fks Splat's That (some Kuwaharas etc)

... And found a place on the old kent road to cut them, was £15 all in. Not bad.

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Figured I'd try the fork out first, to see how it comes out. Flatted it back, primer looks alright. We'll see.

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Wooo! Where is that?

just the square of grey outside my flat ha

Haha, no I meant the vinyl cutting place on Old Kent Road.

ffs

They're called Hexio. Threw in a couple of extra sheets for when I inevitably f**k it.

Were you running the stock brake pads? Because those are terrible. I changed them for SwissStop pads, which made a huge difference.

Interesting. If I hadn't already thrown them in a bin and then set fire to the bin I might have tried that.

But...

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How are the juins?

Tbh I only fitted them last night. But on a highly scientific 30-second spin around a car park, they bite.

Edit : they're the 4-pot version, so hoping for good things.

I'm keen to hear how you find them!

They are quite nice and slim line compared to some of the other semi hydraulic ones so I might give them a go too.

I just bought a second pair of Juins. I rate them!

An update on the Juins - I really like them

Was a bit underwhelmed until the pads broke in, but they remind me a lot of the Rival hydraulic brakes I had on a previous bike. The feel at the lever is good, smooth, progressive, and linear - they feel like a decent hydraulic brake.

Not quite the outright power of the Rivals, but honestly not far off. They definitely don't have that grabby initial bite that Shimano hydros tend to, so all in all I'm super happy with them.

Using with TRP levers and Yokozuna compressionless housing, same as I was with the Spyres - I only swapped the calipers over. Difference is night and day.

compressionless is the key here

You should have stayed for the soggy Sunday ride for a real test ;)

It's true, it's true

Painting the step-thru rocky has continued at a leisurely pace. Decided I'm going to do the stem to match.

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Oh and also I decided I need a MounTainBike. Some simple, rigid, light-ish, zingy, playful, and just a bit of fun really.

Had my eye on such entities as a Singular Swift, Cotic Solaris, Niner Ros9 etc, all of which I missed popping up on ebay because I basically just forgot to bid, which is silly because they all fitted the brief pretty well.

However, in my haste what I've ended up with is a Brother Big Bro frameset from ebay. Which ticks the first two boxes, but none of the other ones.

ffs.
(sellers pic)

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On unboxing it and having a fiddle, I could see straight away that the NDS dropout had.... well, lots of 'tolerance'.

Dropped Brother an email to check what was in spec, and they suggested that it looks like the slot that the slider sits in in the dropout had opened up from the brake forces over time, and that it's not the first one they've seen do this, especially when the nonce who built it up didn't use washers on the bolts that hold the sliders in place . +1 for their speedy and honest responses, though. But we soldier on.

Anyway, there was about 2mm of vertical play in the dropout, which amounted to easily 10-15mm or so at the top of the wheel when mounted. Exchanged a few messages with the seller, they insisted it was fine... after a little bit of to and fro, we eventually agreed to a sizable refund. ie I basically just paid for the postage and the seatpost and headset it came with. Result.

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I'd considered just putting a bit of epoxy resin on there and filing it back to close the slot up, but that seemed a bodge too far, even though it might have worked for a bit. So after hunting around for a pair of paragon or similar dropouts to replace these, and realising they wouldn't be a straight swap and would probably need a bit of seatstay/chainstay modification too (and it being way more than I wanted to spend on what is, let's face it, a really rather unremarkable frame), I went to see our friendly neighbourhood bike guy Winston.

Spent a couple of hours with him, we aligned the axle from the drive side dropout (which looked in good shape) and agreed that a little shim on the NDS was the way to go. He silver brazed a bit of stainless plate in, filed it back a bit. It's probably not the most elegant repair in the world but it's just what I was after - it seems to work fine, and holds the wheel in place straight. Job done.

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and this is the basis of what I'm thinking for it.

Picked up some XR1501 wheels quite cheap, hoping these will inject a bit of pep into it. Had some bullmooses and a ratty old flite saddle in a box. Probably an old square taper crankset, + whatever else I can get my mitts on.

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Nice dropout repair! Singlespeed?

I'm afraid some gears are on their way. Probs just 10 speed as 11 speed cassettes are somehow like a hundred pounds now

you can pick up an 10 speed XTR shifter / mech for less than £100 on ebay tbf...

Rather that than 11/12 speed stuff which costs 2 or 3x as much and isnt as nice.