Lexpres track bike...big beautiful Belgian

^^^How big is that ring? Looks like a plate!

It's 52, the standard size for all men's track bikes. Anything smaller than that is substandard.

Tenderloin, I hear what you're saying. My reply would be that they cost more than the entire bike, nice as they are.

And thanks again for the pictures and storage apollo. Really appreciated.

As for the fork situation...

The only forks TFG can get it now the threaded ones on their online store are gone are the BLB ones. The BLB ones are actually really nice, but have 230mm steerer. A rough measurement of the forks this morning, which they were still on the bike but taking into account the headset stack as well, suggested I need around 240mm.

It looks like it might have to be kirkov's Ebay forks - or possibly a shorter stack headset.

All the components add up to something special.
There's so many generic fixies on the sale threads its untrue, all ridden for 5 minutes badly. Hope this gives you decades of service.
And its blue

Rest assured this one is with someone who appreciates it! That said, I will be making some changes before hopefully taking it to the Intermediates session on Saturday.

1/8" 52t chainring, 16t Dura Ace cog and 1/8" KMC chain going on tomorrow, and temporary Ultegra SPD-SL pedals going on tomorrow, time permitting.

Apollo managed to miss off the best feature of all though, which I only discovered today - the Cycles Lexpres bar-end plug (sadly singular):

Also I am now friends with Cycles Lexpres on Facebook have made contact with Cycles Lexpres and have written to them asking for more information on the frame.

^^oh crap yeah!!

I was so confused as to who actually owned this bike for a second..Then I read the original post... That locomotive logo is fantastic! Nice bike too, congrats Tom.

Cheers Jake!

I have this stem knocking around at my parents' house, is it worthy? It's nothing special, but neither are the bars, and then they'd both be 3ttt and both match. Ideally I'd like a silver 120mm stem though for a straight swap.

awesome whip Tom, definitely the new stem for my matching preferences, really into the loco-motif...

what size is the chainring that came off it?

The chainring that's in the picture is a 3/32" 52t chainring, as far as I know an original Ofmega one that came with the chainset but I haven't checked too closely.

Hopefully tomorrow I'm going to swap it for the Suntour Superbe 52t chainring, I think it should look even better then.

Might get a 130mm stem rather than that one I had at home, I think I could use the extra cm of reach and Planet-X have NOS 3ttt quid stems for £9.99 that would match the bars perfectly.

When that's done, blue-white fade pelten bar tape!

I'd leave the stem, think the cockpit looks good, a silver stem will just mark it down with all the other similar builds. Dare to be different, etc.
New seatpost and saddle (or just saddle) and I think you're done.

Well until you bother to get wound ups.

Had a chance to properly ride it for the first time on the velodrome, and it's an absolute monster. It's a lot more twitchy than my Dolan, but it was such good fun and it seems to fit me as well as I first thought. Need some gel pads or some HTFU though, by the end I was starting to lose the feeling in some of my fingers.

Added a new chain and swapped the chainring out for a Suntour Superbe on Friday, again with the kind assistance of apollo.

And the picture here is courtesy of Dom, as I forgot my phone yesterday:

Thinking about a white Rolls or Concor now, and still thinking about a silver stem and a different seatpost, but in the meantime I'm hopefully going to keep on having that much fun on it!

I was after a new saddle, I've ended up with three: black Concor, black Rolls, white Rolls, the latter two I still need to receive in the post/collect.

Here it is with the black Concor:

Also tracked down a silver stem which will hopefully be fitted tonight.

did you get a clincher wheelset?

if no, you need the track ones on here.

http://www.lfgss.com/thread92741.html#post3112071

Beautiful wheels but way over budget. Got some budget clinchers last night, they're not too pretty or smooth but they'll let me ride on the street which is what I need.

One has an Ofmega hub that matches the track wheelset too.

Also got a silver stem, white Rolls and Campag aero seatpost. All I'm missing now is the time to put it together. And some tyres and a brake.

(Campag Monoplanar and 23mm gumwalls, if anyone has anything lying around...)

I've been away for a while, but I got back to London last night and got back to work on it this morning, again with major help from Apollo.

It now has a white Rolls and 3ttt stem (thanks to knyazb), a slightly mismatching clincher wheelset and beautiful Campagnolo aero seatpost (thanks gav) and beautifully applied blue-white fade bar tape (thanks apollo for the bar tape porn-worthy job).

I bought the same forks as kirkov from Ebay, which were cheap and look nice. The trouble is, the clearance on them is massive, which means they probably wouldn't look that great fitted. Also, they seem to be so shoddily drilled that the brake I have won't fit without a bit of boring out.

However, the clearance on the undrilled forks I have is so tight that I think the bolt at the back of the brake caliper would foul on the tyre if I did get the forks drilled.

That fade tape fits very nicely

such a joy to wrap too, quite stretchy and sticky so you can get it tight.

We used an extra strip of Deda tape on each drop section for 1-2mm of extra padding but you can hardly tell, result!

However, the clearance on the undrilled forks I have is so tight that I think the bolt at the back of the brake caliper would foul on the tyre if I did get the forks drilled.

would you ever use clamp on brake calipers? I ask because i saw some online in my search for ideal brakes to fit my frame/wheel combo.

Looking good! Not normally a fan of fade tape but that suits the build.

p.s. I love wrapping bars, so satisfying.

Haha I hate it, I got Apollo to do it for me.

^^I have considered a clamp-on brake, and it may be the best solution for now. I was always aware of them but hoping that for the same price I could get a decent fork. Now that's looking less likely I'll give it some more thought.

Haha I hate it, I got Apollo to do it for me.

didn't take much convincing :)

Apollo would you like to do the bartape on my road bike?