Simba's bike den

🥰

Ordered a pair of those discounted WTB tires from Wiggle, and when I was browsing the sale I found a “wide range upgrade kit” consisting of an Ultegra R8000 long cage derailleur and a 11-34 cassette for the grand sum of £18.

I put two sets in the basket and expected Wiggle to write me and say the pricing was an error and cancel the order (which I still believe it was) but they shipped them without a comment and removed the offer from their page.

One derailleur will go on the Disco, and the other one will go on the Vagabond that I’ll make an update about soon.

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Vagabond

v interested in this

Something about having sponsors graphics on frames always makes me swoon immediately. Lovely Gan logos.

I agree! There aren't that many about for build inspiration.

I’m still pretty undecided tbh. All I know is that it’s going to be 11s, dropbar and hydro, with most of the stuff coming from my parts bins. Then I’ll ride it for a bit and see if it fills a gap. If it does it’s bound to get new paint. If not it will be sold.

I think the clearance issue on the rear prohibits the variations of the builds. It’s either fat tyres and 1x, or 2x with skinnier tyres making it look like a hybrid.

This is my inspiration so far

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I'm waiting for wheels for mine and then probably 1x11 with mechanical brakes for mine.
I've only ever ridden mine with Nitto Albatross bars and On One Marys, and the medium frame was just to cramped to my liking for that - so I'm looking forward to trying it with dropbars.

71 HA and semi long chainstays should mean it handles somewhat like my Intec.

Wheels are done.

Novatec hubs, silver revolution spokes and unknown Chinese carbon rims.

2x for that oldschool feel.

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Steerer cut. Nice little Excell detail on there

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All built up. 6800 chainset vs. 7600

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The last one.. And it then it's just a skinny steel stem away from perfect imo

I favour the DA one as well. Looks cool, even with that spacer. Those levers are also nice in that aero angle.

Steel stem would be sweet, but I’m leaning towards the ritchey classic cockpit because the silver anodizing would match all the DA, unfortunately that also means 6 degree stem so it will never align with the tt

Cheers. The DA is staying. The braze on doesn’t mix well with the compact 6800 chainset, as the derailleur can’t go low enough. And if not for this build, then why have I saved it all those years!

Levers are set up in hope that Hulsroy doesn’t come in here and shout “bars down, levers up”. I take his silence as a nod of approval.

Everything from this perspective makes me happy. Silver stem might make me happier.

Excuse the hairy legs

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Silver stem might make me happier.

Some drain cleaner and polish could make that a possibility with minimal investment

Wuahhh following. Didnt know u tinkered this much these days ♡ Lovely bikes

I did that once. But it was on a blasted surface like this one, so it was: drain cleaner, 200 grit > 400 grit >800 grit > 1000 grit > 2000 grit and then Autosol polishing.
And then it was polished shiny silver and not the nice milky anodized silver. I think I’m just going to buy a ritchey classic cockpit this time :)

Same as always, now I’m just trying to document it. Good to see you online again!

New project incoming:

Jamis Aurora Elite in Reynolds 631 bought off of here.

This one is going to be my winter bike and tourer. Apparently clears 35mm tires with mudguards. I like the horizontal tt and think it will look good without the rack

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What a stylish home

Very... Except for the crack den carpets obviously....

Found an unused Dura Ace BB for sale locally.

Since Octalink is a dead standard I thought it was worthwhile to replace the current 105 with this, as it is fully serviceable.

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Nice, an added bonus I guess is that octalink crankset are quite cheap.

A long and slow Christmas holiday has meant some more tinkering and slow progress on the Jamis.
I wanted to build it up from scratch, but have decided to move gears and cockpit over from the cx.
For now I have built a dynamo wheel with a SP hub, competition spokes and a mavic 421 rim. I have ordered silver novatec hubs for the rear.
Tyre is not properly seated, it was just to see how it will look.

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