Goodbye gravel bike, hello recumbent

You tease!

Finished installing the Jones bars today. In an ideal world this would require longer brake cables, but for now I made due with tight bends, flipping the stem and unorthodox cable routing. Won't be able to ride it until next week unfortunately.

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I have also started work on the tandem. I changed the tires to Continental GP3000 tires. I haven't figured out yet what speed the chainrings are meant to work with, but seeing as the timing chain is stamped with Sachs PG and the brake appear to be pre 2000's I am going for 8 speed for now. Still a lot of mysteries left. I have no idea what brand cranks are fitted. The bottom bracket is Omas, which I have never heard of before. And so on.

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This thing is sick af!

Get the calipers out and measure the tooth profile on those rings; I'd wager they'd accommodate a 9-speed chain giving you more options.

Whatever those cranks are, they at least look well-machined.

OMAS is an italian manufacturer with a long tradition in lightweight Headsets & (Titanium) Bottom Brackets. They were a popular upgrade for high end 70s & 80s road bikes. Some more info here

The cranks remind me a little of Middleburns. Definitely have a high-end 90s CNC vibe going on!

Round seatpost aero tubed vintage TT Bianchi (and every other bike on here) are 10/10 hopefully - what do you search eBay (and where else) for?!?

Will try and do this today. I had to get batteries first to get it to work. That said, every single build I have found so far with these brakes is 8-speed. For example this (which is pretty darn cool by the way).

WOW! love this one!!! paint is also superb!!

If these are indeed titanium, clearly no expenses were spared to build this tandem. Maybe I should replace them with cheap Shimano ones and get some of the money I invested in this back ;)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Omas-Titanium-Bottom-Bracket-Italian-Sealed-Bearing-Vintage-bike-111mm-NOS-

Took some better shots of the Jones, but somehow it still looks ten times better in real life. Really need to work on my photo taking skills.

I bought a second hand pair of Brake Force One brakes to replace the XTR's instead of buying longer cables for the XTR's :)

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That green looks brilliant. The side on shot makes it look very compact, what head angle is it?

The only information I was ever able to find about the geometry of this frame is from a bike test, so not sure how accurate it is: "the frame runs with a 71-degree head and 73-degree seat angle, with 45cm chainstays and a 105.5cm wheelbase". Does this make any sense?

looks really fun!

Yeah that makes sense. Guess I'm used to looking at quite slack mountain bikes.

How does it ride?

Internal cable routing old style. This is a view from the underside of the bottom bracket area. The cable for the front derailleur should somehow go up through that hole....

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Really well actually. Does exceptionally well on the technical sections. Haven't really done any touring yet, but would love to do so in the near future.

Cables done.

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Looks great. White bartape?

I have some black and red tape in the style of the right picture. If that doesn't work, I will go for white.

Got some work done one the Kestrel yesterday. I put on a new set of wheels and wrapped half of the bars. Will do the rest of the bars when I am sure I don't need a shorter stem.

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650c cosmics?! bonkers. Looks really great, really love this bike. Personally not a fan of the bar tape though.

Wasn't aware these Cosmics existed either. Hubs are identical to the first generation Cosmic aluminium wheels. They have a lovely 3K weave instead of a uni finish like the older ones.

For now it's the only tape I have. Might buy some white tape in spring.

Not too bad in this either.

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I was going trough my parts bin when I found this. Bought it a while back for no obvious reason, other than I thought it looked cool. The branding says Specialized, but they look almost identical to pictures I found online of a Nitto Mod 195, which are obviously very similar to Scott bars.

Thinking it might look cool on the Kestrel. Not sure how you have to tape them though. Did they require special bar tape, or do you somehow integrate two sets of tape on one side?

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