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

In keeping with tradition I’ve forgotten to update this thread in a bit so here goes.

I didn’t use the squid fork on the Twenty, I figured it was easier to build a fork for it instead instead.

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I think I showed you my track bike before but I made some bars for it. I wanted a narrow bar with a ‘hoods’ position like the WXR and Velobike bars that are popular at the moment.

Someone saw me riding these at the velodrome and commissioned their own set which they say have really helped them with lack of hip flexibility/a hernia that means they can’t get down in an aggressive position anymore so that’s been good.

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I decided I wanted a singlespeed freewheel gravel bike, considered buying a Spesh Singlecross or something but went with giving my third frame its third rear end!

I built it in 2019 to take 25mm tyres, gave it chainstay dimples and new seat stays in 2020 so it took about a 32mm tyre but the chainstays were too short to go any larger. It now takes a 40mm tire.

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Gave it a nice seatstay wishbone and made it a budget Redshift stem.

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The suspension stem works a lot better than I imagined it would and I was really happy with how the paint turned out.

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I’ve also been doing some repairs, like this Flying Scott that had cracked right through the downtube.

I couldn’t get hold of a Nervex lug for the right downtube diameter so modified this Prugnat lug to look a bit more similar.

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Genesis CDF that needed a downtube replacement following a theft attempt which creased the tube and it later cracked and modified this fork and am about half way through building a rack to go along with it.

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Back to my stuff now, I liked the Flexstem on the gravel bike so much I did a shorter one for my mtb.

Also brazed a silver dollar on to the rotor bb cup that closes up my stash compartment as the wooden button my dad turned me must have shrank and fallen out somewhere as I was riding.

Along with a larger front tire I hope the Flexstem would have me feeling a little less shaken around on the mtb and I think it worked. The stem being much shorter means there’s much less travel and much less leverage so the ‘spring’ is a lot firmer but I think I felt it working but…

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…that test ride took place at Comrie trail centre and I got curious as to what a modern full sus mtb would be like so hired a 160mm travel Merida, got a bit brave and hit a jump I normally ride around, promptly followed by hitting the floor and I’ve broken my collarbone.

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Riding a modern mtb was pretty amazing, especially jumping from a fully rigid singlespeed into it.

I had no idea how good clutch mechs were, pretty much no chainslap noise and it climbed so much better than I imagined a full sus bike would (especially when I reverted about the gears!).

I had been thinking about upgrading to something like the bike I hired and had I not crashed and broken my collarbone I’m sure that hitting that bike would have convinced me but getting carried away and exceeding my ability was one thing that concerned me so instead of spending my off bike time shopping for a new bike, I’ve come up with a new project.

I’ve bought a modern 150mm travel Fox fork and an ancient, low speed GT LTS500 frame for it to go with!

Obviously there’s some incompatibility there so I’ll be building a new front end for the LTS frame which will accommodate the new fork with its much longer travel and tapered steerer.

I also need to modify the seatstays a bit to accommodate a larger tire. I’d hoped I might e able to fit a 27.5” rear wheel in but that would require major surgery so I’ll settle for a 26 x 2.4 wheel abs tyre combo. The front will be 29” (I think, I’ve still to buy the rim for that wheel so maybe I’ll go 27.5”) so it’s a mullet set up.

The shock mount will get moved slightly, mainly for tyre clearance again but also I’m dropping the position on the rear dropouts to give less bb drop. What this means for how the suspension will work is anybodies guess. There’s the travel chips in the linkage and the shock can be screwed up or down in the trunion mount so I’m hopeful I can make it work. I mean, it is around 20 year old suspension design so it probably never worked that well to start with!

I did think about adding a disc tab to the frame but I’ve got a nice rim brake 26” wheel with a singlespeed hub so I’ve bought a Magura HS33 to run on the back. Mullet wheels, why not mullet brakes!

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Though this was mad, the old geometry versus where the new fork and headtube would sit in order to get a ‘modern’ stack and reach. Also just the size of a 29er wheel and 150mm fork compared to the 26er frame, absolutely dwarfs it!

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Shit a brick mate! At least you’ll have time to get the new bike right. Heal well.

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Amazing stuff. Sorry to hear about the collarbone though.

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/now-that-was-a-bike-1995-gt-lts.html

Very curious to see how this develops. Minimal chopping up of the rear end makes sense. Curious to see how you solves the new tube to existing seat tube interface.

Those 'proper' ones with the curved link age are the bomb.

By re-doing the lower shock mount I'm able to rotate the bottom bracket and existing seattube forward to get a decent STA with the minimal bb drop that I want to my plan for the top tube is to leave a couple inches of the existing top tube there, braze a short piece of tubing across the way to that and then I can bring the new top tube onto that.

I think the downtube - bb junction will be easier. The seattube doesn't actually attach to the bb shell, there's the block that holds the lower swingarm pivot between them and it's got a flat front, the downtube butts up against that so cutting the old downtube back and shaping the new one to fit should be pretty simple.

Downtube does look to be easiest part! No idea on the butting on the seat tube and top tube, but why not leave a good chunk of top tube, and bring the he new top tube in in such a way to give it a GT triple triangle (this may not actually work give the angles but would be cool).

I haven't checked this thread in a while, a lot to take in for sure (in a best possible way!). The GT modernization project sounds bonkers/awesome.

I've pulled the reach on the GT project back a bit, namely as I had a nice Nova curved downtube I wanted to use and it wasn't long enough with the reach at 510!

I've got it mitred up a nd ready to go, think I'm going to cut a bit more off the toptube and bring that joint back a bit. Also think I need to actually order a tube for this.

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That’s pretty epic. Bit late now but if the top tube had been left longer would’ve had strong BtR Pinner homage feeling. Be fun to see the front triangle in place!

I owe this thread some updates.

The GT LTS finished and out in the wild.

The fork developed a bit of a leak on the damping side so I have some parts to rebuild it, just gotta find the time.

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Also bought myself a Kona Honzo for which I’ve built a custom bar and stem. The stem has no extension tube, the bar clamp is mitred right onto the steerer clamp and there’s a 22.2-31.8mm shim that’s filed out to allow for the overlap.

Messed around with swapping the forks about between the two mountainbikes but I think I prefer the Fox on the Kona.

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And most recently I’ve been pumping my Raleigh Twenty.

I’m planning on using it for the etape Caledonia next year so thought I should add a three speed hub which meant it needed a rear brake as the previous hub was a coaster. Added brake posts and some cable routing, bought it some nice Paul cantis and made a new handlebar for it, new front wheel to match the rear, replaced the std B17 saddle with a B17 Narrow, swapped the cage to a King and found a frame pump to fit the pegs.

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That Raleigh is insane in the best way possible

These slap so hard, honestly some of the best bikes

That Raleigh is insane in the best way possible

Hard agree, such a great bike