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@BrickMan
hope you guys are ready for some plain aweful.....
My theme is 'anti-theft', though it has some way to go until it is truely unstealable.
I started off with these two. Both freecycle finds from the far far far far north (moah north than manchester, but not as far as scotland).
The blue one, a 1976 (ish) Dawes Flambeau, in completely original spec (actually I lie, it had a replacement weinmann rear wheel in the early 80's) and perfect size for me (st57 & tt57), mechanically perfect as well, but visually distressed. One gentleman owner from new who was about to chuck her on the heap until I spoke up. She has been stripped to bare metal, and resprayed in a very close match to the original, the hand painted (or looked like hand) names have gone though.
She is almost there rebuild wise, luckily found a pair of un-used 80's Mavic tubeless rims in grey with dura ace hubs (?) in a local junk bike shop for a few quid, a donated tub, some donated brake blocks (cheers Mr.BC of glasgow - he runs the recumbent shop), and a free saddle from Mr.Crabtree on here.
Unfortunately haven't got the patience to properly re-dish the rear wheel yet, but its almost done. Debut soon!
The next, is the ultimate in anti-porn. Original idea with getting interested in roadie bikes (up until october I thought anything with tyres less than 2.2" was pathetic looking, stupid and probably dangerous, though my view of road riders* hasn't changed all that much ;) ) was to beat TFL of robbing me £8-9 a day while visiting my girlfriend in london, so the brief was....
get the bike as cheap as poss (It was free, though £10 of fuel to fetch both of them from other side of county)
fix it up with as little effort as poss (well, took probably 5hours to strip, replace all the bearings & races with spares from the drawer of junk in the barn, re-fit, recable and true up the wheels)
make it look as aweful as is humanly possible (I'm somewhere near)
make it practical (52:16 with 160mm cranks, 27" wheels, huge tyres is fine for the city, but here in mountain country its a bit of a joke).
She actually rides quite nice, though its a bit short for me, tt57 and st54, and seatpost is too short so it kills my knees riding it around them hills (not pictured & shameless plug for a free tatty post in ???? diameter).
Also its good for cyclocross.... (picture lost, but imagine the above axle deep in mud and cow shite down an un-used bridleway) and overtaking kit freaks with carbon fibre racing bike with gps, heart rate monitors and a back up car following them to provide shelter from the wind when it gets too much*
Anyway, hope to come to london on the weekend and see just how un-stealable it is. Please leave comments of how I can make it even less appealing to thieves. Note. picture does not show rusty chrome rims, badly surface rusted frame and tatty components etc.
This is my general view of road bike riders, too much kit, mid life crisis type guys who can't ride for st and even though they were overtaken by a young guy (who has not ridden in earnest in 18month) on a 40year old wreck of a bike running a ridiculously high gear, STILL feel the need to mutter rubbish under their breath about how fit/fast/good/better they are at life and how everyone else should dissapear.*