Gettoo - The Shopper.....project

One of the dangers of occasional bouts of insomnia is that you end up reading really odd bits of the forum on your phone at 3am. Which is precisely how I came across @brokenbetty 's awesome shopper project thread.

We recently bought near Peckham and we're committed to further exploring all of the local areas, in particular for places to shop. Plus we have a small child who is agonisingly close to moving on from his balance bike to a full pedal bike and we'd really like to have him ride his bike alongside while we go out and about. What we need is a bike that will allow us to do that.

So here's the criteria that we need from the bike.

Can easily spin at the pace of a slightly distracted 3 year old
Allows us to safely pootle behind him on the pavement and easily dismount when pedestrian traffic gets too dense
Carries a sensible amount of shopping, and more when needed
Is self contained - as in you can jump on it in all weathers and all seasons without faffing about
Is a bike that will work for both the 6'1" me and the 5'5" @longandwinding

A shopper is not really an obvious first choice of bikes to have, but for our needs, the more I started to think about it, the more it made sense. It was a good blank canvas for what we needed.

I poked around on-line looking for some of the more sensible shoppers but they all came across as pretty uninspiring really. Until I ran across a bike shop in Plymouth selling off a fleet of more modern shoppers that they had used for their local run-around/delivery bikes. So for £200 (including shipping) I managed to grab the bike in the pic. It's a 2014 Bobbin Shopper. Bobbin only sold them for about 2-3 years and I think that this was their final year model.

It's brilliant for our needs; front and rear racks already installed, no worries about rust or mechanical issues (it was a bike shop bike), SA 3 speed hub rear wheel, built in mudguards, and cheap! So. Why not just leave it as is? Well there are a number of things that I want to do with this.

Functionally there are some key things missing.

1. It will not really work well for the 6'1" me - not enough seatpost and the saddle is not male friendly
   
2. It will not really work well for the 5'6" other half either - she finds the bars a bit awkward
   
3. We both hate the SA trigger style shifter
   
4. Brakes are shit
   
5. You can't carry anything without needing a ton of bungee cords
   
6. Needs lights
   
7. Cranks are made of some slag aluminium and the chain ring is basically a stamped piece of the same slag aluminium - not even any spider arms, it's like a pie plate.
   
   

Aesthetically it just looks so fucking twee. I know that's the Bobbin kind of thing, but there's this really practical bike there, dying to get out, but they've spent their money and effort on faux patina chrome on all the bits, as opposed to putting decent kit in place. Oh. And the white wall tyres. And it's beige.

I'd given serious thought to tearing it apart and getting the frame powder coated something moar awesome, but I have been talked down from that ledge so the beige stays. But the chrome goes and gets replaced with black.

So plans are:

1. Hub dynamo on the front wheel with front and rear lights
   
2. A container for the porteur rack to carry stuff
   
3. A container for the rear rack to carry stuff
   
4. Brakes and levers
   
5. Crankset
   
6. New SA shifter
   
7. New bars / grips
   
8. New tyres
   
9. Longer seat post that can be easily adjusted for the height differential
   
10. New saddle that we can agree on
    
    

I'm excited for this as this is really not like any other bike I've had before I've been chewing it over in my head for the past week or so on holiday and have a pretty clear idea of where this is going. A number of parts are on order already and I'm particularly interested in the dynamo stuff. I haven't had a new project in years either. So. Woo! Go me.

And yes. The bike will be christened Gettoo when this is all done.

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