Current Projects chat and miscellany

looking really nice there robadob.

Nice that

Ordinata, please, for the love of fuck, sort out your bars/levers !!

And get yourself the correct saddle, the angle of that Turbo is seriously offensive.

I only come at you like this because with those things changed, it would be a seriously nice bike. Great work (nearly).

Apart from this Ordi, that is bloody lovely.
Solve those hoods/seat angle tho, please.

Thank you please!

picked this up this weeken....my old BMX.
What dod you reckon...Raleigh Superburner fixie?

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just built up the rear wheel for the trike.

Sturmey archer xl-rd5 to a sun double track (doubt thats been done before!) with a schwalbe big apple.

comes in at a weight weenie 3.6kg, and thats without sprocket, tape, tubes and air. Quite a mean looking set up, pretty sure it'll take quite a bit of weight.

sun double track ..at a weight weenie 3.6kg

That rim is pretty heavy - the same in 24" as my 38mm wide Kris Holm 29er rims, which I thought were uber-porky

still needs a lot of work, to come are tires, SS kit, 46t chainring for some new cranks are in the post tomoro, grips, brake levers, rear brake, chain, then when i'm done ill paint it, i'm calling it Frankenstein, think when im done it will be a real nice mtb and built real cheep

Nice story.
Yesterday I got a friendly email from the person who built the frame of one of my finished projects.
He wrote that he was surprised to see his frame on the internet (my blog, velospace), but actually with his brothers name connected to it.
Well, to be honest, I just knew the family name, not the first name. But every time I mentioned the "brand" name of the small obscure company of the private frame builder, people mentioned the name of the brother. The brother was actually a racer, the man who wrote to me was a welder, who decided to make bike frames.
So, the story has been corrected now.
As a nice detail, he still knows a lot about my frame (he made just small quantities and on special order only) and had some pictures when brazing/soldering it. Nice workshop and jig or what???
Nice to complete my story about this "RECO" bike. And nice to know that some people ctually look at your blog and bikes on Velospace (or even better: this forum).

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lovely

his glasses are superfly.

Just picked up the Carradice Super C (not intended for the bike in picture).

bloody massive, hopefully it'll be enough for South America.

Fuck my boots Ed... WTF is that for? U mad?

why don't you use that bike for s.america? Change the bars, get the sti shifter for alfine..

I could, but the Alfine may not be suitable for such tour (Rohloff would be, since that bike was designed for them).

okay, rigid MTB have been the choice of bike for touring (i.e. my red bike), but i'd like to have a derailleur set-up rather than the Alfine, and there's no way I can stretch for a Rohloff upgrade especially when I've already got the Alfine (which does have sti shifter).

There's no braze on for a derailleur set-up, it's strictly Rohloff/Alfine, which is a bit of a shame as that bike would have a good low BB once I fitted some 26" 2 Marathon XR tyres (originally designed for 2.35 balloon tyres) and the disc brake are a welcome addition for a tour.

Thirdly, I may be a proud owner of a fully build (minus rack, got better one) Thorn Sherpa for only £300, hopefully if the owner kept her word and keep it till thurs;

Here's hoping that this will be mine...

Why would alfine not be suitable for such a tour?

I think it's because the gears slip when under high load

ed why not just get the braze ons fitted?
thats whats happening to the Geekhouse.
(front rack), the rest don;t need brazing- clamp on front, change rear drop out.

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/shimano-shimano-rear-gear-hanger-bracket-fixing-bolt-prod406/

I think it's because the gears slip when under high load

It doesn't, but the Alfine 11 is a new hubs, only just got it, it would be a bad idea to take a new product to a hard wearing tour around South America, plus being a new product, I don't know if there's any new problem that may occur.

I'll have to look at adding a gear hanger on the red bike, but frankly, it'd be easier to simply get that Thorn instead (especially given the price, £300 for a bicycle whose frame is currently being sold for £450).

jammy if your selling the basket let me know, might have it for the gf's bike.

plenty of cheap options out there. Wald comes to mind.

I've used this Wald for about three years: bike and rack

that rack is huge. i use it to haul 4+ bags of groceries. there are more tame choices available.

just put my road bike back together, changed the tyres and saddle

The GF's belgian novy mixte just back from powdercoaters. New chrome forks from freemans and headset fitted.

hope you guys are ready for some plain aweful.....
My theme is 'anti-theft', though it has some way to go until it is truely unstealable.

I started off with these two. Both freecycle finds from the far far far far north (moah north than manchester, but not as far as scotland).
The blue one, a 1976 (ish) Dawes Flambeau, in completely original spec (actually I lie, it had a replacement weinmann rear wheel in the early 80's) and perfect size for me (st57 & tt57), mechanically perfect as well, but visually distressed. One gentleman owner from new who was about to chuck her on the heap until I spoke up. She has been stripped to bare metal, and resprayed in a very close match to the original, the hand painted (or looked like hand) names have gone though.
She is almost there rebuild wise, luckily found a pair of un-used 80's Mavic tubeless rims in grey with dura ace hubs (?) in a local junk bike shop for a few quid, a donated tub, some donated brake blocks (cheers Mr.BC of glasgow - he runs the recumbent shop), and a free saddle from Mr.Crabtree on here.
Unfortunately haven't got the patience to properly re-dish the rear wheel yet, but its almost done. Debut soon!

The next, is the ultimate in anti-porn. Original idea with getting interested in roadie bikes (up until october I thought anything with tyres less than 2.2" was pathetic looking, stupid and probably dangerous, though my view of road riders* hasn't changed all that much ;) ) was to beat TFL of robbing me £8-9 a day while visiting my girlfriend in london, so the brief was....

• get the bike as cheap as poss (It was free, though £10 of fuel to fetch both of them from other side of county)

• fix it up with as little effort as poss (well, took probably 5hours to strip, replace all the bearings & races with spares from the drawer of junk in the barn, re-fit, recable and true up the wheels)

• make it look as aweful as is humanly possible (I'm somewhere near)

• make it practical (52:16 with 160mm cranks, 27" wheels, huge tyres is fine for the city, but here in mountain country its a bit of a joke).

She actually rides quite nice, though its a bit short for me, tt57 and st54, and seatpost is too short so it kills my knees riding it around them hills (not pictured & shameless plug for a free tatty post in ???? diameter).

Also its good for cyclocross.... (picture lost, but imagine the above axle deep in mud and cow shite down an un-used bridleway) and overtaking kit freaks with carbon fibre racing bike with gps, heart rate monitors and a back up car following them to provide shelter from the wind when it gets too much*

Anyway, hope to come to london on the weekend and see just how un-stealable it is. Please leave comments of how I can make it even less appealing to thieves. Note. picture does not show rusty chrome rims, badly surface rusted frame and tatty components etc.

This is my general view of road bike riders, too much kit, mid life crisis type guys who can't ride for st and even though they were overtaken by a young guy (who has not ridden in earnest in 18month) on a 40year old wreck of a bike running a ridiculously high gear, STILL feel the need to mutter rubbish under their breath about how fit/fast/good/better they are at life and how everyone else should dissapear.*

Please leave comments of how I can make it even less appealing to thieves.

go to paint shop
buy the 2 more gash paints you can think off (bright highlight colour works well)
go home give paint to your 5 years son and tell him to paint the bike (encourage him to paint wheels and components too)
its done 100% anti thieves

shit on the saddle.

making it look less like a 'fixie' helped.

thieves know that anything that's a 'fixie' can be sold for a good price, even a crap one.

I have my red ATB bike locked outside every evening, same spot and time, despite having disc brake, it seemed to resist the hand of thieves for the past 9 months.

put some crap old rear rack on it should help too.