Genesis cycletruck/Tricross/Solaris MAX - KingTwin tandem

Kinda tempted by a red Salsa clamp, but I'm never completely sure about trying to match coloured anodising to frames. I have at least worked out it needs a 35mm one.

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Uncharacteristically I've made more progress with both bikes, it's enjoyable seeing them come together reasonably quickly.

Chopped the steerer and v-brake mounts on the Rockhopper and fork. Also removed the rear brake cable guides and ordered some stick on ones that'll take a hydro hose. I've got a plan involving a hinged DMR clamp and some bodgery to fit the dropper cable. I'm glad I chopped the brake mounts as it's cleaned it up visually a little.

Cut a small steel stem spacer to match the outer diameter of the stem steerer tube and I've picked up some paint cans so I can spray over the removed bosses and paint the stem/spacer black.

Also chopped the steerer on the Focus, and fitted a front caliper and an Arione so I can match the fit on the Tricross closely. Still waiting on a few odds and ends in the post to finish it off but I'm pleased with how it's coming together.

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A big box of little bits arrived this morning. The Focus now has an axle, rotor, and front derailleur adapter. That just leaves a chain and sorting out the cabling to finish it off.

The Rockhopper has a chainring, rotors, and grips now too. Still waiting on the brakes and clamp for the dropper cable.

I painted the filed spots on the fork along with the stem and a couple of spacers I chopped to match. It's tidied up the front rather nicely having it all gloss black, though I'm still waiting on fresh black bolts for the stem. The bars are from the shed with a well faded patina to the anodising.

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I've sat and looked at the Rockhopper propped up against the wall opposite my desk all week and the more I've looked the less I've liked the grey Vittorias. I've swapped them for the tanwall Maxxis DTH which I think are an improvement, but I'm still not 100% sure whether I should just get some all black tyres, maybe Conti Racekings?

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In other news the last major part arrived, brakes!

I've been curious about the Chinese CNCd brakes available on AliX for a while, and while I'd normally go for Shimano hydraulics, I've given some ZRace M1 X2s a go. The quality of the machining looks reasonable, the lever shape and feel is comfortable, and they look more trick than the similar priced offerings from Shimano. They also sit nicely on the bars with a Shimano trigger shifters. They'll need some proper riding to see how they actually perform though, several reviews have suggested swapping to better pads is worthwhile.

I still need to trim the hoses and swap the levers as they're currently set up Euro-style, which I can hopefully do without having to bleed them.

I'm also having second thoughts about the stem, high-ish rise and 135mm length seems a bit much. I'll give it a ride and see how it handles but I suspect it'll need changing. Current options are either a 70mm black Hope or chop the current steel one down to 80-100mm, flip it so it's horizontal when mounted, then braze on a new 31.8mm clamp with the bolt on the bottom. Both options will mean a switch to a pair of slightly wider 31.8 riser bars I've got.

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The grey tyres are certainly an acquired taste, but I have a hard time picturing a better fit for them. I think they work really well with the paint job and black rims and fork.

Why not get some cheap 25.4mm bars with more sweep to get a more comfortable position and better handling? Those almost straight handlebars nobody's riding anymore!

Grey tire looks great!

this bike needs some squish: bombers or some gen 1 blue sids (or maybe grey dukes) could tie this together well.

I'll get it fully built up and then have another look with both sets of tyres mounted and see which are sparking more joy, it is a good point that there's unlikely to be another bike that the grey tyres suit as well.

I've put the 70mm Hope stem and 31.8 riser bars and it definitely looks more balanced. So the plan is to chop the steel stem down to 80-90mm and braze on a 31.8 clamp and use that. I can then add a threaded boss to the underside to take a custom light bracket.

As much as some old school SIDs would look great I want to keep it simple with the rigid fork (and not spend any more!), and I'm planning to braze bottle bosses into the legs and use the bike for the Welsh Ride Thing in early May.

The crankset will be the black and silver RaceFace Evolve XCs that came off the BFe, with a black steel narrow wide ring and an XT bottom bracket. Pedals will be trusty m540 spds. All functional panda colour goodness.

Routing for a dropper cable on a 23yr old frame has taken a bit of thought. The frame has a cable stop near the top of the down tube for a front derailleur cable, and then exposed inner routing down the underside of the down tube to a plastic cable guide under the bottom bracket. The dropper is designed for an inner/outer cable combo leaving the bottom of the post, which obviously won't work with the inner only cable routing. I've come up with a reasonably neat solution involving a DMR split clamp (matching the 35mm seat tube diameter) that has a single M5 boss and an old brake pull ratio adjuster that has a cable stop built in. Chopped the pull ratio adjuster in half and bolted on the half with the cable stop to the DMR clamp. This will now mean the gear outer coming out of the bottom of the post can sit in the clamped on cable stop, then the bare inner cable can run out of the bottom, under the BB and up to the cable stop at the top of the down tube and then full outer into the trigger.

I still need to drill/file a hole in the seat tube for the dropper cable to exit the tube.

Rear brake hose routing has been taken care of with some fairly neat, black Jagwire stick on guides.

Getting closer to being able to ride it now, jobs left:

• Shorten brake hoses
  
• Drill for dropper and fit cable
  
• Index gears
  
• Find a nice bolt up black seatclamp (35.0mm if anyone has one?)
  
• Shorten steel stem
  

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The Rockhopper is now rideable and it rides very nicely, just how I hoped it would. Indexing sorted, brake hose trimming sorted, dropper cable sorted, and a decent seat clamp found. Just the shortening of the steel stem left for the weekend and then I'll take some proper photos.

I never really post about the Solaris as it's build hasn't changed much over the five years I've had it, but every time I ride it I'm reminded of what a fantastic bike it is. Had a beautiful pre-work ride in the hills, high above a cloud inversion, earlier this week. New brakes are on the horizon for it though as I'm getting fed up with the wandering bite point on the SLXs and I'm overwhelming the 2 pot caliper on the front fairly often. Perhaps some XT 4 pots, Magura MT7s, or G2/Code RSCs.

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a lot of people - on the internet - say shigura is great

Amazing views -this is Shropshire way? We’ve been talking about moving to Shrews or nearby .

Do you have a standard mtb route you can share? I’ve done the Long mynd up and over - but nothing else

Good suggestion, I think I've tracked down some Mt7 Pros locally which I'll try as standard first, with the SLX levers as an alternative if I don't like the feel.

@Elra it's up on the Long Mynd above Carding Mill Valley. I don't have a standard route but have a Google for the trail map of the Long Mynd, it has all the best (bridleway) descents and they're also signposted up on the hill. I live in Shrewsbury and it's an incredible place to be for riding, so many hills for mtb, gravel and road if you head south out of town.

Finished the stem, except paint, today. Shortened it to 80mm, flipped it, and brazed in a new 31.8 diameter bar tube. It'll be painted gloss black. Also included an M5 boss to mount a Garmin or light bracket.

If the weather picks up tomorrow hopefully I can get some photos of the complete bike.

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I'm going to call the Rockhopper mostly done for now. There a few tiny things left to sort including a matching rear skewer and some black brake caliper bolts. It rides just how I hoped it would, light and zippy, but with the dropper lowered you can hop it around like an oversized BMX.

I'm really pleased with how the stem modification and dropper routing have worked out, and the brakes have bedded in nicely after a few short rides. I'm now looking forward to riding it more as we get into spring and I may give the grey Vittorias another go soon.

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And a few more..

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That looks great

The Rockhopper is a treat for riding around town and it will be really useful for the next mini project. I've modified a cheap trailer to take the canoe a mile or so down the road to the river, just need to fix the big hole in it now!

Also picked up the last couple of bits to get the Focus rideable. I'm hoping it'll be reasonably rapid as I haven't had a road bike with carbon wheels or an alu frame before (we're not counting the Tricross here!). It's a proper Frankenstein of bits, the most glaring being a disc fork and wheel on a rim brake frame. Force 22 groupset, Vision front wheel, Cosmic rear, GP5ooos and various other bits and bobs. I suspect the front brake will not be good, it's got a garbage quality Clarkes caliper just to test the concept which will get replaced if I like the bike. Off for a ride later. Future plans involve repainting the frameset and making a steel stem for it, ideally horizontal if my back will take it.

@tmevans the MT7s are a big improvement on the Solaris, more power than the SLX and no frustrating wandering bite point. Going to stick with the Magura levers until I inevitably break one..

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Spring and summer usually mean fewer bike projects and more bike riding, but the Rockhopper has had a few changes. Swapped the clips for flats, the Turbo for a Flite, and the DTH tyres for the grey Booze Lights.

It's a great little bike for popping around town or to the pump track.

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The cycletruck has been well used for the last 4 years and is starting to look really ratty and rusty, so it's going to get a makeover. The paint is going to get redone and I'd like to tidy up some of the brazing and simplify the rack to lose some weight.

I'm planning to replace the 9spd XO (which can go on the Rockhopper) with 3x8 m735 XT. I've got some Sugino rings for the WI cranks and adapters to use bar end or down tube shifters. Annoyingly I thought I had two of the Ultegra bar end shifters in the spares box but can only find one.

I've built up a new rear wheel with silver spokes to match the front one. An Sun Ringlé hub pulled from an old wheel set, a NOS Mavic EX325 rim and double butted spokes. It weighs a ton but at least it'll match and be plenty strong enough. I've got some XT v-brake levers that'd be nice to use but that would mean buying cable calipers so the hydro brakes can stay for now.

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It's trip time! Off with a friend to get the ferry down to Bilbao and then ride from there to a small town called Massat which is about 2/3rds of the way across the French Pyrenees.

The route we've come up with is mostly road, with a few off-road optional extras, we'll be wild camping most of the way. Feeling no small amount of trepidation for the amount of climbing that we'll have to do over the seven days we're hoping it'll take, with the route taking us over the Peyresourde, Tourmalet, and Aubisque amoung other cols. It should be about 700km and 17,500m of elevation, which is similar to the Torino-Nice we did six years ago (!) now.

The bike of choice is the trusty Tricross. I was going to make a small rack for the front but unfortunately managed to round out one of the bosses on the fork leg, so bar harness it is. Hoping I'm not going to regret having a 34/32 lowest gear..

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The Pyrenees trip fell apart unfortunately, my friend's passport was expired, but I did manage to fit in a couple of days rides in the Ariege so all was not lost.

I've also dug out my old Geoffrey Butler from the spare room, it's not been ridden since summer 2022 and that was making me sad, so I've set about tidying it up. It was the first 'proper' bike I ever owned, bought from an old rider in my childhood village after noticing a handwritten sale sign tacked to his gate, back when I was 14 or 15. It's had a few builds over the years but now has a nearly full Ultegra 6500 group. This week I dropped the band on front derailleur adapter in some caustic soda to fizz off the black ano, fitted some de-stickered Aksiums to replace the original 105 1055 series hubbed wheels which would only take a 7spd cassette, fitted a matching Ultegra rear derailleur and pumped up the tyres. The Ultegra brifters with the side exit gear cables have a lovely light gear change, much nicer than the R5800 105 and Force22 on the Tricross and Focus.

Looking forward to making the most of the last few weeks over summer before it retires back to the spare room for winter again. Slowly making progress converting the Genesis cycletruck to 3x9 too, though that can wait for a later post.

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lovely bike. what stem is that?