I'm now starting to look at re-building the Blue Minster for summer.
I really enjoyed having it built up as a functional, usable bike with the 8 speed DA on it, so after some hard thinking, I'm going to see if its possible to cold set the rear end from 126 - 130mm.
Even though you could run the 8 speed block on 126 mm, you could only run 6 gears due to the chainstays and it became a bit annoying after a while. On the Silver Minster it was better as you could run 7, oddly enough.
Cold setting an old frame like this may be sacrilege to some, but after some thought I think it will preserve it for longer and enable me to use it regularly and it also carries on the evolution of the frame, as it appears that it was build in the 50's, then modified in the 70's to take a derailleur with the Zeus dropouts.
If it is possible to make a modern setting work on the rear end, I think I'll build it up with 9 speed Campag and sympathetic components, if not, I'll build it up full Eroica I think :)
I'm now starting to look at re-building the Blue Minster for summer.
I really enjoyed having it built up as a functional, usable bike with the 8 speed DA on it, so after some hard thinking, I'm going to see if its possible to cold set the rear end from 126 - 130mm.
Even though you could run the 8 speed block on 126 mm, you could only run 6 gears due to the chainstays and it became a bit annoying after a while. On the Silver Minster it was better as you could run 7, oddly enough.
Cold setting an old frame like this may be sacrilege to some, but after some thought I think it will preserve it for longer and enable me to use it regularly and it also carries on the evolution of the frame, as it appears that it was build in the 50's, then modified in the 70's to take a derailleur with the Zeus dropouts.
If it is possible to make a modern setting work on the rear end, I think I'll build it up with 9 speed Campag and sympathetic components, if not, I'll build it up full Eroica I think :)