A Frame of Two Halves

As has become a bit of an annual thing for me, this week I have been building a frame on the South Coast with the legend that is Geoff Roberts.

As luck would have it, this year I was joined in the workshop by fellow frame building addict @danstuff.

You may have seen elsewhere in Current Projects, @danstuff has elected to build a frame of incredible complexity. His frame has a monostay rear end, internal routing for all sorts of things, disk braking and a thing called DI too. It is, in short, the very hight of modernity.

In comparison, I have gone for something routed in tradition - 23 inches square, horizontal top tube, 73 degree angles. It has, of course, been built for a mechanical groupset, and the rear end had been spaced to accomodate the new 10 speed cassette.

I had hoped to add a bit of flair by building the forks with a stainless crown, but Geoff dismissed that as ‘a bit gay’. He did however allow me to introduce one small complication:

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And the lord said, "vainly thou doth alloy yourselves with chromium and molybdenum in an effeminate defiance of my grace" and so it was hence decreed across the land that a man would oxidise naturally in the holy rain of the lord, and those who did refuse to oxidise naturally would be put to death with the sodomites and would be buried outside of the city walls.

Popped to Dartford earlier.

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Detail pictures pls

Had to rush off to come to work, so that's all I have for now.

Will take some tonight / tomorrow.

Don't think I'm a fan of the gold but that's a real classy looking frame. You're quite good at this aren't you.

I'm getting the hang of it.

I'm not mad about the gold either. Originally wanted either blue & white or blue & light blue.

Dave (Colourtech) suggested the blue & gold to match the decals. I called him yesterday to revert back to blue & white, but he'd already done it.

To be fair, it's actually come out quite nicely.

I kind of like the Gold. But then I am an old fuddy-duddy...

I am an old fuddy-duddy...

Me too.

so you know, classic looking paint scheme is classic looking

Yep, I get it.

Change. Who needs it?

this is really nice. the gold works well.

Pretty!

Made a bit of progress today:

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Nearly done

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Lovely, needs a modern sp IMHO. Nitto would be nice.

Current build is very much 'parts bin'. More or less everything will be upgraded in due course.

Saw this yesterday and yes it is very nice

Lovely! I spy wheels by Harry Rowland.

amazing .. no cable splitters?

In the fullness of time, it will have cable splitters.

Going full S&S turns out to be a significant financial commitment, so I'm getting there slowly.

Hopefully will be heading off to Italy with this all neatly packed up later in the year.

Fresh set of cables for every holiday!

Very nice. If you're really careful you could probably get away with just unhooking the cables from the guides and bending.

My pro tip: No need for a splitter on the front cable. You're very welcome. :)

I still haven't got 'round to fitting cable splitters to this build, not have I sourced a suitable (no doubt overpriced) case.

I have however been shamed by the super-human exploits of @danstuff on the frame he built at the same time as I built this one: https://www.lfgss.com/comments/14844534/.

Whilst I don't have the ability to emulate dantuff's adventure, I might at least be able to take it out for a cappuccino somewhere slightly more exotic than Peckham.

To this end, I did a bit of fettling over the weekend. Have swapped out the saddle for a Supercorsa, and added a Thomson seatpost.

Have also cut down the steerer tube and changed the bars and stem.

The shifters and rear mech were previously Centaur from my parts bin and worked perfectly well. I have swapped them out for Chorus shifters and a Record rear mech, for no particular reason.

Pics:

Finally got ‘round to fitting cable splitters. They ain’t half expensive.

Also treated myself to the backpack, so here’s to a few frustrating nights trying to wrestle bike and bag together.

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