Josh's bikes

Went and rode my favourite bike this afternoon after a stressful meeting.

Boosted the serotonin and now I feel great again.

These trails (newbold comyn, Leamington Spa) are wicked...I think a mtb may be in the works as they are round the corner from me.

Nothing too modern or techy, just something I can send over them jumps and climb up the hills.

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Looks great as ever, Is this frame 1/8th?

yeah 1 1/8th with Kona p2 forks. 410a-c.

Nice little bike ride today. Starting to like this bike but starting to think black forks and stem would be nice.

If anyone has any ritchey wcs forks with the nice subtle curve in, let me know.

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Ha! Looks like a rigid Lauf fork in that reflection. That CaadX is superb, I’d leave it as it is.

Don't think Ritchey ever did nice full carbon forks for cantilever that has that sweet swoop the modern ones have

Ever so slightly. I think they only came on the Swiss cross frameset though

Arh yes obviously! They are pretty

In other developments.

I've always wanted to have a go at brazing something bike related (like most of us creative people) and since buying a house with a garage, I now have the space to do so.

As a oxy-acetylene set up is both pricy and ambitious for a self taught beginner, I decided on the MAPP gas approach. As its low risk and can still get small jobs like making racks done. (Also on my agenda is fixing a 58cm Genesis Croix de Fer, but more on that later)

First things first is to buy myself a little pipe bender and some tubing a learn how to use that...

Turns out it's pretty straight forward although the pipe bender was a strange design and had the bend radius on the handle so 1) there was nowhere to clamp it in the vice and 2) you could only the length of the handle which was 250mm, not good for anything bike rack related.

So after stressing out that I bought the wrong kind of pipe bender and refusing to spend money on another one. Chopped then handle of the lovely Ridgid pipe bender, drilled some holes and attached the cut off handle with some m4 nuts and bolts so I can now clamp it in the vice and bend to variable lengths...

Crisis averted.

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This looks exciting

Tube bending looks to be a good start. I took have recently acquired a garage and have similar ambitions. How have you got on (with planning or doing) the mapp gas stuff?

Managed to braze up one rack so far. Thoughts and photos to come :).

Once the pipe bender drama was sorted, the next thing to get going was the gas situation.

I was gifted a oxy acetylene set up by my father in law and all I needed was the gasses. Not knowing much about this and knowing how risky it can be for an amature I decided to go down the MAPP gas route as its low risk, low cost and easy to get some practice in.

The first torch I bought was shit and blocked after 10 minutes of use age, meaning no gas would flow through the nozzle.... Straight to the bin with that. @RabiCycle gave me a tip on a decent torch and so far Its been great.

Now the equipment issue was sorted, actually getting some practice in was the main priority. I had a scrap steel frame that I practiced brazing on and managed to successfully stick two metal "braze on" things to the frame, which was good enough for me to just braze up the rack I had just bent and cut up etc.

The best way to practice is by doing, right?!

I personally think my very first attempt at cutting and brazing a rack went successfully. Though we will find out how straight it is when it's mounted!

Hardest thing I found was keeping the heat up enough with the mapp gas to get a nice flow of bronze, so buts went well and some bits no so well...

Also holding things in place is tricky, I'd like to make a jig to hold it in place whilst tacking or need to get some kind of metal fixings.

I'm going to get it mounted today, see if it's straight and then tidy it all up.

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I didnt know MAPP gehts stuff hot enough to braze with brass! Thats very cool.

This is looking good!

Could you share the mapp torch recommendation?

Presumably using mapp for getting the workpiece up to temperature would be easier with hollow thin walled bike tubes, compared to solid rod as in your rack... And maybe impossible with really chunky stuff like cast dropouts etc

This is just sifbronze 01 aswel, not 101 which I've also been recommended... I ordered the wrong one!! I suspect the 101 will flow better than than the 01.

What are you using?

@Cupcakes this is 8mm tubing with a 1mm wall thickness so it heats up pretty well... I don't know if it'll be okay for bike tubing as the area it heats up is larger than desirable due to the torch nozzle..

Ill drop the links to my equipment later on when I'm home.

Following with interest, looks like a pretty good job for a first attempt. Will be taking note on the equipment list too.

It ain't perfect but it certainly is a rack!

Everythiny fits as it should, some tubes are a bit wonky but honestly I'm very happy for a first attempt!

Going to clean and file it up later on this evening!

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Very cool.

List of what I used here:

Torch I never use amazon usually.

Bronze

Cycle Design flux and mapp gas from eBay.

looks excellent king

Went ahead and fixed that Genesis Croix de Fer frame a local framebuilder said "wasn't worth it"...

It's all such a fun and enjoyable process... Learning how to file joints so they sit straight and flush, brazing in things, filing and cleaning up...

I'm going to see if it rides okay and then the plan is to move the cable routing from the top tube onto the down tube... Purely for aesthetics.

Really not bad for a home repair. Not pretty though!

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Put on the suspension forks and went for a local cross country single speed ride.

Was ace, though I almost fell down down a 8ft drop into a river due to getting caught on a branch in some single track... Was sketchy big overall I didn't drop down so wasn't an issue!

Good ride, around 15miles and all from my doorstep.

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Looks lovely. What ratio are you running?

Running 36/17 currently but it's a bit hard work with the big tyres / front suspension.

I think I'm going to 34 - 18 next and see how that fairs up on the trail. Which I think will be slightly nicer on the knees