Current Projects chat and miscellany

Did LOL, which hurts as I've been off work all week with cracked ribs.

While that sucks it has given me the chance to slowly do some overdue maintenance and finish some recent builds.

First up on the slab is my Nikor which did all my hard winter miles so was due a drivetrain overhaul. New cables, brake pads, cassette, chain, tape and tyres gets things all running smoothly again.

Also being turned upside down up to a dozen times a day to remove a wheel to get bike in a car over the last year with work, has changed the religion of my Flite saddle, which has gone and got itself circumcised.

I may as well strip that back completely now, which I can do on a rainy midweek evening.....so basically any day this coming week then :/

In the meantime I've thrown on a Turbo and the with the drivetrain refresh its scrubbed up nicely. The only thing it needs now is a replacement Cinelli roundel that has fallen out of the front of the XA stem, but thanks to some 3D printing wizardry from @kiskubai this may hopefully be sorted soon. Full Columbus Max frame, modern wider rims and 28c tyres with 10 speed Campag, might not be a brand me or anyone has ever heard of, but I've been really impressed with this bike.

And I'm a bit late to the carbon party, but I just finished my first plastic bike, not a new one a Look 585, a 'vintage' lugged carbon chariot that should see me ride into the sunset of my MAMIL-hood.
Well happy with how this turned out.



I managed to find a white Look Superlight cage on ebay for 30 quid, so snapped that up....

...but needed a black one to match the black half of the bike. None on eBay, so I check Look's website, which seems to be divided into stockists of bikes, pedals and apparel, but doesn't allow any more specific filtering than that, so I guess it has to be apparel then. I phone the first 5 on list for London, no luck, they all stock cleats and pedals but no cages. One helpful place checks his suppliers but the only Look cages they can get hold of are the different wavey kind, and as I want a cage to match the one I already have, that's no use.

Frustrated at this point I'm going to end up calling evey Look cleat stockist in London, which is pretty much every shop, only to discover none stock the cages, I decide fuck it, I'll go back to the Look website and just buy direct from them in France, if I have to pay extra post Brexit fees so be it, take my money and send me the thing FFS! I try this and it just redirects me back to the UK stockists list, le sigh

I've got to think like a MAMIL, what would a MAMIL do?... so I phone Condor, probably should have thought of that sooner. I get through, the helpful person on the phone says it sounds like the kind of thing they should have, but they don't, and when he checks about ordering one, its only of the different wavey type cage again, bah!

Channel your inner MAMIL, now what? ....I phone SIgma sports. A helpful bloke again says its the kind of the thing they would have, but they haven't, he then comes back and says, 'there appears to be some on Amazon'. I reply this is surely one of those ads that has the pic but is never in stock, or its probs dodge as fuck as its priced at £25 new, which was less than half the RRP. Nevertheless Amazon says it has 2 black ones.

I try not to buy from Amazon, in fact its been so long since I did, when I try to buy the cage I'm told my account is inactive and I have to phone someone in a far away land and get them to reactivate my account, oh FFS all this for a bottle cage. I do it and its all very quick and easy and its done, and I buy it and wait and see what, if anything arrives. 2 days later it arrives, brand new in packaging, seems fully legit and less than half price.

And that folks is I guess why that Bezos fucker has his own space program, I begrudgingly doff my cap, but still kind of wish his galactic trips were one way.

And now to follow through with the MTB bar change and chop, change to bigger chain rings and fit a dropper post, which has not been without drama, so hope to get that finished before the end of the weekend.