A ladies fixie with a tricky brief

It had slightly mis-matched pedals, which my OCD just couldn't cope with, so I chucked an old set of plastic pedals on. The saddle got changed for her big padded thing off her hybrid. The bearings on the front wheel were grinding, so I've thrown on an old spare with a narrow axle for now. Changed the ratty old chain because it was pretty stiff, but kept the cog and chain ring because they were both fine with a little cleaning up - those old steel parts just last forever!

The biggest problem I have is that it has cottered cranks. The cotter pins just made faces at me and told me to get fucked when I tried taking them out. I could just take an angle grinder to the BB spindle, but the bike is running at the moment and in fact the BB is actually pretty slick, which was quite a surprise. So I've left the BB, cranks and chain ring alone for now, whilst I try to work out who made this and what parts might fit, before I go and kill anything on it to death.

I see my future... Much interweb searching... and reading of old articles about vintage bikes on Sheldon...

So, it looks like this is a case of "Welcome to vintage bicycle hell".

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This is the state of the chain ring, with just a few tiny spots of rust, which I could probably polish out, if we were keeping the crankset. I'm slightly upset at the prospect of having to discard it in the future.

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This is the most distinctive feature of the frame - I haven't seen this kind of triangular bridge before.

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I also took the front end apart and found the only distinguishing mark on the entire bike, which is "Akisu 80" stamped on the fork steerer tube. Google says they are a Taiwanese manufacturers of f&f which were rebadged for other people. Well made, but definitely lower end, seems to be the suggestion, which fits with the rest of the frame detail.

In servicing the fork, I prised the crown race off and found it was a nightmare of a job, it was jammed on harder than any other I've dealt with before. Then found I couldn't get it back on. At all. So I ran a file around the inside of the race and just a teeny bit around the base of the steerer tube.

Checking on Sheldon (http://www.sheldonbrown.com/headsets.html), it looks like this is a JIS fork (27mm at the crown race area) with an ISO headset (26.4mm internal diameter) jammed onto it.

As I happened to be passing, I asked the Evans Cycles shop in Docklands if the could re-face the JIS headset down to ISO, had a debate with the mechanic who insisted there is only 1" and 1 1/8", then was told they could do it, but only if I bring the whole bike from Oxford to them (which means cycling a bike that's too small for me across London) and they will kindly do an entire headset service for me (which I don't need).

Or I could buy the tool to do it but realistically, how many JIS headsets am I ever likely to run into to justify owning the tool for this? Vitually none I reckon. So maybe I'll just leave it.

Tea bee, I have the tool to face the fork crown to 26.4, but would advise micrometering everything first. You come across JIS sizes on Holdsworthy's stuff from the early eighties, in my experience.

Yeah, I don't trust myself to take just 0.6mm off the race area.

However, because I ran a file around the inside of the crown race, I don't want to re-face the fork just yet, otherwise the race may not fit properly afterwards. If we decide to upgrade to a more posh threaded headset, I'll risk giving it a go though. Verniers at the ready, people..!!

A nice sealed-bearing threaded headset like a Stronglight A9 (about £35)has a soft alloy crown race, it takes a minute or two to file the internal diameter out a little, then twat it on. Noooo worries

The original idea for this build (as stated by my wife, not me trying to dictate) was that she wanted an old bike that fitted well, then rebuild it with good vintage components and new bits that she liked. It wasn't so much a restoration project as a slow progression to as functional a machine as possible but making it pretty along the way. The sort of bike that "looks smart, but someone who knew their stuff would notice some class components on it".

But mostly, things are being picked on what looks pretty and the usual forum favourites are falling by the wayside like flies.

The crankset needed to be rounded not square edged, and have a spider. she likes both of those features. But the really nice Shimano 105 crankset I picked up on fleaBay for £3, she wasn't interested in. Nicely rounded, good, slim lines - perfect, I thought. But it's been cast aside by a Suntour SR crankset.

It's white. And pretty. Apparently the Shimano 105, although much more rounded and less chunky wasn't pretty enough. Even offering to powder coat it white wasn't enough. So bye bye £35, hello set of white cranks. That I can't actually use though, until I change the BB for a cotterless one, but my wife is happy. :-)

So the style of saddle has at least been chosen and she wants it like a massive leather sofa of extreme comfort joy. Although nothing in the Brookes range was floating her boat.

I honestly think you'd need to explain that a bicycle saddle is not a seat, as long the shape is right it's perfect.

girlfriend thought the same with her old Dawes that come with the same style saddle as pictured, till she got her Brooks B17 and realised how much more comfortable it is.

Amazingly that bike you have picked up actually have a normal seat tube angle, which mean Brooks saddle or other with short railing is a-ok.

We've had the leather saddle vs massive padded "Barcalounger" chat Ed and she wants a honey leather saddle and grips anyway. So it made it easier to convince her that ditching the padding might still be the way forward. None of the Brooks range got her very interested though, but I found this on Velo Orange...

https://sslcache.se/e5373177d2975ee709e12ea9870de4b9ada81a9f/687474703a2f2f73746f72652e76656c6f2d6f72616e67652e636f6d2f6d656469612f636174616c6f672f70726f647563742f63616368652f312f696d6167652f353330783533302f39646637386561623333353235643038643665356662386432373133366539352f762f6f2f766f5f736164646c655f6d6f64656c5f382d325f315f312e6a7067
It's a wopping 205mm wide and coil sprung, so she's definitely sold on it as an idea. Plus the price is now US$95 (I'm sure these saddles were more expensive a while ago), so it's not extortionate either. Just need to find a few more opinions/reviews about VO saddles and see if the quality matches the look.

VO saddle work, but if she's unsure, I got a Brooks B67 that doesn't have spring if she want to try it out and see if it's worth going for or not.

Carefully file the steerer tube, I did it last week and worked fine. Mine was a Tange headeset and the crown race wouldn't go onto a Time fork, (not sure whether either of those is JIS or ISO or what, but it wouldn't fit...) I only had to take off a little bit of material before the race went on.

A nice sealed-bearing threaded headset like a Stronglight A9 (about £35)has a soft alloy crown race, it takes a minute or two to file the internal diameter out a little, then twat it on. Noooo worries

£26.25 from Ribble.

I clubbed together with a guy on Retrobike, bought two and even with the cost of forwarding one on, we paid less than £25 each!

The headset is fine for now, I filed out the old one a little and got it back on (still with more force needed than normal though). I'll park the ideas for the future though, thanks guys.

Thanks for the offer Ed. You going to be at Souths tomorrow? I'll be in London - stopping in on an old friend in Southwark after lunch, so we'll probably chat the afternoon away, which puts me just a few miles away.

So, 10 months after the last post (bike projects move like glaciers in my house) we have the bike back from the powder coating people.

So here's what the pieces currently look like...
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So... with ALMOST as much speed as Chainbreaker's super-light-super-safe build (has that been resolved yet, btw?) this bike is now rideable! Pictures to follow this weekend.

Well, when I say "rideable, what I mean is it doesn't actually have any brakes yet - so at the moment it definitely goes, it just doesn't stop. But that's progress though, right?

I mean, I did buy brakes - along with square-end cables and white outers, but here in Vintage Bike Rebuild Hell where NOTHING fits, I ran into the problem that neither of the calipers will fit through the drill holes in the frame or forks. It seems that old brakes used one long bolt with a standard nut on the end. These modern brakes have a shorter bolt which meets with an insert nut that sits inside the frame - except it doesn't, because the nut-side hole isn't large enough to accept it. Leaving me with the next questions in the list of things to either modify or buy retro components for is:

Do I drill out the frame hole to accept the insert nut, and risk finding that there is some other problem waiting for me in this never-ending nightmare from which I just cannot wake?
Do I try to change the bolt in the modern brakes out for something longer, cut it to length and fit a standard nut to the end?
Could I find a beautiful retro brake set, for which I won't have to sell a kidney?
Or do I just capitulate and put the original El Crappo brake calipers back on for now, until we can find something better?

If I am buying another brake set, I could really do with one of those upside-down rear brakes (because of the mixte frame, the brake cable arrives at the caliper from beneath not above as normal). Anyone have any idea if I can buy a modern replacement for one of these?

The front brake is easy: just drill out the back of the fork with an 8mm bit.

The rear is not so straightforward:

• buy another front brake: the longer bolt will allow you to mount it with a conventional nut, rather than the recessed type;
  
• drill out the back of the tube (as per the front brake) and mount the brake on the front of the tube. Not necessarily a good idea though, as if it's just unreinforced tube (likely on a budget frame), drilling it out will weaken it and it's likely it will distort when the brake is applied;
  
• fit a single pivot, conventional nut calliper: this would be my choice. You don't need the mechanical advantage of a dual pivot on the rear and it would allow you to reverse the cable mounting hardware, so that the cable entered from below as was intended.
  
  

Let me have a rummage, I might have one that you can have for postage.

If you do use a dual pivot, you can use a V-brake noodle to angle the cable: check the CP thread, this came up in the last couple of pages and Ed posted a photo.

If I am buying another brake set, I could really do with one of those upside-down rear brakes (because of the mixte frame, the brake cable arrives at the caliper from beneath not above as normal). Anyone have any idea if I can buy a modern replacement for one of these?

Do you need to get a new set if you mount the brake here:

This is the most distinctive feature of the frame - I haven't seen this kind of triangular bridge before.

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Kinda like this
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Peugeot_Mixte,_PX18.JPG

Thanks Scilly Suffolk. What is the CP thread?

"current projects": first two posts.