Mid life crisis MTB’s - Raleigh 531 / Dale M400 / Giant Escaper

I've seen this around town, looks great.

Thanks bud.

Popped in to Ryan Builds Wheels today to spec out the replacement rims.

Keeping new DX 650 hubs but switching the rear free hub to a NOS 8spd HG version, then going for Mavic XM 719 with sapim race.

Should be a nice, light (ish) a set of tubeless wheels.

This bike has grafted, as has rider. Kudos.

Thanks bud

This is nice & tuff, never heard of the tyres before, thanks for the tip!

they roll so well and are pretty good on light trails. no good for realluy rough stuff or anything too wet and muddy though, so its a trade off.

How have you found the puncture-proneness in the city?

I’ve been using Maxxis DTH for a couple of weeks and already had a flat...

fine. i've had 4 in 2000k, but two of those were caused by the rim tape moving.

so one actual puncture every 1000k seems okay to me

Still got plans for a rack? What’re you going with? Bike looks great!

Been really uncomfortable on it recently

Ergogrips and swept bars is the answer :)

Yeah, that may be the next step. So far so good though with the wider bars and a brake lever angle adjustment

Chur!

Rack has taken a back seat for the moment,

Been an eventful few weeks, first a cracked rim, and yesterday got hit by a car. I’m all good as I managed to weave enough so they caught the rear axle and wheel, hoping that it’s not too bent.

In the meantime, finally got around to converting the FH-M650 hub from 7spd - 8/9/10.

Big issue is that once I found the freehub that fitted, Shimano had changed how the freehub seal works, so the old RH cone and seals were too big.

Thankfully though all the parts are still in use or were in use recently enough that SJS had them instock.

Using the XT 750 hub as a reference, built up the new axles with RH seals and cones from the 750 and LH from the DX 650. Bit of a weird hybrid, but it seems smooth, the OLD is a smidge under 135. All the RH spacers are spot on so hopefully the cassette should sit fine. I did check against a 750 that I have spare and it looks okay.

5 Attachments

All rebuilt and ready for fresh rims. Fresh bearings and tester approved grease obvs.

1 Attachment

Impressive hub rebuilding skills. Hope you're ok after the prang.

Nice and shiny, will look great laced up. :)

Cheers, a little achey but okay.

Stripped the frame down to give it a check over, hard to tell but it doesn’t look straight tbh, gonna take it into the LBS tomorrow

1 Attachment

Shit Mat, hope you're ok! Where was it? (I will feel utterly guilty if it was in Fishponds, while delivering me coffee!)

Ummmmm yeah, about that....

Nooooooooo! I’m so sorry!

Err, it wasn’t a silver Toyota Verso was it? 😁

Good News!

Back from Argos all tracked and straight, phew.

Waiting on the new rims to be built, then it can go back together.

That's a relief I imagine. Looking forward to the fresh build pics!

Back from Argos all tracked and straight, phew.

How about the bike?
[/dadjoke]

Huge relief.