Functional bikes. Not Porn not Anti

Dude. Not a difficult fix. Wrap tape, get ride of chainring or bring in a derailleur. Get rid of silly basket or extend rack, change fork to something lighter, modern tyres, shorten rear brake cable, and hey presto. Done.

It's way different now, still a bit ugly though. Think I hate the rear rack even more than that front one. I've got some cheap black rattle-can paint, gonna blast the basket and the fork and will swap back from rear to front rack.

Apologies for my horrid phone camera

Edit: also removed big ring, will switch to a NW at some point. Anyway wasn't intending to showcase this bike, I just wanted to point out that those bars don't always work upside down

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Really like that now. Looks way better with the bars flipped. No fatter tyres?

I may get some bigger ones eventually but those are 400g, 1.5" slicks that cost only about a fiver each (at the time). For such a shitty set of components it's really quite smooth and comfy to ride, and a lot faster than I would have expected

nice one !

Top frame, much potential.

I’m a big fan of indexed dt shifters. They’d be at home here.

I wouldn’t use cantis though.

@Gaston thanks very much. The seller has mentioned doing a deal on the Campag 9sp triple group he had destined for this frame so could give me a headstart building it up.

@miro_o I do like the convenience of 'brifters' although open to suggestions, on a previous porteur build I had a non-indexed dt shifter mounted on the bars and enjoyed that. I'm a bit clueless with cantis so happy to hear what people suggest, if mini-v's aren't viable is there another option other than cantis?

I had a bit of a tough time with cantis...

Used the Tektro CR720s on my bike but hated them, so fiddly and not very #functional.

I would advise a 4th hand tool to make setup a little bit easier!

Buillt the girlfriend a tourer with cheap Tektro cantis last year and do remember the pain of setting them up. Buying fancy tools, I can get onboard with this idea, much appreciated for the tip.

no worries! maybe @Hulsroy has some setup tips as he seems to be the king of fancy neon cantis

@jambon This is a link @andyp posted some time ago. This method has always worked for me.

https://www.cxmagazine.com/gut-wrenching-mechanical-mondays-brake-setup

Just had a quick skim, will be coming back to this I'm sure. Thanks very much. Glad I didn't go down the TT route for my next project as there seems to be a lot of functional love out there 😊

awesome frame - love the combo of fillet brazed and lugged. Is that some kind of mid-fork mount I can see??

Cantis are good for cross and easy to adjust after initial setup. But on a touring bike I’d happily sacrifice mud clearance for some extra bite.

Campag and SRAM road shifters have longer pull than Shimano I believe. You may well find that Vs work.

a lot of functional love out there

Terrible weather and crap roads. And age ;-)

@cryptthing thanks, I think it's a light mount on the fork leg. Not sure how I feel about this as haven't even thought about lighting yet. To me the mount seems at slight odds with how modern (90's) the frame is but very likely I'm wrong.

@miro_o good to know and yes makes total sense :)

But on a touring bike I’d happily sacrifice mud clearance for some extra bite

Yeah, you need all the power you can get with touring gear.

@jambon If you're worried about braking with cantis some of the £5 self-energising brakes might be a good shout if you're carrying loads of gear, then you could swap them for normal cantis when you're not touring perhaps. People use these ones on tandems and tourers. I would struggle to get enough power out of normal cantis when touring I think though it depends on the mix of parts.

Edit: more info here

If you hadn't sent me the link I would have thought it was April 1st, will most likely get dissatisfied with standard cantis then investigate these. Thanks very much

I think you should just try some v brakes - I managed to squeeze Vs in my Thorn with A319s, had to try a couple of types of brake and had to trim back of brake pad down a touch.

OR get a pair of those fancy Compass cantilever brakes

OR Paul cantis.

But they’re still cantis.

@TM may have some Avid V brakes in my parts bin, very keen to get my hands on the frame. Will update once received don't worry!

@Heldring got a lot of time for Mr Heine although not sure I'm ready to put my money where my mouth is. Wonder what would get more gram likes over them or the Paul DBAD calipers, hmm.

@jambon If you're worried about braking with cantis some of the £5 self-energising brakes might be a good shout..

My experience of those would not lead me to recommend them to anyone looking for more braking power. Significantly poorer braking than with a Shimano LX canti, same pads.

Best cantis are avid shorty Ultimates or trp revox.
They were the top end cross cantis before they all went disc. Great power and relatively easy to set up.

Best cantis are called Mini-v brakes