Garage and bikes to fill it with

I've been lurking and buying and posting for too long and never done a proper thread of my own. Get a lot of enjoyment from reading others' threads so hopefully at least one person finds mine interesting.

I recently rented myself a garage so that I didn't have 6 bikes in my bedroom any longer. Here it is when I first got it, except some empty boxes from work I left there.

And here it is now, nice and full of bikes and bike parts.

And here are the bikes that I own, two of them weren't there when I was taking pictures tonight.

Have ongoing plans for most of them which I will update from time to time in here.

The bootzipper is just as it came in the box from planetx, seemed too good of a deal not to, got it on cycle to work. Diamondback is also just as I picked it up, bar removal of reflectors, got it from ebay a couple of weeks ago.

In the middle of changing the bars on the Marin and contemplating painting it myself, the paint is ratty and I don't really like silver bikes. Stem adapter situation is also not very nice.

What a dream! Sick bikes too.
How did you go about renting the garage? Is it reasonably close to your place? (I don’t want to know where you live. Just curious about the process.)

I just found it on gumtree and it's about 2 minutes on a bike from mine, it's worked out pretty well to be honest.

Woops, @Oddo

Interesting.

How do you choose between the traitor and the on one (ss) when you need such a bike?

Also what is the rack on the front of the Marin? (Which needs Canti’s btw)

question - is condensation/weather a concern at all? i could be set up in a similar situation, but i'm afraid moisture will cause problems on the steel bikes.

@D_Mars whether it's raining and if I want to get there fast. I've always found my pompino to require a lot of effort to get it moving much, not sure why, tried multiple different builds. Although the pompino lives at my flat now so I tend to use it more for getting around.

It's a rawlands porteur rack, it would be better if the fork had mid-fork mounts though.

@wayaway I hadn't really thought about it but when I went in there after a lot of rain a while ago it did feel quite damp, not as if the rain had come directly in but it was a bit damp. It's well ventilated though so I'm hoping it won't be a problem.

Finally finished my winter road bike, on the day it started to feel like winter was lifting. My LBS came up with a neat solution to mount the rear mudguard after the mount in the down tube was brazed in at a very wonky angle. The tubeless set up on this is still generally causing more problems than it's worth, may revert to tubes with some different tyres.

I also stripped my traitor down as I am going to take it to Winston to have mudguard, rack mounts, added as well as canti/v-brake mounts on the fork. I really like it how it rides and want to use it as my everyday get around bike.

I am thinking a very dark green for the powder coat so all the components still match. Possibly RAL 6020 or 6036.

I also made a little bit of progress on a Marin Bear Valley SE I picked up on here a long time ago now.
Realised the XT RD I bought is the opposite way round, that's what rapid rise means. Will I need a matching shifter or will it work with any compatible shifter? Need to get some kind of goat link extender as the cassette didn't come with one.

Oh the traitor and bear valley are really exciting! What is the clearance on the traitor frame like?

So many nice bikes in here!

I really like the current setup of the traitor, I'm curious how it will turn out, can't go wrong with matching components in one of those colors

Really like your bikes!

I've got 35s on at the moment and there's a decent amount of clearance still, I test fitted some 45mm guards and it all looked ok. The fork is a steamroller fork, looks like it should be ok for 45mm guards and 35 tyres, especially with a V/canti brake.

Nice collection of bikes and I like what you've done with the space. Curious to know your thoughts on the Bootzipper. I was dangerously close to ordering one before christmas when they looked particularly appeling in the black friday/pre-christmas/early boxing day sales but in practise its probably a little too close to my Straggler in terms of what it does. Doesn't stop me wanting one though.

Well, it's my first MTB so I'm no expert, initial impressions are very capable off road haha. Haven't ridden it enough to fully comment. Currently having a nightmare trying to get it indexed with SRAM 12 speeds exacting B-screw position. Reminds me, I need to order the tool.

I stuck some 2.3inch Maxxis DTH on the Diamondback and I have to say it looks quite cool, they will definitely come up quite a bit less than 2.3 inch but I didn't measure them.

I picked up this cool Salsa stem to run on it. Went ahead and removed the old stem, slid the Salsa one in and hang on, it's too narrow. Measured it and it's less than 1 inch? I was not aware that quill stems came in less than 1 inch? Is this some kind of road and MTB definition of "1" inch?

Was also planning on removing the cantis because I would no longer have the hanger in the stem but then I realised the shifters and brake levers are combined and I planned to leave the drivetrain as is because it works fine. So it's kind of back to the drawing board. The reach is way too long with these crazy old school MTB stems, tried these Thorn bars but it's too high up and looks lame, most importantly.

I might be mistaken but I reckon your fork is 1 1/8", so it needs a stem with a 25.4mm insertion diameter. Usually quill stems have a 22.2mm diameter, while some early-mid '90s MTBs use 25.4mm.

There's 22.2->25.4 shims you can use though.

Your fork is a weird 1-1/4" threaded, same as my Ascent. I've had to run an adaptor to run a 1" quill.

sweeeet garage.

Huh, that's good to know.

I was confused as I measured the original stem and it came up exactly 1 inch. The headtube does look a little thicker than other 1 inch headtubes but I just put it down to thicker wall MTB tubing.

Any suggestion for an adapter?

If you don't mind me asking, how have you secured the garage? I've been thinking about doing something similar for a while (it's kinda the dream) but a lot of the estate garages near me that are up for rentals look mighty easy to break into. I know that's 'what insurance is for' etc but it's not really the point.

I guess you can't really put an anchor in the floor either if you're renting?

Also, great bikes.

Think I bought a cheap one off ebay? Can't seem to find the one I bought, however it was pretty similar to this one

@Dexter and you just used the 1 1/8 to 1 inch adapter bit? Will a 1 1/8 one work ok with the 1 1/4 inch fork? If I have understood correctly.

@returnofthestaff I just rented it off gumtree and fortunately it looks very secure, it is inside building with a very solid looking door with several other garages with their own solid doors. There are quite a few fairly expensive classic cars in there so I think people feel quite secure.

I also took the guards and rack off the Marin San Rafael and replaced the slicks with some 38mm gravelking EXTs. I'm calling it a gravel bike.

The gravelkings were so difficult (impossible) to seat that I gave up and put tubes in. The beads wouldn't even sit at the outside of the rim and just seemed to stick to each other in the middle of the rim bed. Maybe it's because they're so cold, they felt very stiff.

Nice. I'll hunt around for something similar; you've given me faith that secure garages do exist.

Also, fellow Hub Velo CC member?

Haven't made a lot of progress recently with stuff so not much to update but I did the brazing done on my traitor frame. Bit of miscommunication with rack mounts on the fork, I have made it work but it's a bit messy so I think I'll go back and get it changed.

No, I just needed some new bottles the day before I was going away as the bigger ones didn't fit under my frame bag and it's my closest shop, nice place though.