Donhou track

Saw you riding this on Goodge street in the sun yesterday.

looks awesome!!

Ah dude that must have been one of my stem-testing rides, you should have yelled out or something. There's something about the sunshine that just makes your bike feel faster, even though I know I was just pootling around yesterday!

Saw you riding this on Goodge street in the sun yesterday.

looks awesome!!

After a week of tweaking, I have embarrassingly gone back to the original stem length. Here are some amateur noob lessons that I have learned:

• Make sure you have a proper bike fitting (I did that at least)
  
• Don't be speccing out components purely on non-fit criteria, like, oh, I don't know, looks and weight (I bought a pretty setback seatpost when the fit measurements dictated an inline)
  
• Ensure you have the proper tools to measure your fit accurately (once I had a tape measure, spirit level, plum line I could actually fit myself correctly)
  
• Tweak one thing at a time (once I had my saddle position properly nailed I realised I was fine with the original stem)
  
• An overflowing parts bin really helps with tweaking (I now have a spare inline and setback seatposts with cheap stems from 7cm to 12cm in length)
  
  

It could have been worse I suppose, the nightmare scenario is ending up with a custom bike that doesn't fit!

Couple more months of riding under your belt... Any updates as to the 'feel'of the ride?

Tom is about to get started on my Continental inspired Audax. Ridiculously excited and trying to get as much info from others as possible.

Followed you advice and have been pro-measured and fitted, now just have to sort components. Any ideas on a decent disk fork that isn't wound up??

Coincidentally enough, I took my Donhou road bike out for a long ride yesterday. It's a proto-Donhou-Continental frame; pretty much the same design with 853 Pro Team but with a Enve road fork for standard length calipers as opposed to Wound Up fork + discs. I originally intended it for long fast solo rides, but I'm also a photographer, I should be spending more time making work rather than just pissing around on a bike, so I didn't spend enough time riding it over summer. Until I decided to strap on a large saddle bag to the seatpost and about 5 pounds of camera equipment to my back and go f*ck it. Yesterday I took that Donhou road over smooth tarmac, chipseal, dirt roads and 3 miles of grass track carrying all that extra load. And it is smooooth and tracks and handles really well, the most comfortable road bike I've ridden, more comfortable than my off-the-peg titanium road frame. What I'm trying to say is that you're in for a treat, especially if you're going with discs and potentially even wider tyres. Tom has the geometry of that Continental frame nailed.

It is very different from the ride of the Donhou track, which is a lot stiffer (both the frame and the kit), for better or for worse. Riding in London, I will find myself avoid potholes because they're jarring, but on smoother tarmac, because of it's lightness it's just head down and crank and the thing just takes off.

Couple more months of riding under your belt... Any updates as to the 'feel'of the ride?

Tom is about to get started on my Continental inspired Audax. Ridiculously excited and trying to get as much info from others as possible.

Followed you advice and have been pro-measured and fitted, now just have to sort components. Any ideas on a decent disk fork that isn't wound up??

with the resurrection of this thread i would like to give you a headsup that my project (a no-brand columbus airplane frame) has its future paintjob inspired by yours, partially naked, partially matt black.
its all a budget homejob though so no match, but ill give shout once ive made something oit of it..

Tom got around to posting this on his site.

It reminds me of what the initial incarnation of this was and how the tweaking job is never done.

I've got to say that I like the paint scheme for the Hoy. Flashbacks to the Rapha Condor Leggero too!