Custom Oak Cycles 650B French Randonneur Project.

Ed, it's looking great! What length chainstays will the bike have? I'm impressed Ryan has been able to get ample tyre/guard clearance with a pre-cast BB shell!

Looking good, Scoblatron... Welcome to the Oak family...

Ed, it's looking great! What length chainstays will the bike have? I'm impressed Ryan has been able to get ample tyre/guard clearance with a pre-cast BB shell!

The chain stay is dimple and oddly enough doesn't look out of shape, I got a photo of the clearance.

I was surprised when he suggested a lugged BB despite the 42c tyres and 60mm mudguard.

The smaller wheel size I think helped and the chain stay is not as long as a tourer, but neither short like a road racing bike.

Looking very nice fella!

Are those the beginnings of rear rack mounts i see? :p

Great build....Apologies if I've missed something... but do you know somewhere that does lights for the rear braze on? (I have the braze on, just not a light to go on it)

Probably going to look at building one or just cutting down a lezyne femto

(DO you mean this light braze on, just out of interest, I don't know where the lights can be sourced)

Looking very nice fella!

Are those the beginnings of rear rack mounts i see? :p

My answer is still the same.

Vesalius - yup, thats the one

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh167/edscoble/2013-01-10_12-29-04.png
My answer is still the same.

Haha :')

Vesalius - yup, thats the one

Gotcha, they make a rear light look very elegant

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh167/edscoble/2013-01-10_12-29-04.png

My answer is still the same.

Are you for or against hidden braze ons?! I say where your tourability with pride!

So one eyelet is for guards what's the other for?

Mudguard rack possibly?

Are you for or against hidden braze ons?! I say where your tourability with pride!

Cause it not a touring bike.

Mudguard rack possibly?

Yep.

Make more sense to have a rack mount and leave the mudguard one alone after you've set the length and angle correctly.

They certainly look lovely as well. And that seatstay bridge!

(Do you know what that pump is by any chance?)

Lezyne pump, and the bridge on my Oak should be shaped like that for the mudguard.

looking really great.

Why not disks? Centerpull's seem pretty last century, just curious.

old skool

Disks lol!

Centerpulls have, apparently, better leverage and strength when mudguards (and the longer reach) are involved.

And they fit with the cutesy french rando aesthetic.
My pa has them on his Bertin, they work amazingly well.

Why not disks? Centerpull's seem pretty last century, just curious.

Fork need to be strengthened to compensate, as well as the rear triangle, it also mean that the fork may not absorb the road vibration well due to the way the disc mount is brazed on as well, a good illustrated example would be the fork from a Tout Terrain touring bicycle to address the problem of the fork blade flexing under stress;

You also need to have a higher rake angle to compensate, something that's not really possible with the 650B Randonneur, especially for a front handlebar bag.

If you use normal thin walled tubing with a disc tabs, this will happen;

I have a fork made by Ryan for my Tokyo Fixed bicycle to put the bicycle at a correct angle, I was surprised by how comfortable high quality well made steel fork are, I can actually see the blade flexing at high speed going down a rough road in the Pyrenees.

Personally, centerpull, especially brazed on one are pretty powerful and reasonably light for a long reach one with ample room for both 42c tyres and 60mm mudguard, very easy to fix and adjust compare to cable pull disc.

Having a disc equipped CX bike already, I can see the appeal and I loved it for its strength, but the small advantage isn't enough to outweigh the disadvantage I've mentioned above, the majority of advantage are usually through deep water, muddy condition and obviously offroading, I've thought about it and decided against it especially as I plan to aim for an average 9.5kg fully equipped.

Jan Hein would be so proud.

:-)

This is very close to what I would commission if I were in the market (could afford) a custom randonneuse.

Especially the brazed on centre pulls which look so cool and work really well.
I don't really understand disk brakes on bikes where the non carbon rims are going to stay mostly dry. The wheel is already a 26" rotor and transferring the braking forces to the hub area means heftier forks and I'd have thought more fatigue to spokes.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Fork crown and fillet brazing looking really good Ed.