ojwithbikes

Bike looks awesome

Dynamo lighting is awesome

Beer can seatpost shims are awesome (and very satisfying eliminating slippage).

yeah it’s been a while since I’ve drawn for the beer can shim but providing this seatpost still slips, and I can then get this seat clamp bolt back out again… and then source a replacement bolt… it may have to happen

Buy a black one and douse it in oven cleaner (NaOH).

not a bad idea, have always wanted to do something like that since seeing Huls do it to some rotor cranks ages ago

I’ve been experimenting with advanced CAD technologies (see attached) and have potentially found a solution to my seatpost problems.

Partially inspired by some nice bikes on the forum that mix black/silver really well (Sam, Tijmen, Maj) as well as some others I’ve seen, I’ve recalled that I have a 30mm Thomson seat clamp - which I’m led to believe is on par performance wise with the goated Salsa Liplock- as well as a black/smoke Chris King headset sitting on my lockup fixie which I’m not using much lately.

Soooo maybe I swap them both out with what is on this hybrid bike; making the fixie more lockup-able and the hybrid more instagram friendly in the process. Oh, and hopefully solve my seatpost woes.

This depends on a few things:
1) getting the slightly rounded silver Brother seat clamp off the bike.
2) putting the Thomson clamp on and seeing if that actually secures the fella in there
3) not having to rebleed the front brake. Can’t be bothered with that. Reckon it would be possible to dangle/support the calliper from the bottom of the internal routing on the fork and whack a crown race off then on again?

2 Attachments

Just take the front brake lever off the handlebar, then you can remove the fork as far away from the bike as you like, no hose routing gets harmed...?

i just sanded off the anno and gave a little polish - didnt take very long

Taking the headset off this tomorrow and swapping the silver one for it.

Thought it would be good to take the opportunity to give it a full breakdown and clean after being a lockup commuter all winter and then rebuild it again in the same form but with a few tweeks

• front brake
  
• Put the oury grips I’ve got spare on
  
• the widest tyres I can fit in there
  
  

With that being said:
Does anyone have a front brake kicking around? I donated mine to my gfs bike.
And some 28-32c tyres?

I think getting a 30 at least in the rear should be pretty easy, 32 perhaps with the wheel far back enough in the fork end.
28 is the stated limit on the fork so perhaps I could squeeze a lil’ 30 in there 🥺

1 Attachment

28c Corsa control something or other? These I think these are the 4 season version and found them to be really durable. The tan has darkened to a pleasing turbo cotton colour so look great with silver rims!

1 Attachment

ah very nice! tempted to try wider though so may refuse your offer for now :)

mind i did just put the fixie back together and went cruising around, man i forgot how fast skinny tyres and a light bike feels, I’ve been rolling on 45s exclusively for a month or so, feels so fun and effortless

do i have words to explain the smile this put on my face as soon as I started riding it down the street? i do not.

Very silly, very fun.

The silver headset swapped out from the Kepler looks so good, why o why did I not do this swap sooner.

The spesh power saddle feels way better than that rock solid narrow carbon slr ever did in this upright cruiser position

And a friend has a spare silver front brake to donate to me as I’m not going to commute up n down Forest Hill everyday with this in brakeless mode. Can’t help thinking a length of pink brake housing would really be chef’s kiss

fixies are forever guys, you might just forget about them for a bit

2 Attachments

fixies are forever guys, you might just forget about them for a bit

This. I didn't have one built up for a couple of years and now I've been riding exclusively fixed around town again and it's so much fun. Stupid bikes are the best.

Looks great by the way.

So nice! Silver brake will finish it off

Looks very nice. I agree that silver brake and pink housing will really finish it off properly.
On-One mollymawk bars?

Nice.l, i like a swift.
Once you replace the wood planks with actual tyres, it will be complete !

Oh and gentlemanly setback seatpost please

No worries, potential 32's here

When I moved to London about 4 years ago to study an MA (don’t ask me what I’m doing with it) I moved to Brockley and did Deliveroo for a bit as I still had an active account from doing it regularly as an undergrad student in Cardiff couple years before.

I had an old road bike - an old Orbit 27” wheeled thing that I had bought in Cardiff for £100 and then eventually spent the summer before moving here revamping the thing, stripped paint, Shimano 600 tri colour parts, long drop brakes, it was really cool in hindsight and was the first bike I’d ever built up - and used to ride it into Greenwich to wait for orders. I knew nothing about the city really but saw that Greenwich looked pretty affluent at surface level , had a good amount of restaurants, and was only a 10 min cycle from my place in Brockley.

Doing Deliveroo from Greenwich in my first few months living in London meant that this part of town was my first experience of London beyond the postcard pictures of Parliament and Tower bridge. It makes all the roads around there feel pretty nostalgic.

That combined with how I then soon got into fixed gear bikes and the fixed beers rides used to frequently go through Greenwich foot tunnel north or southbound means there’s even more nostalgia lurking around there and gives me a nice warm n fuzzy feeling whenever I’m there :*)

I’ve fell out of love with the kind of fixie riding I used to love and haven’t been riding it much over the last year which is sad in a way as you could say I owe a lot to the fixed gear community here.

Anyway to try and stop this tangential rambling, I’ve just killed a couple hours on a mega slow 30km cruise around SE that hit all my nostalgic hotspots and also featured an expensive iced coffee and an iced cream. What more can ya want.

5 Attachments

These are my favourite kind of posts.
Lovely!

Cheers! (:

P.s. I did a wee gravel ride with a couple friends also on hybrid bikes on Saturday this time I’m only being 50% ironic as one of them rides a canti brake 26” alu Carerra with Schwalbe Marathons everywhere as he doesn’t get why he’d need anything else.

The plan was to go out of Epping, up the river Lee canal thingy and all the way to the town of Brandon in Suffolk for a 100 mile solstice ride kinda thing.

But with all ya normal expected delays from a ride that prioritises laughs over mile munching, at just over halfway point distance wise we decided to cut the ride a bit shorter, head 20km to Saffron Walden for a pick-me up at a friend’s coffee shop, then go to Cambridge for a pizza and then a fast train back to London

Key takeaways:

• I have 0 regrets about putting risers on this bike. Couldn’t stop thinking about how fun it is to ride. It works so well for this kind of riding where even on the lanes the goal isn’t smashing it as fast as you can. Maybe if I was with a couple other fast ppl on drop bar bikes then this takeaway would be different.
  
• My ‘fitness’ after a fair break from bikes is coming back. I was tempted to cut and solo the rest of the route from Saffron Walden to Brandon but thought that would ultimately be boring and lame.
  
• The river Lee canal path is surprisingly fun. Maybe the most fun canal path I’ve ridden? Pretty much single track-y for a lot of it and was pretty dead considering the good weather. Only one near head on with a group of lovely elderly canal cruisers :D
  

5 Attachments

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii bought a new bike :D

which will hopefully arrive on Tuesday

I need a few bits for it though, wondering if any one reading has any of it hanging around?

• wahoo element bolt out front mount
  
• a nice silver bottle cage or two (King, Arundel etc)
  
• koolstop salmon thinline cantilever pads set
  
  

please and thank you

I've got three Hulsroy bottle cages going spare? One right entry, two left. Any interest?

Bought as I like them, but the silver doesn't work on the bike, didn't really think that through....

Another Brother?

If you can stomach black i've got some nice metal Rose cages spare that might work. I got absolutely hammered on shipping and tax but could do them relatively cheap.

@RonnieOatmilk ooooo i have been eyeing some up for my gravel bike to be fair, but sat down right now totally unable to think about what hand I prefer taking off the bars whilst I’m riding is haha. Can I get back to you tomorrow?

@jono84 yeaaaaaaah you saw it.
originally stuck my name in for the frame only so I could have a front canti braked off road riser bar skidder, but since its coming with road levers and F+R brakes I think I’m going to stick with that for a while. Commuter/city bike/winter-friendly kinda stuff.

I have a lot of friends who are still solely fixie heads but I strayed from the righteous path and have thus been softened up by brakes and big tyres which means that I don’t really feel like riding the Swift for much more than 30 mins in a go. Having The Allday is exciting as it should open up all that kinda riding to me again.

Oh and thanks for the offer, but you know me, silver parts forever <3

Now you just need a Big Bro to complete the collection!!!