Venom Track

I bought this off Hilarystone a little while back, and after what I feel has been an age looking up and buying parts to put this thing together (more like 3 months) it almost looks like this thing's gonna be ready to ride pretty soon.

I guess no projects are without their problems. For some reason when I first picked this up I envisioned thomson stems and sram omniums. Would have looked pretty sickly, I only got as far as buying the stem. The second problem (other than taste) was that when I finally got around to getting the headset fitted at Brixton Cycles they found the frame which was advertised as being in "excellent condition" actually had an ovalised headtube, which had been cut down right to the top tube, making repair very difficult. Ryan at Oak Cycles provided some sort of sneaky solution using loctite and a punch, and it ended up looking like this:

Which to me looks pretty damn good right now, (even though I'm still a bit pissed off about being sold a damaged frame) and I reckon the ITM Eclypse complements the tig welds on the frame perfectly. The next problem now is doing the frame justice on the budget I had, which meant trawling ebay, classifieds on here, and retrobike pretty religiously for steals on the theme of "vaguely 90's-ish feel".

And I've ended up with this lot, plus a bit more, -minus the drops and pedals which should be on my doorstep soonish:

Since it's going to be my DO EVERYTHING bike, my sunday best beater every day work track bike, I guess I wanted a couple of handlebar options - the monkey-lites and the cheap MTB stem for working (I've never ridden any carbon before, so I'm hoping the combination of handlebars, forks and seapost + flite titanium gel will make London's roads feel like a baby oil massage) and the whole ITM front end for track/looking good.

I've bought a Campag Veloce 111mm BB - and I wanted to ask if anyone knows for sure if this actually works safely - ie no damage done - with dura ace cranks? I took a guess from searching around here as there was still no solid answer.

The last thing is the wheels - and the part I'm least happy with, as they're the old deep v's laced to ambrosio hubs that I've been abusing over the last year. Thanks to exedanni I've got a nice baby blue deep v in much better condition to rebuild the rear after stripping both rims down to silver, and hopefully that'll look okay. Also, I'm planning to start riding HH track once this is built (I bet everyone says that building a track bike) so would these rims with some decent clinchers be fine for starting out?

My checklist before this is complete is actually very short now, I'm pretty excited:
-Build rear wheel
-Stuff parts in their respective holes
-buy a couple of sprockets and a new chain
-think of the best way to fill grooves in a handlebar

And thats about it. I'm gonna go back to drinking and slobbing out in front of the TV, everyone have a great christmas :)

(I've never ridden any carbon before, so I'm hoping the combination of handlebars, forks and seapost + flite titanium gel will make London's roads feel like a baby oil massage)

tyres size and choices make the biggest difference, component offer little difference to soften the stiffness of a track frame.

fill the grooves by wrapping them in tape.... if you want comfort get some fizik gel insert thingys for under your tape.

real nice looking frame, shame about the ovalised headtube. I don't understand the loctite and punch repair any further info on that?

also love those atacs, are they as old school as they look?

Loved that and the ITM handlebar too, the ITM look quite narrow is it?

Dura ace-njs ones are alright as they are ISO, but conventional DA are JIS.

I've bought a Campag Veloce 111mm BB - and I wanted to ask if anyone knows for sure if this actually works safely - ie no damage done - with dura ace cranks? I took a guess from searching around here as there was still no solid answer.

Those ATACs are awesome! Did you have any dialogue with Hilary re the head tube? Pretty shitty behaviour selling it like that

coventry eagle - ta, yeah I have the NJS ones (thanks to George Sportif for a nice deal btw) so thats reassuring, should be fine then.

Malaysian and upstart - I really have no idea. I stumbled upon them on ebay, they're bloody cheap (I thought £5 more than the cleats alone, can't go wrong. This is my optimist financial maths, though). A bit of google search shows em to be Time Cyclo, use the atac cleats and they're apparently pretty heavy, although I can bet they're lighter than Aliums. which are still great. Here's a link so you can all buy a pair ha http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/330634555352?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

edscoble - I don't have much choice with tyres - I don't think the front will fit much more than a 25, I look for puncture protection and wet grip over anything else, and the back I go for cheap and thick and I don't think that's gonna change with a new bike. Hopefully it'll make a bit of difference though? And the ITM are pretty narrow, 40's. They are nice and I think go well with the "theme" ha if you look close at them (i've seen em before) I think the writing is laser engraved, looks really nice especially for a cheap handlebar

And regarding the damage to the headtube... I've got a problem with this as although I feel I was done wrong, hilary did offer to take the frame back and repair it, but hasn't replied to my emails after I payed Ryan to get the fix done. It is christmas though so he may be busy, and I haven't had problems buying from him in the past. I guess when so many frames go through your hands there's bound to be a few that get past your inspections. However I do feel that I ended up paying more than necessary for a "working frame" since the repairs need to be included in the price.

Another grey area about it is that Ryan didn't actually repair the frame, just provided a work-around to get me on the bike. How he explained it was that he used to punch to make indents in the headset cups, by pushing in some areas the surface area stays the same and so the diameter of the cup is effectively increased. This and a bit of glue meant that the headset stays there in a snug and secure fit as far as I understand, but he said I've just gotta keep a close eye on it. So I didn't actually pay for a repair, but I did need Ryan's experience as Brixton Cycles couldn't deal with it themselves. Whether this warrants a partial refund I don't know, I wouldn't put it out in public but I would like other's opinion on the matter.

I also don't want to badmouth hilary as until recently he has been very open and communicative about the whole thing.

Oh, and while its not this bike, it is a current project. I wan't to gush a bit more about these :) christmas additions for the fam

i have a set of those old ATACs - they're my favouritessss!
Also that frame is a gorgeous colour.

"I've bought a Campag Veloce 111mm BB - and I wanted to ask if anyone knows for sure if this actually works safely - ie no damage done - with dura ace cranks? I took a guess from searching around here as there was still no solid answer."

I used this combo for a while, No probs, spot on.

Lovely frame, in time the extra cost of getting it sorted out will seem worth it i reckon.

Love this frame. Looking forward to seeing it fully built up!

This thread is a little dead, eh. Sorry about the lack of updates... I've actually been riding this frame every day for the last couple of weeks! The frame turned out to have a flared seat tube (I'd been thinking it was just a tight fit 27.2 all this time but it turned out to be smaller and smaller as it went down. reamed the whole thing to 26.8 and it fit perfect. After that got sorted (ta to Brixton for the advice and Velorution for the nice cutting job) I just wanted to ride it, so it's been put together with the front from the old bike and the rear wheel built up.

out of the list -

-Build rear wheel done, it's a little wobbly, but not bad for a first time i think. I wanted matching wheels, and I was never gonna allow myself to ride a baby blue deep v on this bike, so the black spokes have been scrubbed down to silver (suprisingly easy) and the rims have been sprayed black. Looks adequate.
-Stuff parts in their respective holes
-buy a couple of sprockets and a new chain done ... using 48-18, got some cheap bmx chain from brixton cycles
-think of the best way to fill grooves in a handlebar - did this last night... I was pretty unsatisfied with just taping over the grooves as it's look flat, so I went ahead and taped some old brake cable outer in there. This is the first time I've taken care over taping bars - I followed this guide, which was real useful - except swapping over the direction of the tape since i'll be using the drops more. I was going to go for black tape, but thought it would end up looking too boring... tokyo fixed ended up being the only place with a nice bar tape selection .

taping over the brake outer
http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/422116_10150507844795773_648525772_9411401_1297413871_n.jpg

and the finished thing. i think it turned out pretty nice... i fucked up near the tape on one side, and needed to patch it up with the cheater strip.. it's pretty much covered up though.
http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/408077_10150507843930773_648525772_9411399_328854925_n.jpg?dl=1

bit of a useless update, but im gonna take and put up some finished photos tomorrow morning before work.

I find bars alot easier to tape when mounted to the bike.

Finished it up and pictures have been taken! I've always wanted to do one of these "bike porn" photoshoots so excuse the amount of pictures im gonna fill the thread with. I guess there's not much else for me to post here anyway.

This is the setup I've been riding the past couple of weeks for work:

Whatever anyone says risers have honestly changed my life. Its a bit tougher uphill and into a headwind is a bitch but Im still so much fresher at the end of the day..

And the finished thing... looks fast eh :)

Enough!!! I was planning this to be a proper journal but it didn't really turn out that way, although a lot of work and careful buying was done to keep it under budget, and fixing up the frame, filing down both front and rear dropouts to fit track nuts and the problems with the frame (still not resolved with hilarystone) as jogger said it all seemed worth it in the end. It's still sorta a W.I.P as all it needs is a nice set of track wheels (and maybe stiffer bars) for me to happy calling it a proper track machine.. but as I can afford it it's done for now.

looks really good. Weirdly enough I have a Venom road bike frame I converted to fixed, also bought from Hilary. Yours is in much better nick, the paintwork at least! Here it is in case you want to see (it now has white tyres):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36442538@N05/5945910248/in/photostream#/photos/36442538@N05/5945910248/in/photostream/lightbox/

Sorry to hear about your problems with the damage on the frame. Did you pick it up from him? Its a odd little set up

did those forks come with the frame?
looks really nice by the way, even with the deep v's.