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

The Humu makes me smile, the Genesis is nice and functional: 10/10

Awesome

Have been a riding mine for a couple of weeks. Perfect commuter/utility bike. This years comes with guards as well. Geo a bit odd, tiny seat tube, inline post and short stem (on the Large) but rides light and aside from a couple of slips and clangs from the nexus has performed excellently. Even the promax cable discs are perfectly adequate for commuting, ok power and good modulation, no stoppies though.

Thanks for the positive review.

Forks on the kona are ridiculous, are they 4inch spring/sealed cartridge damper?

@Chak @FredyCro @Heldring @BareNecessities thank you all for the positive comments.

@TM 2017 ones look good. How do your feet get along with the rear promax caliper? Yeah, Nexus does seem to be a bit 'agricultural' compared to the Alfine. I've seen brand new 8speed Alfine bare hubs on ebay for around what I expect the oilbath service on the Nexus will cost so I might go down that route when mines is due.

Yeah I think the forks are 4"/100mm travel. I should probably open them up and have a look inside but they seem to work well enough.

God that Kona is amazing. Those bars are great. Motocross bars?

Genesis is looking great too.

Mrs TM haz a black alfine on her Smithfield... I wonder...

No issues with heel clearance with spd. Haven't ridden it with flats but usually do a more mid sole position on flats anyway.

I was considering switching some HY:RD from another bike but not sure it's worth it. Although I do like to endo.

Do you not have a tub of the shimano stuff at work for the dip? I've not done one but meant to be a half hour job if you know what you're doing.

Do you not have a tub of the shimano stuff at work for the dip?

Nah, the Nexus has 7 more gears than all the bikes at my work! I could do it in ATF but then there's meant to be seal issues. I think there's a tool you need too isn't there? Or you can bodge it but might damage the plastic cover.

If the flange diameters are the same then getting the right spokes is easy and relacing a wheel isn't much more than a half hour job.

Pretty sure the shift pattern is the same between Nexus and Alfine so the bar end shifter should work just fine.

Cheers, yeah old scrambler/motocross bars. Definitely not light!

Awesome stuff! Re oil bath/atf/servicing the nexus I did a nexus 7 recently and it's held up well. Shifting improved quite a bit from it.

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/289257/

The hummus-hummus is hands down my favourite bike on the forum. Desperately want to have a go

I've changed to swept back flat bars on my Day-One and fitted a PizzaRack.

Originally I was going to use the Microshift barend shifter on a Sturmey thumby mount but @TM mentioned he'd been having some issues with the indexing on his Day One and was thinking of ditching the Microshift. I decided I would too and I'm very glad I did.

The rapidfire unit has completely transformed the bike. I didn't have many complaints of the original setup with the Microshift barend, I had been getting jumps and grinds etc from the hub (once or twice a ride) but was putting this down to it being a Nexus and a bit of lower spec model than the Alfine I've used previously. Turns out it was all the shifter's fault. I haven't had a single skip, grind or graunch from the hub since swapping to the rapidfire and I'm pretty sure the hub now shifts underload better than it was doing with the Microshift.

When I fitted the pizza rack I'd ditched the rear rack and had been running the rear dynamo light ziptied to the mudguard stays, sorted that today with a little custom mount made from a stainless stay from another set of guards.

but was putting this down to it being a Nexus and a bit of lower spec model than the Alfine I've used previously.

Isn't your model an old version of the Alfine? I recall that the newer Nexus is basically the old Alfine 8 speed.

Yeah, the hub on the Day One is 8 speed Nexus and it was the 8 speed Alfine I'd had.

I had been told/read that the 8 speed Nexus and Alfine hubs were basically the same but because of the issues I was getting due to the shifter, I wasn't so sure. It felt like the Nexus didn't run as smoothly or feel as solidly built as the Alfine but turns out it was all due to the Micro shift shit shifter.

Now that I'm using the rapidfire shifter with the Nexus I'd say there's almost no difference between Nexus 8 and Alfine 8.

It's a real shame that Genesis are putting these Microshift bar end shifters on the DayOne, there must be owners out there who are really dissatisfied with their bike and don't realise it's just the shifter. TM tells me his skipping/grinding issues were worse than mine and his bike was pretty much unrideable with the Microshift shifter.

It was a similar story with the original rear brake caliper for me, the Promax caliper stuck out beyong the chainstay so much that my feet constantly hit it if I rode in anything broader than lightweight Vans shoes. I had to swap to a Spyre to make the bike rideable. The similarly priced CDF comes with Spyres so it's dissapointing that Genesis have tried to eke out a bit more profit by downgrading the DayOne to Promax.

TBF, heel clearance wasn't an issues, so can't really blame them for that.

I can speculate why the Microshift doesn't work, it's likely the internal mechanism is flimsy at best and the hubs required precise indexing to get it just right.

Look like Genesis still sell them with the Microshift shifter on it, not enough warranty cause to resort replacing it I guess.

Genesis are in denial that there is a problem, if as a dealer you ring them and tell them your customer is having issues they will say they are not aware of anything and offer to send out a replacement microshit unit...

The problem is 100% caused by the lack of accuracy with the indexing/cable pull. As with @M_V since I changed to the rapidfire unit shifting has been perfect, had no faith in the bike previously as kept slipping under load at dangerous times.

That's a shame, they were quite receptive when I highlighted on social media that there was no grease used in the assembly of the bb on mine.

I'd check yours btw.

I need to take more decent pics again but as an interim update,

I got on the biggest lufguss mini trend of jan 2017 and picked up a set of the controversial Alpkit/LoveMud Fu Manchu bars for the day one...

Definitely an improvement over the other flat bars I fitted. Bit wider and longer grip section so able to get a better position for my shifter and brake levers.

The Kona has gotten a set of Marzocchi forks which I have no pictures of yet. Got the forks for a decent price on ebay, had to change the seals but hopefully they'll work alright now. Not entirely sold on the aesthetics but I think having a proper sus fork (as opposed to the rockshox pogo stick) will make the bike ride better so I'll stick with it.

Today I've done a couple jobs on the Kona that I've been meaning to do for a while.

No1, brazed on coin bar ends.

Been thinking about this for a while and saw an example on instagram during the week so decidedto get it done.

Could have used pound coins but I'm cheap and what with Brexit being such a hot topic...

No2, a brazed on headtube badge.

I'd already made this bike a coffin shaped stick on headbadge but I wanted a Mjolnir shaped one. I started making another stick on one then decided that the bike really deserved a brazed on one.

I chose Mjolnir because Norse mythology says that Thor could flatten mountains with his hammer, seemed like an apt thing for a mountainbike.

I wondered about how to decorate the hammer and wasn't sure I was up to carving anything into the brass. I'd thought about adding a brass plate on the toptube with the Hummus moniker @TomvanHalen coined so I decided to put the two things together into one. 4130 because it's 4130 cromo tubing (according to the seatube decal).

Fuck yeah hummus! Love it

Awesome, proper personal touches

I've enrolled on a welding class, starts tomorrow night.

I have 10 weeks of access to welding kit, what do I do?

First plan was to turn the 1x1 (which has been a bit unused recently) into a front loading cargo bike but people have convinced me that hacking it up would be a sin.

I love the Donhou Hack Bike Derby bike

and have been seriously thinking about chopping up the Hummus to add a similar rear end/seat unit.

Trouble is, I think it'd make the bike pretty useless for ridin on the flat and uphill. I'd move the dropper post over to the 1x1 and it'd get put back into use as my main mtb but I just wonder if I'd regret chopping up the Hummus...opinions?

I could build a(nother) front rack, like the pink pentagram one or something,

Or a trailer maybe...

What about making some kind for Satan forks?

+1 for segmented satanic forks

if I had 10 weeks of welding I'd build something as niche as possible, nice n rough

Top choice would be a clunker, like some of the black sheep bikes but in rusty steel
Then also a bmx, or one of the Ted James style jump bikes

GLWW

I'd make a trailer, I reckon. I've always wondered how the wheels go on, given there's nothing to support the hubs on the outside. I could very easily find this out, I suppose.

Make a stem!