ojwithbikes

Looks so good with the front rack and mudguards, that’s a really nice setup. The only shame about the carbon fork I’ve got is not being able to put a front rack on it </3

Kepler looks ace

cheers! just spied your build thread, that bikes had a big transformation, looks great

The Kepler is such a rad colour. Love it

Thank you kind sir

for now just two bikes

Plans sound good, FWIW if i were starting from scratch i'd be looking at a very similar combo to cover all my bike wants/needs. Assuming the Kepler is a bit mundane on the road even on slicks?

I’ve never put anything narrower than 40c on and I try to avoid as much tarmac as possible when I do ride it so couldn’t say for certain. I do sometimes think it would be fun to have a set of wheels with 32c road tires on and a 48t 1x ring just to see what it would be like

Makes sense, i sometimes have to remind myself the reason why i want something versatile like the Kepler is i don't really enjoy riding on the road either. Yours is looking really good btw, looking forward to seeing the Swift in RF mode as well.

apologies for spamming @ojwithbits thread with my pics, but I did run mine with 28mm tyres and carbon fork for a bit as well and didn't feel like it was particularly mundane. it's not exactly race geo, but it's still capable on group rides

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Ah sick, I’ve never seen one with thinner tyres actually, looks better than I thought it would, tempting!

The road fixed Brother Swift project may well be finito folks, from something to do sweet skidz on to something to struggle up hills on. All I had to add were some:

1. 40c Pro Vibe drop bars.
   
2. Zipp 100mm 6deg stem
   
3. A cane creek dummy stoker lever and a SRAM s500 lever for braking purposes.
   
4. Shimano Ultegra front brake I hadn’t had on this bike for a while, that has backwards brake pads I think but I cba to swap them round… is that at all impactful on braking performance? Let me know.
   
5. 19t cog. So with 49t chainring I’m running about 67.85 gear inches.
   
6. Some King Cage USBs so that I can have a bottle to drink after struggling up hills.
   
   

I’ve not ridden it that far yet but it feels super fluid to ride around and effortless to pedal, but I think that has more to do with the step up from 17t to a 19t than it does the drop/hood combo.

Speaking of which, dropping the stem length to 100mm from 130mm was a good move. Having repositioned the levers as #bdhu as I could (the design of the SRAM lever doesn’t play that well with these bars, the way the cable exits means that it stops the lever moving any higher up the bar). I found this Zipp stem on Facebook marketplace for £15, thought it wasn’t gonna suit the bike the best, but actually really rate it. The kinda garish big ‘Zipp’ logo is pretty peak fixie fashion which I reckon balances out the otherwise non peak fixie fashion additions.

Also really glad I could straight swap out the cogs, was dreading having to put links in the chain. The resulting clearance has gotta be worth some cool points right?

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Also, does anyone happen to know the size of the bolt I’d need to mount this cat eye light bracket thing on the carbon fork of the Kepler?

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Brother has turned out super nice!

Cheers! I’m really pleased with it, is really fun to ride around. I just need to actually do some longer rides on it now…

I did it folks, I actually took the road fixed thing to some lanes. I stole a WNKR route I found on here, a 60km circle from Ingatestone in Essex as it was pretty short, pretty flat, and I’ve never really done the the whole road biking lanes thing before except on a couple occasions.

At the start of this road fixed build, I was worried that riding it around may make want a road bike, which would be no bueno for the finances or for the clutter tolerance of the people that I live with. It’s early days but I definitely don’t think I’m there yet, road riding seems to be way more ‘type 2’ fun than nipping around the city or riding off-road. Maybe it’s just because the sub-40 mile route that I took wasn’t exactly mega scenic or challenging, and if it was done on an actual road bike and not a fixie then I’m sure it would be pretty boring. Maybe? Im probably chatting total shit from a standpoint of little experience. Time will tell.

But anyway, it was a lot of fun, surprised myself on pace, thought I’d be way slower. Didn’t take any photos because the route was super rural and short, so I didn’t stop till the end where I grabbed these pics. Note that that whole tart is just full of caramel, I couldn’t finish it, incredible scenes.

Here’s the route incase you’re interested.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/4943670

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Looks nice! What's the gear ratio on this?

Its 49x19, so a little under 68 inches I think

New thread title.

Because I finally have space for another bike and I’ve now (almost) bought a Genesis Equilibrium and am going to turn it into a very budget, functional, lockup-able, Hulsroy-inspired, DIY, ‘make do with what ya got’ winter road/commuter bike.

I got a good price on near enough a complete 56cm Equilibrium with a pretty much complete 10 speed 105 group set from a nice user on here. Just needs a chain, cables, bar tape, a front derailleur, and some pedals to be rideable.

However, I’m going to totally ignore how easy this build could have been, and instead I’m going to strip all the paint off, DIY respray it, and maybe mess around with stripping the anodising of a few parts. Lots of black and silver mishmashing. Worn and old but curated parts bin build kinda vibes. (see mood board below).

Im pretty much building this bike because
a) I’m bored of winter and having a project cures that boredom
b) A winter road bike does seem like a lot of fun despite my previous grumblings. I can’t really see myself riding the gravel bike until the daylight hours start swinging in the other direction. Road fixed is fun and definitely something I’ll continue, but fixed does limit the amount of exploring I can eek out of my time (slower/harder going). Getting ‘out there’ and enjoying new scenery under my own steam is largely what I enjoy most about riding bikes.
c) I’m travelling back to my ‘home’ area of Herefordshire for a week this Christmas. I was going to take the Swift in road-fixed mode as Herefordshire is largely pan flat and I’ll definitely need a bike to keep myself sane there for that long. But then I found some space for a new bike… a good deal came up… you know the drill. So now the plan is to do the Festive 500 on this low-grade, early 2010s winter road bike thing around the places I hung out/lived as a kid, and then ride it 130kms to Bridgend for an NYE party at a friend’s house. I think that alone warrants all the time and money I’ll spend on it in the next month… right?

Picking the bike up on Saturday, hopefully have the strip and paint done the Saturday after, then build it all up again. Have it all dialled in for the train to the ‘shire on the 23rd.

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Looking for a black inline post (cheap brand-x or bbb probably), some SPD pedals, and a Shimano FD if anyone has something

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/381778/#comment16774191

A very 50% effort respray is underway.

After using a hairdryer to help peel off the stickers and head badge, I cleaned the frame with soapy water and white spirit. I then wet sanded the paint as it wasn’t in the worst condition and I couldn’t be bothered to go for a whole strip and respray. So hopefully, just removing the clear coat and spraying over the top should be good… There are a few dings and scrapes that you can see if you look hard enough, but I’ve recently come to the realisation that nobody looks at your bike as closely as you do. If you don’t care, no one else will even notice.

I’ll get done liberally clear coating this tomorrow hopefully… May have to find some more clear coat however. Then I’ll leave it inside to cure for however long it takes the last few parts to arrive in the post (or at least a good few days).

The colour is Spray.bike’s ‘Peacock’ which BLB appear to have ran out of. My logic has been that more paint is not necessarily more better. Is that right? Someone must be a diy respray wiZard here. So hopefully I won’t need any more paint now. Just a good few coats of clear. But if anyone happens to have some Peacock cans about, lmk.

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Interested to see how this comes together, mood board is looking promising.

How did you find the spray.bike went on? I found it a bit powdery/chalky when I used it, but it did smooth out with some clear coat on top.

Yeah it definitely does have a sort-of powdery finish without clear coat layers. They do say something about ‘polishing’ the paint before it fully dries with parchment paper - basically compacting the powder to get it a bit stronger and more smooth. But that kinda terrifies me so haven’t done it this time or last time I used the stuff.

Last time I used it to was to spray a frame for my girlfriend, we just went very liberal (two cans of clear for a 50cm frame) with clear coat and it ended up very shiny and smooth looking. That’s basically what I’m hoping happens this time.

And yeah cheers! Hopefully should be a pretty fun cheap bike, it’s been a fun project so far anyway

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Was waiting for a stem and frame pump to come in the post for over a week, missed the delivery, lost the paper slip, now have to wait another 8 days for redelivery to the local post office to collect :(((((

The Royal Mail execs can get fucked

Actually, big stroke of luck, the bits were redelivered today randomly. Seems like a third party self-employed courier did it, interesting that Royal Mail are reaching for that instead if ya know, all the demands of their staff…

Picked up some new tyres and cages from Condor, both cheap. £19.99 on sale for each tyre on sale. #tanwalleverything and I hear they’re fairly decent in the wet? Never ridden them before. Speaking of which, also splashed out on the Koolstop Salmons for the rim brakes, can’t remember how much difference these things make but as it’s a winter bike I figured it would probably be a useful upgrade.

Put a few bits on here for a progress pic, mudguards need adjusting a bit, I’ll need to cut the cheap Brand X seatpost down because it’s mega long.

Also, I have no idea how these Topeak frame pumps work? I bought the size up from this one here before, it was too big for the bike and seemingly didn’t lock, so I returned it. Got this one in the post here, it also seems to not lock? Or am I being totally stupid? It actions like a pump regardless of wether the switch is in HP mode or not? Anyone know what’s going on here?

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yep, I’m totally stupid, just figured the pump thing out lol. It pushes in… obviously. Idiot hahah.

Anyone want a medium Masterblaster? I need to reorder that L I sent back…