Bike for my wife

Morning all,

Here are a couple of pics of a bike i have almost finished which i built for my wife. It is finished and running except for a prob with the top two gears and the rear wheel may need rebuilt/respaced and redished to sort this out.

I bought the bike as a Townsend Lady Royale and had it repainted and re-decaled as a Gazelle ( i know that is not the done thing for purists). Almost all the parts have been changed and most parts have been cleaned and polished. The bike is small to match my wife's height and originally had 24'' wheels which i changed - this was possibly the biggest problem with the build and due to clearance issues the rear tyre has to mounted and then inflated. I may use different tyres in the future when funds allow.

The build was supposed to be cheap, quick and easy and it has turned out to be none of these - or even close, but i am happy with the result; more importantly, my wife is happy too.

This is the build list -
Frame: Townsend Lady Royale mixte - CroMo
Fork: Townsend steel
Headset: Townsend
Stem: Cinelli
Handlebar: GB Maes
Bar Tape: Deda
Brake Levers: Shimano SLX
Brake Calipers: Shimano SLX
Brake Pads: N/K
Brake Cables: N/K
Shifters: Stem mounted Shimano
Front Derailleur: Shimano 105
Rear Derailleur: Gipiemme
Cranks: Thun
Chainrings: Thun
Bottom Bracket: Townsend OE
Pedals: Can't remember!
Rims: Alloy ATB
Hubs: Shimano
Hub Skewers: Maillard
Tyres: Specialised Fatboy
Saddle: Selle Italia SLR Carbon
Seatpost: NK aero
Extras: Large amount of patience and Cateye Wireless

Here is a couple of before pics -

And here are a few of the finished bike (well almost finished) -

The list of problems is long - the paint was not good, BB axle took ages to get sorted (10 axles tried!), wrong cranks came, stem took too long to polish due to big gouges, cable routing was not easy and outers were too short, the new brakes did not have a deep enough drop for the original wheels (my fault) and my wife fell off the bike when i was setting the seat height!! All have been resolved now apart from one which should be fixed this week,

Richard

Really good job! Saddle is more expensive than the whole bike but that's okay :P.

Thanks - i had bought a saddle for the bike and i planned to use the SLR one on my road bike but my wife chose it instead!!! Anything to keep the peace and me in the garage!

Richard

Nice one - glad she likes it too - I'm trying to persuade the wife to join me on the bike - no luck yet!

Thanks, Show her a few pics and she may be encouraged.

Richard

That's sweet, but for the price of the repaint couldn't you have bought a gazelle?

I could have bought almost anything but my wife is vertically challenged (her arse is low to the ground) I had to get a kids bike. I thought of the kids Decathlon bikes but decided i would rather build her something. My daughter is 7 and she would be almost tall enough to ride my wife's bike (no joke).

Richard

That's a lovely build. Feel inspired as I'm looking for something for my better half at the moment.

Thanks, hopefully you won't have the height issue i had and you will be able to pick a frame from much more options. There are plenty of mixte frames around at the moment.

Richard