Tijmen's Bikes and Related Projects

Slightly less shit light and pumped up rear tyre. #tukt and everything but might slide the while backwards a bit if it's too much of a wheeliemachine.

I'm a bit anxious about cutting the hydraulic hoses, so I did some mock-ups in CAD. I currently have 660mm wide bars and a 100mm stem, but I want to keep the option for wider bars with a shorter stem because I think that's more common in MTB-land nowadays?

So I modeled the front half of the frame, a stem, bars, and an approximation of the angle at which the hose leaves the lever and is attached to the frame.

Then I measured the length of the hose with the current setup:

Then with a short stem and wide bars:

And then with a long stem and wide bars (unlikely combo, but I was curious):

The conclusion is that it doesn't seem to matter that much, so I can cut the hoses with peace of mind.

Shit pic after some late night fettling, the rear brake will require another bleed as I cocked up and drained the entire system before attempting a bleed. Got the hang of it when bleeding the front brake but didn’t want to redo the rear brake just now.

I made the mistake of ordering cheap grips from China (a month ago, but still) which will probably take ages to arrive. So I hope I have some old grips in my parts bin so I can go for a first ride soon-ish.

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Getting there...

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Your overthinking of this is much appreciated :-)

€5 grips to tide me over, so I can take this on its first real ride tomorrow.

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HEMA ftw

The Dutch people in Berlin FB group is still full of buzz because of HEMA opening two shops in Berlin.
Wasn't that enthusiastic mind.
I don't believe they have the rookworst though, the sole reason I would make the trek to deep West Berlin.

The hotdog is the unsung hero of Hema's food counter, I'm not too fussed about their rookworst tbh.

Welcome to another installment of shit pictures of bikes, at least I thought about having the sun in my back. I was on the opposite side of those posts first.

The first ride was great, it held up brilliantly and it gives me much more confidence on technical bits. Surprisingly an actual mountainbike is better for mountain biking than a cyclocross bike with big tires.

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mountains

Netherlands

confused.gif

The crux lies in the mustard imo

https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulbergen

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I think I can confirm that getting a proper mountainbike instead of a monstercross / gravel thing with a sus fork was a great decision. I'm having lots of fun with this bike, it's brilliant. And according to Strava I'm far quicker now, despite not nearly being as fit as when I was riding the VN.

I might get a sus fork if a deal pops up in spring, but I want to get used to the wide bars and everything first. A black is higher on the list, as is a 60mm stem. It's not that I have any issues with the handling as it is, but I'm curious as to how a shorter stem might affect things.

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Looks fun!

Decals from eBay make it look much better, or at least I like to think so. All that's left is the saddle, but I really can't be arsed to sand / paint it and it doesn't bug me enough (yet) to spend 30 on a new one.

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Added gears to the fixed-gear-turned-singlespeed, don't have room for a proper roadbike, so this will be used for both commuting and for road and gravel riding. Still need to shorten the chain, as it's in the second largest cog in this pic. Bit of a bodge job overall as it doesn't have anything in the way of cable stops.

Up next is finding a better solution for bottle cages, undecided between drilling for rivnuts or cable clamps.

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Looking good with a full tube of air!

;)

Far zippier too!

Experimenting with adding a second bottle cage, will fabricate something out of steel to move the DT cage but undecided how to attach the ST cage. Initial plan was drilling and riveting in rivnuts, but don't think I can drill straight due to space constraints, especially the lower hole. I could go for a piece of inner tube and zip ties or a neater solution like this: https://velo-orange.com/products/bottle-cage-clamp ? Any suggestions?

(The keen eye will notice a 12-28 cassette, new chain was skipping on my old 11-36 and in pancake flat Brabant I was only using my 13 15 and 17 anyway.)

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Right angle dremel or drill attachment?

(Not with a cutting wheel obviously)

Won't take an 8 7mm drill though, will it?

But with a dremel you could just file the hole to size.
I'd braze you some bosses in if you were in the UK/London

Don't have the patience for filing I'm afraid, which means I don't trust myself to get a round hole. Might get this one for €20, might be shit but can't be so shit that it won't work for 2 holes, and I'll pay with PayPal to be sure.

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Don't blame me if it doesn't work/you fuck it up
;)