Current Projects chat and miscellany

Forgot essential pub bike ingredient also...

... and another photo to highlight safety features...

new wheel for the Vig.

stripped down, time for seat post extraction fun

I shall douse the seatpost tube neck/clamp area with penetrating oil until Friday, when it's to the friendly engineer for non chemical extraction, also,
I widened the clamp area a touch

will remove bb also, spins freely, but will remove to access post, and the re lub and install bb, so should seem bang on with new wires and chain
"Called stratocaster for the characteristic 3 cables on the side of the top tube (not totally original but the owner of Cinelli, Colombo, also owner of columbus tubing, is a rock aficionado)........""

Finally picked up a cassette to finish pub bike, just need some sunshine to get out and fit it and the guards. Any lairy 90s mountain bike fans?

me

yaya

New frame

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Looks melted

I've just finished making up a new set of wheels for Cycliste's Bianchi to replace the functional but rather sturdy Shimano R500s. They're BikeHubStore Ultralight hubs, CX-Ray rims and Kinlin XR200 rims. The front wheel has 24 spokes with radial lacing, the rear has 28 spokes and 2 cross lacing. They're as light as I'd hoped:

Front:

Rear:

So a total of 1293g for the pair, without rim tape or skewers. All built up, with rim strips, inner tubes, tyres (part worn Vittoria Open Corsa CX) and Planet X QR skewers they look like this:

Complete weight, all in, 1984 grams. Just a touch more than the R500s without tyres or skewers.

Looks melted

I'm rather hoping it's meant to be like this... In truth I actually love the crazy tubing, think it looks great.

Going to build this up with 6700 Ultegra and 30mm carbon rims with tubulars. Keep thinking that tan-walls might look pretty good on it. What does anyone reckon?

... and another photo to highlight safety features...

Lol!

Same idea here -

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^^Tan walls look good on anything.

(waits for an onslaught of ugly bikes with tan walls.)

Lol!

Same idea here -

how??

I want black forks that shine like that!

Taped up with reflective.

Being the sort of person who thrives on constant change bike-wise, I'm turning my Feather into a nice and genteel runaround London kind of bike. There are enough blemishes for me not to feel uber-precious about every scrape it has now.

• Nitto M106 bars just arrived today from Japan. Given how much they cost to import, unless you absolutely must have Nitto (I foolishly decided I want to match my Nitto seatpost), my view is stick to the Soma Highway One if you want compact road drops with a 26 clamp.

• TRP RRL single speed levers. These are surprisingly nice, I would have liked some NOS Campag or Shimano levers but they will do.

• MKS Urban pedals. I wanted an affordable alternative to White Industries urban pedals and given that both of these appear to be clones of the Lyotard Berthet, what do I have to lose other than £40?

• Concor saddle. I am embarrassed to admit that this is the first time I have handled one of these in the flesh and goddamn it is a piece of work. Why did I wait this long?

Will try to build this up tonight; there's nothing like a cold midnight shakedown ride!

The MKS urban pedals are terrible, look decent, but so little grip.

if you decide against keeping the bars, dibs!

Wait until you ride the bars, they feel quite different to the Somas.

Stiffer I'm guessing? Where did you get yours from Regal, and did you pay mega bucks?

Much stiffer. And a tighter curve (that suits my smallish hands - I can definitely see people with large hands might prefer the Somas). There's a sweet spot that my hands tuck into really nicely.

I got mine through Tokyo Fixed (HubJub said they couldn't source them), and I did pay quite a bit, yeah. I considered Alex's Cycle but I didn't know how much duty I'd get stung for.

Please can you post a photo of your bike regal? About to pull the trigger and can't remember which thread you posted it in recently.... Just want a last look.

Thanks for feedback regarding the Nittos... you may have made the import duty from Alex Cycles more bearable!

Just how bad are the MKS Urbans? I guess I'll have to see how I get along with them... how bad could it be? (famous last words)

I found my foot slipping around all over them, maybe ou'll have a better experience.

How much did you get stung for?

£60 for the bars
£12 for shipping
£17 for duty and totally bullshit "processing" fee
= frigging £89

They are very pretty, but that's a lot of dosh any way you look at it!

hmm... that is alot...