunity to pull out my Claud Butler Super Dalesman for the ride.
If you’re not familiar with the Dalesman, it's a wonderful touring bike from the mid-'80s. Built from Reynolds 531st tubing (the “ST” stands for Special Touring tubing), it's neither flashy nor finicky. It's just a solidly built, load-bearing workhorse that can move sprightly when you need it to - particularly when all it's wearing is a trunk bag.
Even though I love French stuff, I seem to gravitate towards British bikes. Maybe it’s because tall British frames are easier to come by. The Dalesman is a 65cm frame with a slightly longer top tube than is customary on many British bicycles of the era, and nicely finished for a production bike.
Some of you might remember the Dalesman. It was featured in a blog post a couple of years ago where I pieced together Shimano bar-end pods with Sunrace six-speed indexed shifters (clamp-on downtube) to create six-speed indexed bar-end shifters. I still receive e-mails about this conversion. Here’s a link to the original post.
If you’re not familiar with the Dalesman, it's a wonderful touring bike from the mid-'80s. Built from Reynolds 531st tubing (the “ST” stands for Special Touring tubing), it's neither flashy nor finicky. It's just a solidly built, load-bearing workhorse that can move sprightly when you need it to - particularly when all it's wearing is a trunk bag.
Even though I love French stuff, I seem to gravitate towards British bikes. Maybe it’s because tall British frames are easier to come by. The Dalesman is a 65cm frame with a slightly longer top tube than is customary on many British bicycles of the era, and nicely finished for a production bike.
Some of you might remember the Dalesman. It was featured in a blog post a couple of years ago where I pieced together Shimano bar-end pods with Sunrace six-speed indexed shifters (clamp-on downtube) to create six-speed indexed bar-end shifters. I still receive e-mails about this conversion. Here’s a link to the original post.
Sunrace 6 speed indexed shifters mounted in Shimano bar-end pods with old Suntour white rubber covers... the trifecta to perfecta!
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