No, according to
Jan Heine of
"Vintage Bicycle Quarterly"
,
who acts as an agent for Alex Singer. Many of the bikes are 50 years
old, just new paint and parts on them. Ernest says if he sold one,
he'd just have to build another for the floor, and so it makes more
sense simply to build a custom bike for whomever wants one. He'll make
you one "just like it," more or less.
3.2 Green touring bike
Figure 23. A green touring bike
One of the first things that Beatrice did was to bring out some bikes
for me to photograph. This yellow-green bike was near the back of
the shop, and is probably used regularly by a friend or relative.
Figure 24. Inscribing your name on the bike
This bike belonged to "Catherine", and most of the bikes in the back
area
were inscribed with customer and family names.
Figure 25. A closeup of the Singer Marquee
The singer marquee is on the downtube of all the bikes. This one
is showing some wear.
Figure 26. Bottom bracket of green touring bike.
This is the bottom bracket area of the green touring bike.
Nice and clean, its sports a TA Cyclotourist crankset.
Figure 27. Seat cluster of green touring bike.
This is one of the few Reynolds 753 bikes that I found in the
shop. There were no Reynolds 853 bikes. Also, I do not
understand how they could chrome the head lugs of the Reynolds 753
bike, supposedly Reynolds does not sanction this process, according to
Waterford Cycles. Perhaps they masked the tubing in the chroming
baths. I love the aesthetics of this seat lug area.
3.3 Tangerine Racer
Figure 28. Tangerine Racer, on the back wall
Against the back wall of the shop was a very unusual bike I'll call the
"Tangerine Racer". This bike is just barely visible in our first
picture of the shop window. This to me was the best looking
bicycle in the shop.
Figure 29. Tangerine Racer Head Tube
This bike sported modern internal routing of the cables, and Shimano
STI Dura-Ace derailleurs mated to an old-world TA Cyclotourist crankset.
Figure 30. Tangerine Racer Seat Cluster
I had never seen a SIMPLEX binder bolt. Here is my first. The
pump peg on this seat cluster would guarantee that a traditional
ZEFAL pump would stay on the bike.
Figure 31. Tangerine Racer Seat Cluster Backside
Singer even does the outlining where it will not show, including on the
backside of the lug.
Figure 32. Tangerine Racer Dropout Detail
The rear dropout was a nice piece of work, and I especially liked the
dropout adjuster, that would put a regular Campagnolo adjuster to
shame! As you can see, however, the execution of the brazing
between dropout and chainstay is not as clean as on a Bruce Gordon
cycle.
Figure 33. Chain whip solution
I asked Ernest Csuka what was the wire, brazed to the right rear chainstay. Apparently, on bikes without chromed dropouts, this is
the Singer solution to keep "Chain whip" from damaging the paint on the
chainstays.
3.4 Csuka Personal Tandem
Figure 34. Csuka Personal Tandem.
Against the back wall is Ernest's 1950's personal tandem, now owned by
his son. Figure 34 shows the head tube and the trademark cable hanger
of Alex Singer.
Figure 35. Pushme-Pullyou Rear Gearshift
The tandem sports a twin-cable shifter which has two stops built into
the shifter.
Figure 36. Pushme-Pullyou Rear Derailleur
The cable connects to what I think this is a Nivex derailleur
but I was not sure.
Figure 37. Front Derailleur
The front derailleur is a handmade piece of art. I was unable to
photograph the full height of it, but basically, like a Cambio Corsa,
there is a metal lever on a pivot (too high to see in the picture) and
at the bottom of the lever is a shaft that goes through the tube, near
12 o'clock in this picture. The tube holds a shaft that
holds the derailleur cage. The cage of this derailleur is
very much a home-brazed Outline-Only affair. Because the captain
must shift the derailleur, this derailleur is on the Captain's
crankset, and the captain's crank connects directly to the rear
freewheel! Anyway, this piece of mechanical art just goes to show
that Shimano, Campagnolo, and SRAM are not really necessary - we can
still homebrew our own derailleurs if we need to!!!
The tandem sported the most interesting spring-loaded cantilevers that
I had ever seen. I am still somewhat unsure just how these are
supposed to work. It could simply be that the spring was mounted
differently (perhaps for easy access) on these brakes, compared to a
normal cantilever.
