• Is there any good reason for a steel frame to have been (badly) cold set out to 145mm at the rear?

    Context: 1990-ish Dawes Street Wise hybrid frame (basically a Raleigh Pioneer) with 135mm spacing as standard. Found in basically unridden condition and original spec as pictured. Intended to make into a sort of flat bar gravel thing but discovered that the drive side seat stay has a big kink in it and the spacing is 10mm wider than it should be. No signs of crash damage or other mods.

    So, is there some secret reason someone might have done this, or has the frame just been buggered for no real purpose?

    Side note: have tried cold setting inwards using the threaded rod method and not got very far (maybe 2-3mm of change), so is the frame toast or should I persist?


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  • Bodge a tandem rear wheel into it?

  • Rad bike.

    I feel that cold setting it back to 135 mm should be fine. Are you familiar with the string method of checking for symmetry? Sheldon Brown has an article.

    You can just go further with the threaded rod method - which is handy because you can count turns and work methodically. I like the plank method myself, a little more brutish but you can bend each side separately and achieve symmetry.

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