Current Projects chat and miscellany

Alan Michel frames are very nice, the only slight down-side is a French thread BB Shell. Great find!

Just found out both BB and headset are English threaded on this (weird-ass) frame. Quite a nice surprise.

Would putting wider rims be a solution?

With MA2 and Michelin 23c clearance is a little better, but I think narrower tyres are in order for this.

Excellent, not sure whether the Michelin 23c is smaller than the original 23c tyres you had on it previously or the rims is a contributing factor.

I think the clearance is definitely better, it almost identical to the K. Winter bike above.

Something like a veloflex pave or master might be an idea. Pretty sure they come in 20-22c. So you can have visibly matching tyres, but without having to go as narrow on the front.

cleaning this up

thanks to the wisdom of one from this forum managed to i.d. it

colnago esa mexico
buckler team colours

Normally I wouldn't post in here, but since every other picture I can find of my frame on the internet is a pengy-fest, I feel I need to rebalance the scales somewhat. I'm not saying my bike is porn or anything, far from it, but compared to some of the other crap...

It's taken me forever to beg, borrow, scrape, steal, and even buy the bits to put it together, but it's lots of fun. It even works, which feels like a small miracle given I put it together myself. It's a Bottecchia 989, colombus slx with (mostly) DA 7700. The rest of it was scraped together from what was at hand. I'll take a proper picture sometime; it was about 2 degrees when I took this one and my hands were a little shaky.

how did you find derailleur alignment/ gear tweaking?
Drive's me crackers

I had some issues installing the front derailleur - I just couldn't get it right, eventually paid a tenner for Vaidas to do it and it was money well spent. The rear works beautifully now that I've hand-sanded a ferrule to fit in the boss on the chainstay; there was too much slack in the cable before, which was affecting shifting to the lowest gears. Once the tension was sorted it was fairly simple. I can take full credit for that...

Well done, a nice build
I've tried on a number of times trying to set the front d. alignment-but I usually get it done at my LBS
youtube has some'educational' stuff on it

hopefully this time next year I will have cracked it )

Try setting up gears without a chain on. Do it all by sighting along the sprockets and 'through' the chain guides on changer - front and/or rear, top and bottom gears. I do this whenever setting up a new gear train. Get it all to line up using the adjusters. When this is done put on the chain and you may not even need to fine tune it. Worth a try.

cheers, will do

Took this for it's first proper run since getting it just before Christmas (I know, I know, it's been teasing me for over a week but had work commitments).

Just waiting to be sure of the handlebar position then I will trim the steerer and then ride it as much as I can. Feels absolutely amazing. Chas and the team have done a fantastic job.

May get my flatmate to take a couple of decent pics when he's back from Canada.

Interesting, looks like a track frame but has bottle cage bosses.

sounds like a custom job...

That Roberts is beautiful

Interesting, looks like a track frame but has bottle cage bosses.

Yeah custom. Wanted a track frame with more of a road bike geometry and as I'll be using it for long distance riding I wanted two water bottles (though one will probably be used to store food/tools/jacket).

Very nice.

Yeap I think it's wise thinking, it may be blasphemy but I wish the Argos had bottle cage mounts, it's a pain having to carry a bag on long rides for the purpose of carrying water and spares.

personally though on the Roberts I would go more spacers and flip the stem, but that's just me.

i agree with malaysian re the stem

Yeap I think it's wise thinking, it may be blasphemy but I wish the Argos had bottle cage mounts, it's a pain having to carry a bag on long rides for the purpose of carrying water and spares.

Doesn't look very neat but could be a quick fix when you head out on longer rides?

Did similar on the Hetchins and took some of the paint off, the Argos is still quite tidy and don't want to risk it.

When I need to take water bottles on my Mercian I wrap the down tube in some old inner tube before insulating taping the cage on over the top. Not pretty when attached but does the job well on long rides and doesn't leave any marks when I remove it.

EDIT: And I think SKS make some QR mounts?

You have to wrap at least one layer of insulation tape around the tube before you clamp anything onto it. Especially with SKS raceguards. I have some clamp on bosses which I used to use for the CX bike when training on it. Proper mounts aren't expensive and are much better than bodging a cage onto the tubes.

personally though on the Roberts I would go more spacers and flip the stem, but that's just me.

Interesting. Flipped with more spacers is to me more aesthetically pleasing (and how I was riding it until this morning) but I thought the current way is better as I can remove more spacers and still get the same handlebar position?

I really dislike rucksacks and saddlebags over long distances, two bottles FTW!