Current Projects chat and miscellany

New titanium rails saddle day : )

Nice!

I wonder if wheels get lighter with a worn-out breaking surface

breaking surface

If the surface is breaking, they're probably too worn out.

With most of the common friction pairs, braking does erode one or both and the eroded material is discarded, so the vehicle becomes lighter. In the case of a single 700C aluminium rim at the wear limit, it could amount to as much as 40g

That's more than I imagined. Have you seen hill climbers anlu riding old worn out wheels and brake pads?

Have you seen hill climbers anlu riding old worn out wheels and brake pads?

Trimming pads is definitely a thing.

The original shiny Shamals that aren't thrashed and destroyed or hilariously ambitiously priced are kryponite to me.

And lo it came to pass one wet windy Tuesday evening a few drinks deep I made an impulse buy on eBay, and within a week these arrived...

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Mark 1 Shamals! Lovely. I hope you'll give them the tanwalls they deserve.

....I was aware that 650c tyre options were limited, the modern 28c fatter options were never available, and I couldn't even find any gumwalls at all in 25c or 23c, so had to made do with some black Conti gp400's.

But now what, I dont even own a lo-pro, so like mashton and his build a bike around a saddle, now I had to build a bike around these wheels. Months roll by as super sick rad lo pro's in large size are few and far between.

One has been winking at me Italy, but post Brexit import fees and charges put me off, but it's on my watch list and keeps nudging me every time I wander into ebay on wet weekday evenings. A few drinks deep again and impulse offer is made, and the next day to my surprise is accepted.

Roll by another 6 weeks of customs fuckwittery and general ineptitude, handling fees and then finally a large package with Italian papers arrives, my favourite kind.

And so a few decades late to the lo pro party, I'm a member of da club. It's a steel Pinarello team Mercatone Uno team bike from I think 1993/4/5. It has no tubing decals but seems a mix, the 3 main triangle tubes are like oversized gilco tubes, with a distinct tear drop shape with quite a sharp edge on the teardrop tail. The pointy bit of the teardrop on the top tube and down tube point towards the inside of the frame, while the seattube has the pointy side pointing towards the rear of the bike. I've never understood Pinarello tubing, they seem to have all sorts of ones I've never see anyone else use like dolmen and kens, so don't know what assortment this is. The fork looks a bit like Columbus Air to me, but no idea really. The bottom bracket has some mini webbing gussets and frame has R.Petito on it and was told it was Roberto Petito's. Bit before my time so I'd not heard of him but wiki says he has been top 5 in Flanders and Roubaix and did win Tirreno Adriatico once.

Anyway yadda yadda here's some pics.....

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And the positive off all that pissing about by customs was it allowed me time to source the bits I didn't have.

I had a stack of 10 speed bits so that was the obvious route. To me shiny is always better than black so predominantly silver build, but I had the carbon cranks so fancied them on this over a more traditional silver crank.

I did get some aero bars, but in London that is not very practical. My ideal solution is some 10 speed campag ergos on bullhorns, but I've yet to see a satisfactory cabling option without big loopy cables out front. I don't know anything about fishing or sailing but figure there's got to me a widgety thingamee thing that can stealthily and tidily route the cables and still have good shifting. But until I figure that I'm just going to blat about with bullhorns for a bit and see how that pans out.

And so after an extended delay and much waffle, this afternoon I finally finished putting it together.....

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And for full speedy days I've got a Ghibli tub for popping out to get some artisanal overpriced coffee at supersonic speeds :)

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Super awesome

Titanium frame, finishing kit TBC, purple chris king bling & black mavic rims.

The question: black or silver spokes?

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Always silver!!

Black for me. With the colour of the titanium and the CK bling, I think best to stick to subtle black

This, black spokes just never do it for me!

You'll never bore of silver spokes sparkling in the sunshine.

Magnifico 👌🏻
Yellow bikes are best bikes

Very nice.

I think Mercatone-Uno rode Pinarellos up until the end of 1993, then switched bike sponsor (to Bianchi). I remember Michele Bartoli and Francesco Casagrande riding Pinarello frames when they were neo-pros on the team.

Agreed. Black spokes makes wheels look like r500

Words of wisdom, also from @lesterama and @MCamb

Fuck yes

Quite a story.

Didn't want to or couldn't use the internal routing?

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Just I've got no drill and the bars weren't drilled at the other ends for cable entry, and i wanted to keep the neon plug so no down the ends routing. And wanted to get it up and running before tomorrow.

Cause you wanted it finished for commuting to work, right?