Current Projects chat and miscellany

theres octalink for road and octalink for mtb

The difference between road and MTB is just axle length. The Sheldon Brown picture shows early & later Octalink, and applies to both road & MTB. The early version has short splines which proved too weak, so Shimano issued a second version with much longer splines and kept very quiet about the appalling balls up they had made of the first version.

Pretty sure 5500 and 6500 are both v1, unless they changed the design under the same model name? Will have to double check, are they not cross compatible?

my trick is to take out the self extracting bolt and the retainer ring. this way you can actually see the splines engaging, instead of guesswork and relaying on "feeling".

fubard a 7710 nds before I learnt that. don't be like me.

I've lost the self-extracting bolt so I'm doing it this way, still can't get the fecker to line up!

cool! thx for clarification!! i always wondered why the big S made those super small splines with so much space available for bigger ones! I guess they make mistakes sometimes!

Pretty sure 5500 and 6500 are both v1, unless they changed the design under the same model name?

They did, for 5500 at least. There are SM-BB5500s in both long and short spline versions, same part number. That's what I mean by Shimano keeping quiet about it. I think DuraAce Road and Ultegra had already gone to HT2 by then, and DA Track sticks with the short splines.

DA Track sticks with the short splines

That doesn't make any sense, given the reason for the revision.

That doesn't make any sense

Don't expect it to make sense. Tooling up to change the track cranks for the tiny market probably wouldn't wash with the accountants. If you want a sensible reason, I think the problem was mostly on MTB cranks which suffer impact loads from people jumping off stuff, which is a bit less likely on a track bike, and it's also possible that the DA cranks are made from a different (stronger) alloy than LX MTB cranks which, combined with closer tolerances, might well be enough to ensure that they don't get track cranks back with stripped splines very often.

Thank you! They're great for riding in the woods around and occasional touring, the geometry i a bit tighter then on a full blown tourer. Real fun!

It's a hybrid frame I believe... it's closer to cx then to touring geometry-wise.

That does make sense.

Thanks.

Yeah! It was a gift from my GF back when she used to live in Dresden. These frames were imported by Villiger bikes and are plentiful in Germany.

Been building up my 14BikeCo 14r following a repair to the cutout.

Painted with spray.bike which chips really easily. Bars are to be replaced and brake fitted. But for now it rolls around the garden.

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I see, thanks for the explanation. May buy a MTB bb as they're much cheaper however this for a 1x build so should I actually be shortening the chainline from a double set up, or does it not really matter?

May buy a MTB bb

You won't find an MTB Octalink BB with the short splines required for the 6500 cranks, they stopped making them 15 years ago. At this point, for a 1× road build, you should be cutting your losses and buying an FC-S501 Alfine HT2 crank and BB

Picked this up cheap on a bit of whim today from a friend at work, Columbus Gara tre tubi, frame weighs just shy of 2.4kg and forks about 700-800g, so not the lightest but by no means too heavy. Unsure of what forks and stays are made of but dropouts and fork ends are marked columbus so maybe it could be some of theres (did columbus make dropouts etc?) Paint is pretty ratty as you can see but the entire frame appears to be chromed, and the chrome appears to be in good nick. Probably going to build it up as a geared run-around for now, so will either keep the paint or strip it back and polish up the chrome. Thing is, I have no idea about geared bikes from the 80's 90's at all, (and I mean NO idea) so any suggestions as to what groupset, components would be very welcome....nothing to spendy as it will get locked up in central London and I don't really want bits to go missing.....

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I have no idea about geared bikes from the 80's 90's at all, (and I mean NO idea) so any suggestions as to what groupset, components would be very welcome....nothing to spendy

Period correct for the age and quality level would be something like Shimano 1050/1055 or Campagnolo Triomphe at best, Gara is barely above entry level. Neither was all that wonderful even then, and short of finding a NOS set it's going to be worse now. I'd go neo-retro, Tiagra 4700 groupsets are going cheap at the moment and are better than 80s Record or DuraAce.

Thanks, sounds like a good idea. It's going to be used as a geared commuter/ run around most likely so ease of use is probably the way to go-no one wants to be fiddling around with broken or misfiring derailleurs or what not half way to work....

Yep, 4700 was ace when I used it.

i went for that color too :) i would recommend using lacquer.

Spray.bike lacquer or another brand?

Found the problem, spindle seems to have broken as each side is moving independently...
Think I'll try and find a v1 bb for cheap as this is meant to be a parts bin build! That would make sense in the long run though

The timing chain on our tandem is on the drive side and I'm going to replace the cranks with the Spa cycles touring triple in the hope that I can add a 'front' derailleur. Anyone know if I'll have a clash running 32t chainrings on the inner position with the 48/38 on the 110BCD spider as a double? I guess I should just give it a go. I can't see any other chainsets that can come close on price so I'll probably use these either way and I've got both double and triple front mechs I can experiment with.

spindle broken??? wow...