M_V's multitude of bikes and adventures in the land of framebuilding

Lasercutter/engraver. It (I think) burns the dye out of the anodize layer, either that or removes the anodize layer completely.

Set of painted Ultegra 6600s on the Day One now

It's also now sporting an inline post and the SMP Extra from the Pompino (I'm going to experiment with a few saddles though as not finding the SMP as comfy on this for some reason) and the Hope headset from my bmx.

The powdercoat place did a good job of masking the headbadge on the new bmx frame, I've given it a bit of a rub up with a sanding pad but it didn't need much...

And the Pompino has transitioned through alleycat winning bruiser bike (pretty much just stripped all the guards and stuff off and fitted a bmx stem and Wingbars) to polobike (brakes reversed, set of ht2 mtb cranks with a smaller ring fitted).

Played on it last night and going to change bars and stem out today and just lose the rear brake I think.

Took some decent photos of my Surly and my Genesis today,

great pix! I lust over that 1x1 now...

Couple updates,

Grabbed a couple of Specialized FSR sharkfins off retrobike and have used one to put a disc on the back of the 1x1. Just chucked my old bb7 on there just now but it's working great, outshining the hydraulic Hope 4 pot up front actually...

Only modification I had to make was to chop the existing (and never used) rack/guard eyelet off and attach a new one a few mm further along the dropout hood. Could have gone a smidge further back as it's a squeeze to get the sharkfin in but I think it's better being tighter actually. Bit of black rattlecan and you can't even tell I did anything.

Bigger news though is that courtesy of @socialamnesia I know own this,

Saw the For Sale post at just the right time as I'd just had a chunk of money land in my paypal from doing some more headset caps for the NLTCBMBC (cheers @roboto).

I'm going to go full canti (#fullcanti #cantilover) so might replace the aforementioned Hope 4pot on the front of the 1x1 with the bb7 that came with the Humu.

Bars are bargainous scrambler bars off ebay, paint is pretty awful so I'm gonna either strip them or rattle can them black. They weigh the same as about 2 ½ moons and are ridonkulously wide, 850mm, so I might have to fashion a quick access chainsaw holder just so I can ride my local trails.

I've made a headtube badge for it (actually made 2 so now to decide which one goes on the Humu and which one goes on the 1x1...

I was thinking about laser cutting and engraving a wooden board for inbetween the 2 top tubes (and brazing on some mounting points) but not sure if this would ruin the klunker aesthetic?

Willing to part with the other sharkfin?

Yes, but it's in poor shape having been modified by a previous owner.

Still interested?

Oof, that's pretty bad. Maybe not

Aye it is.

I've papped it up on eBay for £20 just coz they're so rare but I doubt it'll go. If you did want it, tenner posted to you?

Do you reckon it's structurally sound?

Yeah. Probably.

I was gonna use it on the Humu till I realised the wheels I have are non disc.

Got the bike rideable last night and discovered the chain hits the seatstay and the rear track ends are so out of alignment that the rear wheel won't stay in place.

Should be noted that I don't think this was down to any abuse received by @socialamnesia or any other previous owners as the Humuhumu I owned from new about 6 or 7 years ago had utter baws alignment too.

A bit of torch action allowed me to tweak the ends enough to ride it to work where I got the big tools (the FAG2 and the FFS2) out and along with the FFG2 and the big vice here, sorted out the alignment to near perfect.

I wanted to bring it to work so I could face and chase the bb and face the headtube and fit a new headset but left the headset on my workbench in the garage. Doh!

Still, I got the bb done (though I also left the metal spacers I looked out to replace the plastic ones with on the bench with the headset), and set about the toptube.

The toptube(s) are what makes the Humuhumu stand out so much and I felt that running the brake cable along the top of the top toptube is a distraction so I've whipped the cable stops and guides off and will be brazing on guides for a full length housing under the top top tube where I think it will look a lot neater.

As I said earlier, I've made a headtube badge but the Kona logo on the headtube was under the lacquer and bigger than the badge I've made so I've sanded paint (and decal) off from the headtube. Not sure whether to paint the headtube black and fade it out along the top and downtubes or just leave it like it is now.

First test ride last night.

Cleaning up the toptube.

Headtube prepped for badge.

Rear brake cable reroute complete

It now has a bottle opener.

I have a Wisecracker on my Day One and...it's shite! You can't run it under the stem coz then you can't fit a bottle in because of the front tyre/guard/light etc and even sticking out the back of the stem it isn't great so I wanted to make sure that the opener I put on this was actually functional and it is. It wasn't when I brazed it on up closer to the top of the downtube (hence the other patch of missing/burnt paintwork) but it is now!

Are the forks meant to be that long on it?

Chainstays look near vertical.

Good tinkering though.

According to @socialamnesia the p2s are original to it and I think he's right.

Google shows Humus with the curved toptube with these forks and the shorter ones so dunno.

Guys at the Kona factory mibbe took an equally 'Friday afternoon' approach to the builds as they seem to have to the frame building!

I was hoping to do some decent photos of the Kona but we've just lent the 'decent' camera (5D mk1) to our friend who is doing our wedding photos so it'll be end of september before we get it back.

In the meantime, there's an iphone photo of the dropper remote mount I made today, turns the lever on it's side so it works more like a thumbshifter. Should also put the lever more out of the way incase of a crash - I always thought it looked like it would tears the shit out of my knee in a bail.

Neat bit of fab.

You've had it a while now, what's your opinion of the day one?

Love it.

As above, I changed the cranks to the 6600s, think that's made it feel a lot more solid in that area. Didn't really ride the square tapers long enough to specifically have a problem with them but they seem like pretty budget items.

Another thing I've done but haven't documented here is to change the rear brake caliper. The original Promax caliper had the cable stop stuck away out outboard of the mounting bolts and I hit my heel on it so fitted a Spyre which is a lot more centred due to it being dual piston. I just picked up a single caliper from ebay as the bike was totally unrideable in anything bulkier than Vans trainers and even in those I hit it pretty regularly. I'd like to change the front too at some point, more so they match than that there's any problem with it.

I think I'll change the tyres soon too. I've fitted a set of 45mm VO fenders and the 35c Sport Contacts are quite a tight fit inside them plus I'm finding that at low pressures they feel pretty draggy but comfort and grip very quickly diminish when the pressure is increased.

Other than those little grumbles though I think it's great. The bar end shifter is fantastic, the Nexus hub does groan and clunk a little sometimes, something that I never had with the Alfine I used to own but it's not really a problem, just have to make a conscious effort to ease off pedal pressure when shifting.

I know this thread is seriously lacking in updates but my good camera is on loan at the moment and iphone photos don't really do the bikes justice...but I took this one of the Kona today and pretty happy so I'll show you all where it's at.

I bought a drum brake front wheel and some front and rear hubs off retrobike the other day planning to go drums on this as it'd be a bit more 'klunker' but then I went out to the garage to tinker and ended up shifting all the disc stuff off the 1x1 onto it. The Humu handles 'aggressive' riding better than the 1x1 so seems to make sense to have decent brakes on it.

I was quite surprised the 2.4 tyre fit through the frame but it does. I had to dent the chainstays to clear the rotor and the larger freewheel (21t on the disc wheel, was previously 16t) but the tyre has room to spare.

Took this over the Devils Staircase today and loved the way it handled the terrain. The disc fork has a shorter a2c than the canti one so was getting a bit of pedal strike but I've been thinking about fitting a suspension fork anyway which would lift it back up a bit.

The 1x1 is gonna get rebuilt with the cantis and the Nitto 1x1 bar I have, more period correct if you will.

Finally got some decent photos for this thread.

First the Day One. It's now got a set of VO guards fitted and a pair of 30c (I think) Randos which a) fit inside the guards way better than the original 35c Contis did and
b) ride nicer too.

Dynamo wiring got tidied up a bit when I changed the guards.

Not done much else to this other than ride it lots, I love it.

Now some proper photos of the Humu Humu

Mount what for putting the dropper leaver in a better position, made from an old barend. Also makes swapping the dropper between bikes easier as I no longer have to completely undo the bolt to get the lever off.

Specialized FSR Sharkfin disc brake adapter. Needed a hole drilling in the dropout to fit and that was all.

Downtube bottle opener. Works way better than that overprice Wisecracker thing.

Wellgo era DMR V12s. When I rode the bike at Devil's Staircase with the short rigid fork on I smashed these off all the rocks and they took it like a boss. Didn't lose any pins!

Seat QR nicked from a Park workstand.

Mental bike is Mental! Dropper lever in all it's anodized glory is all kinds of awesome. As is the park tool clamp...as is..pretty much everything else...

really, really nice bikes, pics are amazing as well!