Brian Rourke Tarck > Road > TT

10/10

Perfect fades, great build. How hard is it to take the rear wheel out?

And related to that, what QRs have you got on there? I know a lot of lighter ones can struggle to hold a wheel straight in horizontal steel dropouts, might be something to keep an eye on
(#CSB I did this at 2am on the Dunwich Dynamo and rode for ~10 miles with the wheel rubbing, just thinking that I was bonking hard)

Otherwise looks amazing. Love the splash of pink, really sets off the other two colours well!

Phenomenally good

@TomvanHalen haven't tried yet but don't think it'll be too difficult as the wheel sits pretty far back in the dropout.

@branwen just using the HED skewers for now, will keep an eye on it but will source some set stops/adjusters (I think that's what they're called) to stop the wheel slipping forward

Damn it! Too late. Will try and source something similar :-)

Also need to put a different cassette on it, 12 tooth isn't small enough for the chain to clear the stay. Took all the paint off :-(

This is really awesome. Good job.

What tyres did you go for?

Edit: somehow I missed your post about the cassette. Bad news!

I had an MTB with track ends and a mech hanger. A quick release skewer was not strong enough to stop the wheel sliding around in the dropouts when using low gears. You may need to deploy a chain tug.

What cassettes are there with more than 12 teeth as the smallest sprocket?

Found this list, but not sure how many of those are going to be easy to buy
http://forums.roadbikereview.com/components-wrenching/list-current-cassettes-305418.html

I dont think its worth converting this to a geared bike; keep it as is and get a geared bike perhaps?

Perhaps this was right after all

@Cupcakes I went with Vittoria Open Corsas :-)

Nope @dancing james, went touring on this all weekend and didn't have any wheel slip. I just need to find some stops to put infront of the skewer just for a bit of extra security.

I wonder when people are going to stop telling me that I should have bought a fucking road biek. Seriously!

I need to rage feed everytime I see this bike. So so good.

Touring spam from this weekend :-)

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this is a great build!

Are you sure that stem is inserted the minimum amount? Your other pictures show a slammed stem and with the tiny headtube, the amount of insertion can't be that large, especially when there is (relatively) quite a lot of stem showing in your last pictures.

Anyway: Fantastic bike! I love the idea of transforming a track bike into a road bike and I think you did a very good job. I like everything about it and wouldn't change a thing. The paint is absolutely gorgeous and the highlight of this unusual build in my opinion.

Have fun with it!

Yes, I did check for the minimum insertion line and couldn't see it. Only brought it up for touring because my hands were going numb. Will slam it again and get a layback seatpost, then the fit should be spot on.

Thanks :-)

Photos turned out well! Amazing!

new Zipp seatpost which I think is a bit ugly but does the job. Also slammed the stem again and brought the hoods up a bit, much more comfortable. This bike is incredibly fun to ride, feels like riding on a cloud. Only things left I'd probably change would be a 2015 crank (it's grown on me) and crabon wheels for racing/summer. Tossing up between Enve 25 or Zipp 202.

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So after many tantrums I decided to transfer everything over to a CAAD9 frame, which is now my road bike. Unfortunately this bike just wasn't working out with gears, was having too many issues with wheel slip, QR, tyre clearance, mad toe overlap.. Which is a real shame because it looked great and when I didn't have issues it rode really nicely.

I've been having a think about what is next in the life of Brian. I thought about SS'ing it, but the frame is very limiting with clearance for 23c only which rules out taking it off-road. I could turn it into a wet weather commuter, but tbh, we just don't have many days like that in Perth. If the weather is good I commute on my road bike.

Then I had a thought, could Brian become a TT bike? I've always wanted to try TTing but always been put off by how ugly small TT bikes look. Is this a silly idea? Am I still going to have issues with wheel slip if I decide to leave the hanger on and run gears?

For reference, here is (another) photo of the bike how I had it set up. I think it could easily become a TT rig, due to the short top tube, my only concern is there isn't enough saddle to bar drop, even with the stem slammed. Can I still achieve maximum aero gains?

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I guess a look ergostem could help you

Only one way to find out

just as commonly seen at a local 10 as in the field of nodders