Gideon's bike life - Genesis, Graham Weigh, Cinelli, Land Shark & Ritchey

Bought a new chainset for the GT. The chainsets of the latest series of Shimano are pretty bulky, & they clash a bit with the skinnier tubes IMO, so I think this looks a bit better.

Came with a 130BCD spider, so standard gearing up front. Larger big ring is fine, but the much bigger inner is a jump! I've got a 11-32T cassette lying around somewhere if I need some relief. Will take it on a hilly ride when the current bout of gruesome weather has passed to see how I cope.

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Some more bike fettling over the weekend.

My Shimano dynamo hub died a death a few months back, & I'd missed the unlimited power of the light when riding at night (had a few cases of lights running out of battery on even 1.5h night loops), so got a new wheel with an SP hub from Spa. Not the widest rim, but will be fine for roady stuff, & I figured it's a pretty good price at £135 (was on offer).

I lent some other wheels to my girlfriend when she was riding to work in the horrible wet, & when I went to take them back the freehub pretty much seized. Guess it got left in the wet a bit too long. Took it into Woodrup & they said the wheel was pretty much a write off as they wouldn't be able to get the freehub - annoying. Wheel stuff - along with hydro stuff - is one of the few areas where I really don't feel comfortable doing myself, but figured since the wheel is allegedly dead, I can't do any harm with trying to clean up the freehub myself. To be continued.

Anyway, on my second ride on the Ritchey I wrote off a front wheel, & thankfully had the rear wheel left of that set so using that as a backup for now. Unfortunately, the weather is going to be snow, strong winds & sub zero temperatures pretty much all week so I doubt I'll have much opportunity to try out the new dynamo.

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Someone please talk me out of/in to buying this titanium LOOK.

Heart: always wanted a LOOK, & after riding a ti bike after in Mallorca a few years ago I was sold on the frame material.

Head: at the same time, repaired 15 year old ti probably isn't the best investment, & I'm pretty happy with the GT at the moment.

definitely not for that price. maybe for free

Yeah, considering I'm only really interested in the frame. Might message the seller to see if they'd sell the frame separately, though the fact they've spruced it up with new bar tape etc. suggests they wouldn't. Some weird parts of the build as is though (stem?).

How it started vs. how it's going.

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Assembled a Stayer Groadinger UG for a friend this evening. I'd forgotten how slickly everything works on a new groupset.

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thoughts on the stayer? always had my eye on one

Looked quite nicely put together, though I didn't have a chance to have a proper look over the frame as much as I'd have liked - was mainly concentrating on not screwing up anything while assembling! Nice welds, & liked the narrow seatstays & monostay, not a fan of the colour myself though.

Like seven of my friends have got new bikes recently, so I've got The Itch.

• Custom Woodrup.
  
• Enigma Etape.
  
• Fairlight Secan.
  
• Nagasawa track.
  
• All City Big Block.
  
• Brother Swift.
  
• Planet X singlespeed (not super inspiring, though does tip the partner-bike-balance in my favour).
  
  

Annoyingly, it's currently the worst possible time to buy a bike - brexit & covid are having horrible impacts on supply & prices. I'm a constant browser of bikes online, but I've not bought a new bike since my first fixed gear in 2013 - something which started this journey - but it seems like the way to go at the moment to get something. I've never used the cycle to work scheme, despite having ridden to work for my entire career (bar the last year, & being completely remote now, it's surprising I still qualify).

I've been thinking about what I want out of a new bike, so I've started with a set of things I enjoy in cycling:

• I enjoy pushing myself when riding alone. Permanent WFH has meant that I've lost the base miles of commuting, so I've snatched the odd few miles here & there on an evening & throughly enjoyed just getting out on the roads & going fast.
  
• I enjoy the odd bit of gravel riding, but the good stuff is so infrequent & generally so far away in Yorkshire, I think I'd get more value out of a more road-focussed bike. I don't mind a mud-apocalypse every now. I generally don't have the skills for the technical stuff as I've always ultimately been a road rider (never had an MTB).
  
• I enjoy bikepacking, though it's never been something I've been prepared to sacrifice the base enjoyment of a bike for.
  
• I enjoy the aesthetics & the craftmanship of the bikes I've had. Not entirely sure how I've honed in on this, but all my favourite bikes I've owned have been from the nineties & been steel.
  
  

None of that sounds very unique so distilling it into a set of criteria shouldn't be too hard, in theory.

Road plus woodrup seems the way to go, prices proportionately less affected compared to more mainstream options, get exactly what you want, made to measure... or just get a fairlight.

You're quick! ;) I'm going to write up some criteria tomorrow to clear it in my mind - a useful exercise in any case. Chatting with a mutual friend tonight I'm looking forward to seeing theirs, sounds pleased with it (albeit less pleased in how long paint takes to cure).

Can’t rush perfection.

I've continued to mull it over in my mind & pretty much decided that what I'm after is a road bike replacement. I enjoy the GT, but it feels like a downgrade from the Donohue. I want to keep with steel, something racy & with some modern standards.

It's been a fortnight now & I'm still thinking about it, so that passes my not-just-impulse-buy test. So popped into the bike shop where my partner works this afternoon on the way back from a hilly ride out in the dales & stuck an order in for a Genesis Volare 931 disc frame. Took a look at groupsets too, I guess the combination of coronavirus, Brexit & Suez are pretty murderous - likely going to be a slow build!

Asked Woodrup to build me some wheels - silver Hope RS4s with silver CX rays on some alloy rims & ordered some R8020 bits for the groupset.

Spent a some amount of time investigating seemingly every option on Madison to find any Shimano hydro road groupset in stock before September but no joy. eBay prices at the moment are nuts, but managed to find most of what I needed on Spa. I've been lucky with getting good deals on groupset before, guess my time was up!

So far I've managed to get most of what I need without too much delay, but I'm fully expecting there to be a vital piece I'm missing which pushes back completion. Fingers crossed I'm wrong.

@GideonPARANOID this sleeping setup is ace. Is the tarp fastened to the wheel with straps and then the string/tent peg is keeping the wheels upright?

Cheers! Worked pretty well. The tarp has loops on every corner & in the middle of each edge. I folded it in half & put tent pegs through the half on the ground, then some string through the remaining two. Looped that string around the tyre once,out to a tent peg in the ground & then back to the wheel about 60° around the circumference, added a bit of stability to stop the wheel from rotating sideways.

The pile of bike bits has been building up slowly in the kitchen. I've really struggled to find some bits with the current level of scarcity. Mainly the brakes are a bit of a disappointment - very basic BR-UR300s - but it's all I could find. I'll more than likely upgrade those in the not-too-distant future.

Currently in the post is an SLR saddle, an Ultimate USE seatpost & the frame! - Should arrive on Wednesday. Hopefully wheels aren't too far off.

I've had to resolve to knick what I can from other bikes due to things being in short supply, so the GT is going to donate its derailleurs & the spare wheels for the Ritchey are going to sacrifice their rotors. With all that in mind, think I've got everything I need to get it up & running.

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Went ahead & ordered a set of silver Hope RX4+ callipers. Expected delivery is late July, so that bolsters my cheaper calliper plan for now a little.

Frame arrived the other week & picked up the wheels (cheers Woodrup!) today. Just a few more bits left until I string it all together.

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As usual, make sure you whip skid your way down to your local polling station & vote today!

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Well a pro of having a partner who works in a bike shop is that I can get some work done for free. The corresponding con is that it only gets done when a mechanic has spare time.

Wish I'd paid now & got it expedited! Popped in to the shop after a muddy ride on Sunday afternoon & had a look - pretty excited! All being well, it should be hosed up by the end of the week. I should really learn how to do hydro myself.

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Looks well nice!

Cheers! Am proper looking forward to riding it.

Unfortunately I'm off to Scotland touring next week so probably won't be finished until last week of May. Aim is to have it all done by the solstice as some friends & I decided to cycle from Leeds to London in a one-er then. The things you sign yourself up for when filled with post-lockdown pub excitement, eh!

That's understandable!

If if were my bike I might have given it a splash of colour on the hubs or headset - but I can appreciate the monochromatic look as well. It looks well balanced with the silver hubs and black rims.