M_V's multitude of bikes and adventures in the land of framebuilding

I didn't no, I went with full removal as I tend to not run a rear brake when I ride fixed which was how that frame got used.

You'd need a decent bottoming tap to do it properly and a spiral flute or whichever type ejects the chips upwards since it's a blind hole.

Probably be easier to just remove the existing ones and reattach some of the removable post style bosses that are commercially available if you can deal with having to re-paint.

Doing bespoked this year?

No, being in London seemed like it would add an extra layer of hassle and expense on top of everything else.

Back in June I made a really middle aged purchase, a Cube Travel Pro.

I think that trying a geared mtb had opened my eyes to gears so I started thinking about building something but I decided I wanted hub gears and if I was doing that I may as well do belt drive and discs were probably a good idea, same with a dynamo…

I started pricing stuff up and just buying components got me pretty much to the price of the Cube (little ‘trade’ discount from a velodrome customer that works in a Cube dealer) never mind buying tubes or cracking a gas bottle open.

It’s definitely served it’s purpose, I’ve ridden it far further than I’ve ever managed on fixed. It’s great on road and gravel, full guards and no chain to worry about make for hassle free commuting.

Of course I’ve made some modifications, I fitted the SLX discs that had been on my Kona Unit, which necessitated a shift lever extension as they take up more handlebar space than the stock brakes.

Contact points got changed and I made some bars, tried a couple designs and settled on a stupid wide version of a Crust Jungle Runner.

It’s been great really…but it isn’t steel…

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…so I started thinking about building a frame(set) to shift stuff over to.

Or I could buy something like a 29er Inbred and install a splitter to make it belt compatible.

Or Pashley’s are kinda cool, could I chop up a Pashley and make it take all the components off the Cube?

I could put another new back end on the lugged frame I built a few years ago.

Then I realised the orange gravel bike I showed at a Bespoked was pretty much ideal, it’s just 120mm spaced at the back and probably a bit short in the chainstay to work with the belt stuff.

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Cheers, so it's a case of 'thought about it and decided it was too much hassle for the intended outcome' instead of ' thought about it and realised it wouldn't work'. :)

I might try - paint is pretty nice on mine (had it redone a few years ago). Worst case outcome probably cutting them off and repainting anyway!

The triplane fork that’s currently on the Genesis fits, kind of The crown hits the downtube but the frame has Crud Catcher bosses and with one fitted the crown will hit it not the frame.

I have a Konga half yoke to make room for the belt and a nice stainless seatstay splitter.

I need to decide what dropouts to use. I have some laser cut low mounts that will probably be what I use, just have to decide whether to cut the hanger off or leave it there for future proofing.

Might do a port in the seattube for dropper post routing. I have a 27.2 brand x dropper on the Genesis but I’ve also decided to replace the narrow seattube on my Schwinn klunker with a tube that can take a 27.2 post.

My hope is that this ends up being a bit more off road capable than the Cube while being just as good on road (so I’ll be keeping the dynamo lighting and guards) and if I can ride it down actual mtb trails then I don’t need a geared mtb too.

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Cheers, so it's a case of 'thought about it and decided it was too much hassle for the intended outcome' instead of ' thought about it and realised it wouldn't work'. :)

Yeah, I think I initially thought I could just cut the post off and drill straight through the existing mounts but then I realised they weren't offset from the seat stays enough.

Visible in one of those photos up there is my other new project, a 1955 Matchless G3.

Photo below is after it broke down on the way home from picking it up and I'd pushed it a couple miles by that point. The bridge is one over the M6/A74(M), my dad was on his way down in a van to pick me up!

It's now got a new (Mikuni) carb fitted and is running pretty sweet but it does leak oil like it's going out of fashion. Plan is to top it up as required just now and try get it a bit more oil tight over winter.

In regard to other people’s bikes,

I built a rack onto a Surly fork for a local guy. He’ll fit a 20” wheel which, with the much longer a2c og the Surly fork works out.

It’s designed to take a quick release plate thing that he is going to attach to either a basket or a box.

Forgot to take any photos of it completely finished.

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I’ve been replacing the seattube on this nice old lugged path racer frame as it was cracked just above the bb lug.

Removing the old tube and fitting up the new one…

It's interesting that in some of these photos you can see that the silver hadn't penetrated the joint very well originally. Hopefully I've done a better job putting it back together!

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And all brazed back together.

We decided to add some bottle bosses since I had the tube out and could do so so easily.

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Oh and I’ve built this for my mate who discovered his Surly Steamroller and Cinelli Gazetta were both cracked within days of each other!

It’s about 97 or 98% done. Maybe needs an extra little dimple on the nds chainstay for crank arm clearance and a bit more clean up.

Might try get those jobs done on it this week actually.

It’s been a bit of a slow burner as he and I have both had a lot of other stuff going on but it’ll be good to get it polished off and see him out on it.

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Ta.

I thought the bosses on mine had part open ends, but they're definitely not offset enough to drill through without creating a seatstay hole :)

New project looks good btw. I'm a fan of belt drive in theory, never actually tried it in real life.

Another slow burner is this repair on a curly stay Hetchins for the lever of the lbs.

It came to me with no headtube and no real story of how it got like that.

Couldn’t see anything much like the original lugs which are a bit ornate so I’ve created my own by cutting little wings and adding them to a plainer lug. It’s a fair bit finer than the work I’m used to doing and they aren’t an exact match but the owner is happy with them.

Lot of clean up to go on this one.

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I'm a fan of belt drive in theory, never actually tried it in real life.

When it works* its really quite nice. A bit 'softer' than a chain I think, almost like a cush drive on a motorcycle. One of the first longer rides I did had some riding on that silty sandy type of gravel that gets all over a chain and makes it run horribly, and you know you're never getting it running nicely again, no matter how fastidiously you clean the chain. The belt ran smooth as butter for the whole ride and ever since. Well...

*I'd changed the cranks on the bike to some Ultegra ht2 ones which required mounting the front pulley outside of the chainring tabs (the outer ring position) whereas the stock square taper cranks had mounted the pulley inside of the tabs.

It ran fine until I recently noticed that the pulley was being distorted (it's the lower end CDN stuff so the pulley is some kind of plastic/composite). The chainring tabs on the cranks were pressing into the pulley as can be seen by the indentations in the photo below. It turns out the pulley is flatter on one side than the other.

I didn't want to go back to the stock cranks so tried flipping the pulley so the flatter side was against the crank arm on the Ultegras but the belt derailed. The mounting face on the pulley is a bit offset so I put the derailment down to poor belt line since I'd flipped it. I tried grinding a little bit off the pulley where the dents are so it could fit flatter the original way around but I got a belt derailment again.

I'm presuming the pulley has gotten a bit worn from being used while misshapen so I've ordered a 'CDX' alloy pulley from Aliexpress to see how that runs. I have already purchased a spare genuine CDX belt so can fit that if needed.

With a chain and sprockets I think it'd be a lot easier to see what's at fault and obviously, cheaper to replace parts if required.

Of course, I can't really blame the belt drive system, it's been my fault for changing the cranks and not noticing either the misshapening of the pulley nor the differently shaped sides of it.

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Belt drives are very picky for chainline or "beltline" I suppose. Gates told me 1.5mm or less front to rear or it risks hopping off.

Good progress all round. Fair enough with the London hassle, just thought maybe I'd meet the man, the myth, the legend in person

Thanks for the update. :-)
You've been quite busy it seems. Lots of cool and interesting "little" jobs and the new belt drive mtb sounds like a lot of fun as well!

This fork is sweet. I did the maths once to try and figure out if it would work and have wanted to make it happen since so glad to see you actually do it

Yeah, strangely I think the Ultegras ended up having a better belt line than the stock cranks, only by 0.5mm or so but still.

I did buy some alfine cranks off here but the belt line with them was going to be miles off. I’ve found pictures online of alfine cranks with the pulley mounted in both inner and outer positions so who knows how that works! The rear pulley is also offset but it can only go one way around I’m sure.

To be fair, the customer did the math or maybe more likely, just fitted it and tried it (he was already using it all with a pannier rack bodged onto the fork).

Ironically it was buying the belt drive stuff that worried me most about doing that build from the ground up but since buying the Cube I’ve swapped out the rear pulley for a larger one to drop the gearing a bit, bought a spare belt and have now bought a replacement front pulley because of the issues I’m having, that’s the full drivetrain!

Having the Cube has still definitely been worthwhile though as it’s shown me that that type of bike is something I want and I’ve gotten the miles in on it.

I watched Ali's video and thought those bars looked like yours previously shown on here. He did mention the shop name but I forgot what your business name was.
They looked great anyway.

Getting there on the orange frameset that’s going to get all the running gear from the Cube.

It is now painted and almost all the bits are here to build it (because although it was just meant to be a frameset swap it’s inevitable become more than that).

I’ll wait till it’s finished to show you the paint.

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I also finished this. I may have posted it a while ago, it’sa reasonable nice 631 tubed Aravis that came to me with a very stuck bb so I removed the bb shell lug and fillet brazed a new shell on then changed the rear triangle to turn it onto a fixed/track frame. It’s replaced my pink cinelli lugged frameset as that was too small for me though the track has been shut for tennis so I’ve only ridden it on rollers so far.

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When I was on holiday in Stratford ping Avon earlier in the year I visited a shop selling Pashleys and decided I quite like them.

I bought one which turned out to be too small but managed to shift it on with slight profit and then picked up another last week which is a better fit.

I’ve already modded it a bit, removed the hideous massive Brooks, rear rack/stand Andy skirt guards and flipped the bars over and fitted a longer/lower stem.

I’ve sold the Brooks which has covered the purchase cost of the bike so that’s nice.

Plan is to make it more Guv’nor-ish with a bit more practicality by keeping the guards and dynamo light.

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