vp's Cogworks: The Marin and Beyond

Yeah, a slight bdhu (or probably only hu) is definitely required. Works great otherwise, happy with these Sensah shifters.
Had to get a front mech as well because the diagonal pull 105SC doesn't work well with brifters.

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And may I present to you, the most boring bike on the planet, now with a full cheapo Decathlon cockpit. Ahead adapter turned out pretty clean this time.
Next step is tyres and a set of Ergon grips with built in bar ends I guess.

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I've done a bit of bdhu treatment on the Puch, which now looks a lot better.
Annoyingly, I couldn't yet test it in action, as I've managed to fuck my right hand and wrist up over a month ago, and I still cannot ride a bike without significant pain.

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Perfection is easy

I've had good guidance ;)

I bought this bike on the 15th of August 2019, so exactly 4 years ago. Time flies! It looked significantly different back then.

My hand was healing much slower than expected. Weirdly enough, I've had no problems in the gym doing weight training, but riding a bike was painful. So, I haven't been cycling (or wrenching on bikes) in the past 6 months. However, it's been getting better lately, and during the Christmas holidays I decided to take action.

Singlespeed is back. Initially went 40-15 with a tensioner, then figured I could try my luck without. 36-13 with some random old chainring and cog, worked fine for 100 meters then the chain snapped. Tried again with a new 38-15 chainring+cog combo. These arrived today. Tomorrow morning I'll stress-test things.

I've ditched the rack and the bottle cage, and changed a few bolts to stainless ones. Will get a shorter bolt for the front mudguard clamp, the current one is really long and ugly. Got a new saddle and a set of plastic pedals that are surprisingly good quality. Also mounted a set of Zoom brake levers, the left one has an integrated bell, which is really loud. A bit heavy, a bit ugly, no reach adjustment, might upgrade later on.

And then, grips. I should have tried actual Ergons way earlier. These GP1 Evos are phenomenal. What a difference! Curious how they hold up on longer distance rides.

I really wanted to install a middle-mount kickstand. Frustratingly, the one I bought didn't fit (the left crank was hitting into it no matter what; that's what you get with hollowtech road cranks on an old trekking frame). This part of the project is on hold for now, I might try again with a wider crankset later.

I've sold the track bike and the Puch by the way.

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That's clean.

Ta!

Further important improvements.

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These are the marginal gains I can get behind.

I love a challenge I guess...

I was randomly browsing Marktplaats, when this size 54 Batavus Verona came up for 25 bucks, which is an absolute bargain for something that works. This one, well... I did ride it for 5 km and I'm still alive.

We have 2 bikes at my workplace for shared use, 1 of which is unusable and pretty much unrepairable, completely rusted through. This should be a nice replacement.

Fun list:
Shifter doesn't work
Brakes barely work
Lighting doesn't work
One spoke missing from the rear, several spokes bent and loose
Tyres are long gone
Chain is ridiculously worn and rusty
Brake levers are loose, mismatched and terribly weathered
Grips need to be replaced too

But! Seatpost ain't stuck. QR stem works too. Headset and BB have no play and aren't too scratchy either. No huge rust patches. Definitely salvageable.

Found new tyres tubes at work. Ordered the rest of the replacement parts for 30 bucks. Will source spokes and spoke nipples from the lbs.
I might also replace the chain guard later on.

I absolutely love these Dutch city bikes by the way. They have a lot of quirky features, but all in all they are extremely functional. Pity that a lot of people don't take care of them.

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Phew! Slow progress, but finally finished with breaking the components down. Cleaned up a ridiculous amount of grime, mud, oil residue, cobwebs, spiders (both dead and alive).
Right side brake lever straight up snapped in half while I was getting the cable out.
I had to order a 15mm socket for my breaker bar in order the get the rear wheel out, the nut was so rusted. Then I've spent a good 20 minutes with separating the washers from the dropouts. Oh well, Evaporust made them sort of rust-free again.

Tomorrow I'll source some spokes and start building it up.

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With bent spokes in the rear like this, my bet is that someone tried to steal the bike while it was locked.

With a bit of maintenance, these kind of bikes can be used for 30+ years.

Could very well be! And indeed I guess this has at least 10 more to go, unless the rust eats through it earlier haha.

Finished today. Boy, what a ride. Was a lot more challenging than anticipated. Couldn't salvage the rear mudguard, entire thing's bent to hell and rubs on the wheel no matter what.
Brakes are crap. I've read a Sheldon article that if you use these roller brakes dry, without their special grease, they are instantaneously toast. Well this one didn't have either of the plugs on the grease ports, and there was absolutely no sign of grease anywhere, so go figure.
The rear wheel has a lot of wobble, the rim itself must be quite bent and I couldn't true it unfortunately.

But anyways, it is now an actual, rideable bicycle, so I'll count the project as a success.

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Good work getting it going. It bears more than a passing resemblance to...

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Exactly what I thought

Thanks, and indeed haha!

Time to get the Brompton out of hibernation and give it some upgrades. Bought a set of brake levers from Ali. Apparently I'll need to cut about 1 cm off the grips for the levers to fit properly (it's a 2023 A Line, so it comes with pre-2017/cheapo brakes, shifter and grips). I might change the shifter too, was thinking about a Sturmey thumbie, which looks and operates much nicer.
And it really needs mudguards.

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Much better. These Ergons are a game changer in terms of comfort.

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Tinkering itch, aka. Marin goes 1x10. Scored this entire Sensah RX10 groupset for a whopping €34 on sale. I've had issues with ghost shifting before (these noodle-thick CrMo tubes are flexing like crazy), but my chainline was always crap with the XT crankset. With the current R500 cranks the chainring is perfectly centered, hopefully that will help mitigate the issue. Weather's getting warmer, I wanna commute on this thing again.

Also, the Brommie really really needed mudguards, which I've just ordered. The final push to the purchase was me riding through a large pile of dog poo at relatively large speed, spraying the contents onto the frame, brakes, seatpost etc. What a lovely ride that was!

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I’m keen to see how the Sensah goes, I’ve been thinking about them for something for a while.

The set arrived yesterday, however, the box was damaged. The derailleur either got fucked during this, or it had major QC issues to begin with. One of the rivets that hold the thing together is not properly fastened. This causes the cable guide run bent. I don't really have a way to fix this by myself. Nonetheless I've installed everything.
The derailleur itself looks quite straight. I have good shifting at the highest 5 gears only, the rest aren't working, the chain jumps around. I've had pretty much the same issue on this bike before. I did check it with a proper hanger straightening tool though and it was straight... Anyways, back to singlespeed for now, maybe I get a free replacement for the derailleur and I'll try again.

The shifter itself is quite awesome , very snappy, and the lever that switches to higher gear can be either pushed or pulled. They did miss the clamping bolt out though. It's standard M5, so I could replace it, but still...
The cassette looks pretty good, I couldn't find any defects, the cogs run straight and have even spacing. The whole thing isn't very heavy either.
And the chain is good too.

Overall If I get a refund for the derailleur I'm happy with the purchase. I don't have another bike to test the set on at the moment, but I was thinking of another retro MTB restomod lately...

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I’m going to say you’re not really selling it to me :D Except the shifter sounds good!

38-15 gearing on this is quite perfect on the flats against the headwind. Second time I rode anything other than my Brompton this year.

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1000th post in the thread, gotta celebrate with an impulse buy.

Saw the ad, messaged the seller, picked it up in two hours.
1995 Koga Miyata GentsRacer. Hardtlite FM-1 triple butted crmo goodness. Frame and fork both look and feel straight. Full 105SC groupset, was advertised as 2x7 speed but it's actually 2x8. 130mm dropouts, which means it can accomodate up to 10sp without any issues.
56 cm frame, 56 cm toptube, it's a bit long but can make it work.
I really didn't need another bike, but this was too good to pass up on. Original Koga seatpost and seat as well.

Original intention was to flip it, maybe strip and sell the parts, but it's kinda growing on me...
Picture was taken 1 minute after purchase, excuse the bricks.

Left side brifter sticks (as expected from the slow-cure Shimano glue they called grease in the 90s). And the rims are mismatched/not original but the hubs are both 105SC.

Second picture is from the catalogue.

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