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Spare parts for Dutch bikes

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Started 10 years ago by UtrechtCyclist
Latest reply from gembo
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UtrechtCyclist
Member

Dear all,

In the picture below you can see my Dutch bike. The computer screen on the front isn't usually there, was just taking it to the recycling.

'EDIT: Picture will follow shortly when I work out how to post it!'

Apparently it has Woods valves, which are not particularly common in the UK. In fact I suspect many parts are a bit different from your typical UK bike. I don't know much about maintenance, I always take it to the local bike shop, and since there are four bike shops on my five km ride to work I don't even deal with punctures myself.

Anyway, we're moving back to the UK tomorrow (and to Edinburgh in about a month's time), just wondering whether there are any spare components that I should pick up in Holland before coming over? Would it be wise to pick up spare inner tubes or will I be able to find these things in Edinburgh. The bike is only about a year old and pretty sturdy, everything is working fine at the moment.

Thanks for your help!

Posted 10 years ago #
UtrechtCyclist
Member

The picture is here pic.twitter.com/HWCvM0G20T, still struggling to put the picture in here properly.

Posted 10 years ago #
gembo
Member

We were talking about rare valves at Peter's yard last Friday as CH had an adaptor on his front wheel's valve. Adapting Presta to schrader iirc.

Would think you could just change the tube if you get a puncture but then you will need a UK pump. There are more bike shops in Edinburgh but not with density you cite which indeed means you would not have to push very far if punctured.

Schrader , Presta, woods and Dunlop? Any advance on different types of valves for bicycle tyres?

There is a company called Dutchie that imports Dutch bikes, they might also do parts.

Posted 10 years ago #
chdot
Admin

"still struggling to put the picture in here properly"

You need the URL of the image in the img tags

For links you need to include http:// (or www.)

http:// pic.twitter.com/HWCvM0G20T

Posted 10 years ago #
UtrechtCyclist
Member

Thanks @CHDot, couldn't work it out but it was a long day at the office!

@gembo, I heard that different valves have different sizes for the hole in the rim, and in particular that Woods have a bigger hole than Presta so if I just put Presta valves in I risk a puncture at the base. I think I'll just stock up on Dutch inner tubes today and everything else I can probably get in Edinburgh.

Posted 10 years ago #
gembo
Member

Yes the hole in the rim might be different. I used to have a colleague who despised Presta and he drilled bigger holes in the rim so that he could always have schrader. I imagined this might weaken the rim. Never seemed to be a problem. Schrader holes might be similar width to woods. But I could not say for certain. Do woods valves have the little locking ring?

Posted 10 years ago #
Snowy
Member

I think the diameter of the Woods valve is essentially the same as a Schrader. The inflation bit of the valve is thinner, and takes a Presta pump.

Whether a Schrader valve will fit a rim which is designed for a Woods valve, I don't know. Small tolerances can make a big difference, but it ought to be pretty darn close.

Maybe just order a Schrader tube and see if it fits the rim?

Posted 10 years ago #
crowriver
Member

Yeah, there are various retailers, most of them trade by mail order, that can supply suitable spares for Dutch bikes. The Dutch bike is basically an old style English roadster anyway. Cargo/Dutch bike specialists that stock Dutch components include Practical Cycles (Lytham St Annes), Really Useful Bikes (London), etc. There's a list of Dutch bike dealers in the UK here (none in Scotland). Also for woods valve tubes, 26"/28" fractional width tyres, etc. it's worth trying eBay and online retail: lots of deals to be had from various suppliers. Unfortunately as local bike shops are unlikely to be used to dealing with these machines with any great frequency you may find it simpler to do easier jobs yourself, eg. tubes/tyres, as they're unlikely to have the ones you need in stock. A local bike shop such as Biketrax in Tollcross should be able to order in components for you, but you'll likely get them cheaper online.

Posted 10 years ago #
sallyhinch
Member

LaidBack Bikes stocks the Urban Arrow, which I think is Dutch, and might be able to get other parts and things?

Posted 10 years ago #
DaveC
Member

I know only of a bike shop in Cambridge at the train station which sells Dutch bikes and would have access to certai spares, but to be honest, you can get most things online these days. I buy bike components from Rose Cycles in Germany at times, postage when you spend ~£30+ on parts is not much.

Posted 10 years ago #
Cycle Service
Member

There's a fair amount of Dutch bikes in regular use in Edinburgh. Woods valves can, in all cases I've seen, be replaced with Schrader tubes with no issue and with Presta with a washer/in a pinch. Tyre size is more likely to be an issue than valve type. Most places should have 26 x 1 3/8 tubes, anything more unusual you may need to carry a spare.

A full chain case may get a few nervous looks from a bike shop if they're not familiar with them. They normally just require practice and not unusual tools so any competent shop should get the hang of it pretty quickly.

As to the rest, very little tends to go wrong on Dutch bikes from what I've seen, some spares shops should have in stock, some may require ordering, but there's unlikely to be anything on it that a decent UK shop can't source.

Posted 10 years ago #
UtrechtCyclist
Member

Thanks very much everyone, I decided not to bring any spare parts, and to trust the local bike shops ability to track things down. Learning how to maintain things myself is an ongoing project, but maybe I'll have to accelerate things a little!

P.S. The two of us moved two bikes, two large suitcases and four rucsacks via train from Harwich to Derby via Cambridge and Leicester and didn't have any problems, although it was pretty hard work.

Posted 10 years ago #
Colin
Member

Welcome, UtrechtCyclist!

I'm sure you'll find sufficient spares in Edinburgh to keep you pedalling happily.

I had the pleasure of pedalling through Utrecht last week and I'm still overwhelmed by the cycling facilities in The Netherlands.

So, instead of spares, could you bring over a battalion of Dutch Urban Planners please?

Cheers
Colin

Posted 10 years ago #
i
Member

You could buy from Dutch Bike Bits, its all the way back from the Netherlands but it supports a good cause.

Posted 10 years ago #
UtrechtCyclist
Member

Well thanks all for the help from two years ago, in the end I went for the approach of assuming that I wouldn't get a puncture and not bothering to pick up spares from Holland, this worked excellently until last week.

The inner tubes I need are Woods 47-822 (alternatively written 28x1.74x2). Even if I swap Woods for Schrader, I was struggling to find inner tubes to match the size online. That said, I don't really understand tyre sizes so I was googling pretty ineptly. I didn't manage to find the thing on Dutch Bike Bits (great site though!)

Does anyone know how unusual 28 inch wheels are in the UK? If I go along to the St-Andrews bike shop is there much chance that they'd have anything that can fit? And how bad is it to have an inner tube that doesn't quite fit perfectly (versus the cost of waiting a week to get an inner tube posted from NL and paying £5 a day for the bus)...

Thanks for all the help, hopefully I will slowly become less bad at bike maintenance...

Posted 8 years ago #
steveo
Member

This do you?
https://www.decathlon.co.uk/28x175-hybrid-bike-inner-tube-schrader-id_8236948.html

Posted 8 years ago #
wingpig
Member

"And how bad is it to have an inner tube that doesn't quite fit perfectly..."

I often had to make do with something not-quite-correctly-sized when I was small and the village garage didn't have something exactly matching my wheels and tyres. It was generally no worse than having a patched tyre where the narrowing at the patched bit caused a detectable non-uniformity of radius, but then I never had a track pump when I was little. At the worst end there might be a risk of the tyre not being properly seated/held under the bead and jumping off?

Posted 8 years ago #
kaputnik
Moderator

47-822 do you not mean 622 here?

Which would mean compatibility with your standard 700Cx47 tubes available in any good (or even bad) bike shop. to confuse you further, these are also sold under the "29" / 29er" size designation.

In my experience you can get away with an inner tube slightly smaller than the one it asks for (i.e. an x23 in an x28 tyre) and the x47mm tubes are rated up to x62mm so there's a reasonable range of tolerance that a tube can withstand, but there will come a point where the tube is overstretched and likely to fail.

By which I mean I can't vouch for a road bike inner tube in your chunky Dutch hybrid tyres!

Posted 8 years ago #
UtrechtCyclist
Member

Thanks all!

47-822 do you not mean 622 here?
- I just checked and you're right. Perhaps this explains why googling was so unsuccessful.

I read somewhere that the old style of writing tube sizes (like 28x1.75) is very strange and that 26 x 1.5 is not the same as 26 x 1 1/2. This upsets me. Does the (x2) at the end of 28x1.75x2 mean anything? Presumably it's not to indicate that I have two wheels...

But the main thing that I'm taking home here is that my tyre size is not that unusual, and so if I go along to the bike shop they can probably make something work okay. This is what I wanted to hear :)

Posted 8 years ago #
crowriver
Member

622mm rim size (700c in French) is one of the most commonly available tyre and tube sizes. You should not have any problems, finding inner tubes, even in St Andrews... :-)

Posted 8 years ago #
Arellcat
Moderator

I read somewhere that the old style of writing tube sizes (like 28x1.75) is very strange and that 26 x 1.5 is not the same as 26 x 1 1/2.

It's simply that the Europeans and Americans didn't think to standardise at the beginning of the 20th century.

Inchy sizes were British and American, but we had different preferences for certain sizes; metric sizes were French and depended on tyre section. The Germans mixed inchy sizes and decimal widths. Then the notion of decimalisation and ETRTO came along and everything was wonderful.

If in doubt, refer to Sheldon Brown:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tire-sizing.html

The ridiculous thing is that 28x1.75x2 (which is 47-622, and wider than 28x1.50 which is 40-622) is smaller than 28x1 1/2 (40-635)!

As for Woods valves, I swapped them out for Prestas on my Radical trailer. If the edge of the rim is a bit sharp, stick three layers of electrical tape over the hole and cut a X-shape into the hole with a knife. Prestas will fit right in.

Posted 8 years ago #
gembo
Member

@iainmcr

You did ask

Posted 5 years ago #

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