Current Projects chat and miscellany

Cranks are ecottered, and deffo not keen on them!
So its either modifying the modern specialised crank, or finding a more classic looking lightweight set up.
I should imagine its british thread as the bike appears to have been made in birmingham!
Id love to keep the original paintjob, and when I perchased, had the intention of building a rat bike... so still deciding I suppose.. there is a lot of rust though..

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as for the stainless lugs.. they where one of the reasons I wanted a bike of this age.. Id never spray over them.., they will be polished to a mirror surface, dont you worry!

Cranks are ecottered, and deffo not keen on them!
So its either modifying the modern specialised crank, or finding a more classic looking lightweight set up.
I should imagine its british thread as the bike appears to have been made in birmingham!

It is most likely British Standard thread, but you can never know for sure. If the BB or tooling was shared with Raleigh bikes, (which is possible) then it might be a weird raleigh thread.

First and foremost can I use any 1" threaded head set? found a bbb on ebay that
ISO or JIS is the next question. ask sheldon brown for advice. for the lovely Dawes I say ISO british 1" headset, but i am always wrong, just ask the wife ;-)

ps. measure your stack height.

also loosing posts here?
The stainless lugs will be polished to mirror finnish, Im not a savage!!haha

I always wheel it out, but....here is my Mercian.

I can't express how matt and shitty the paint looked before - the before photo only alludes to it. The guy before was certain about respraying....

...just food for thought.

Cheers, it does look good.. miraculous even!! thanks for more indecisions...
on one hand, I know what id like it to look like, but on the other.., theres a lot of history adn many stories that would be lost forever.... hmmm??

The patina actually improves that frame IMO. Stunning.

I've just finished building this. First time clipped in and have already fallen over at the lights in front of people which was lovely. Anyhow, thanks to everyone who helped me.

Allister for the frame
Kboy for the seatpost
Mrx for the shoes
Chainbreaker for the wheels (apologies in advance but they HAD to be sprayed)

and now my town bike is completed for winter with mudguards fitted

Falling off clipped-in is compulsory the first time. Both look nice, but the rixon is all kinds of awesome. (Ninja edit; foot retenation?)

^coaster brake

Aaah, sneaky sneaky.

badass rixon. all i need is a da stem cap and my bridgestone will be finished in it's full da glory.

Rixon needs another brake if you'll be doing any sort of heavy load + downhill. Coaster brakes give up when resisting any sort of decent torque. Trust me, not fun.

Makes me want to put guards on my load bearing bike though. Coaster brake cruising to the shops for groceries make you feel like some sort of baking guru.

Cannondale finished (just about) but I don't think I like it much, I want something taller at the front

I got this as the doner bike for the winter colnago project , but its really fegging nice. so now not so sure if i should strip it..................

feggingnice.jpg

http://www.lfgss.com/post2470939-1781.html more pics

I think you should take it apart. Give it a serious polish, re-grease all the parts as they go back on and ride it.

RE 'British thread' - Just measure the size of the bottom bracket. It will probably be standard. I doubt it will be italian. See here: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_bo-z.html

Also you are usually best off searching sheldon via google, not in the site itself.

Re Stainless steel lugs: It doesn't effect anything other than aesthetics. If you clean and polish them they will come up like mirrored chrome. So if you choose to respray, do this first and then mask them off.

As I said, I think it's a real shame to loose what looks like a unique colour. IMO the frame has a lot of cool details that will be lost forever with a respray.

But your frame, your choice, your money.

heads to retrobike

Looks more like a press on metal sleeve rather than stainless lugs.

Still, worth cleaning up.

Falling off clipped-in is compulsory the fifth time.

ftfy.
Most people don't fail to unclip the first day because they're concentrating so much on the new pedals. Usually wait until you think you've got it sorted, then roll up to a group of friends to show off your new kit for the first time and gently topple over in front of everybody. Absolutely guaranteed it will never happen if you're not being watched by at least 5 people.

Love this bike Im defiantly going to build up something like this now the winters here.

Fred are those frames very different sizes?

Currently working on a '75-'77 Gazelle Champion Mondial with Campa dropouts. My dad bought the frame a good 35 years ago and has used it untill one year ago when I gave him a new bike for his birthday.

I was lucky enough to receive the bike as a 'thank you' for his present. To be honest I was thinking about selling it because I'm more of a downhill mountainbiker however I thought it would be nice to keep it within the family. I've polished the frame and I've been browsing the internet for some nice parts.

I came across Varno's topic for the wheels so I'm thinking of ordering a nice full silver set of wheels for the classic look. Plan is to run a 30mm at the front a 40mm at the rear. This combined with a Brooks saddle and bartape will turn out great. At least, that's what I hope.... Displayed wheelset is an old wheelset which I'm not going to use.

Hope you like it, included some pics as well.

PS; Gazelle logo on the front will return asap on the frame.

I've orderd

What's that you're hiding in the background?

commuter?

Fred are those frames very different sizes?

yeah, not very but a couple of cm in it, but strangely both feel right fit. perhaps it's as one has a sloping toptube. the tubes on the dolan are quite a lot chunkier so the headtube looks shorter too.