This is something I've wondered about for a while as I own several aged English bicycles and some of them are 'oilers', - meaning that they have nice little flip top oil cups on the hubs and bottom bracket and it's necessary to give them a drop or two of oil every week or so.
Just recently my daughter had to go down the township and the car was having a sulk so she asked me, 'Can I borrow your bike Mum?' I said that was fine and off she went on my trusty old vintage Hercules.
When my daughter arrived back home she said to me, 'Wow, your bicycle just glides along so smoothly; - I haven't ridden a bike that was so smooth to ride.'
It was nice to have confirmed what I've always known myself, that an 'oiler' bike always rolls better and with less resistance than a 'greaser' bike. The one downside with an 'oiler' bike is that they tend to weep oil and need to be regularly wiped off which does them no harm at all and actually helps to keep rust at bay. Of course these days manufacturers don't want the cost of those neat little oil cups on every bearing and the majority of modern customers wouldn't know what to do if they were given an oil can and told to oil their bike. And then there is the matter of the oil weeping out of the bearings which of course modern day customers would complain about instead of doing the wipe down with a rag thing.
With me getting back in the workshop and looking over my projects again I started to think about converting some of my 'greaser' bike projects over to being 'oiler'. My daughter says it's just because then I get to use my big ex-New Zealand Government Railways plunger oil can more often; - which does have an element of truth to it as it happens
Oiler hub bearings often don't get on well with conventional drum brakes, but are fine with coaster brakes. I wouldn't know how they work with disc brakes because I'm not into all that modern Star Wars stuff
In the interests of getting more of that smooth gliding motion I'm going to have a tinker with some spare hubs and build up some 'oiler' wheels for experimental purposes. I shall report back on my findings and let you know how I get on
Just recently my daughter had to go down the township and the car was having a sulk so she asked me, 'Can I borrow your bike Mum?' I said that was fine and off she went on my trusty old vintage Hercules.
When my daughter arrived back home she said to me, 'Wow, your bicycle just glides along so smoothly; - I haven't ridden a bike that was so smooth to ride.'
It was nice to have confirmed what I've always known myself, that an 'oiler' bike always rolls better and with less resistance than a 'greaser' bike. The one downside with an 'oiler' bike is that they tend to weep oil and need to be regularly wiped off which does them no harm at all and actually helps to keep rust at bay. Of course these days manufacturers don't want the cost of those neat little oil cups on every bearing and the majority of modern customers wouldn't know what to do if they were given an oil can and told to oil their bike. And then there is the matter of the oil weeping out of the bearings which of course modern day customers would complain about instead of doing the wipe down with a rag thing.
With me getting back in the workshop and looking over my projects again I started to think about converting some of my 'greaser' bike projects over to being 'oiler'. My daughter says it's just because then I get to use my big ex-New Zealand Government Railways plunger oil can more often; - which does have an element of truth to it as it happens
Oiler hub bearings often don't get on well with conventional drum brakes, but are fine with coaster brakes. I wouldn't know how they work with disc brakes because I'm not into all that modern Star Wars stuff
In the interests of getting more of that smooth gliding motion I'm going to have a tinker with some spare hubs and build up some 'oiler' wheels for experimental purposes. I shall report back on my findings and let you know how I get on
