Talbot Cyclocross bike

Of sorts (not my choice). Mine's a road bike, we're fairly unlikely to ride them at the same time at least. The different undercoats don't make any difference, in my opinion.

Decals on the fork came through the paint unfortunately, so that has to be rubbed back and redone.

Boo, easy paint to match?

Which dropouts are these you've used, @dammit?

Paragon machineworks - the steel ones, not the stainless.

It was funny, in a way - Matt finished this frame off a little while ago and said it was weird working on "an old" bike. What he meant by that was that we've moved to breezer style dropouts and our own disc-caliper fixing points, but this was calling a bike that would have been (at our) cutting edge a year ago, old.

Ah yes, I suppose post/flat mounts are going to be more the thing now.

We bought a jig that allows us to place the post-mount points precisely where we need them in relation to the dropout, gives us a great deal more flexibility and the caliper body itself forms the reinforcing strut inside the chainstay/seatstay vertices.

Soon.

Not sure what I'm looking at?

seatpost?

Noice.

nice but: not nearly enough mud clearance on rear U stay

(having been mud-plugging on a caadx i now realise how important this is..)

Rear clearance looks plenty to me.

It's fine - there's 40mm rubber on there IIRC and there's still plenty of daylight showing.

Yep, 40mm:

not at the shoulder there isn't

Buys a cyclocross bike, is instantly an expert.

Looks great, Neil. Will you be giving it a maiden voyage on New Year's Day?

I'm down in Winchester at the moment, idea is to tackle some of the South Downs way on it before coming back to London at the end of the week.

Therefore yes, I would hope that it'd be dialled in well enough for me to humiliate myself on New Years Day.

Is it Herne Hill again?

always admire your forthright input (the guards lasted about 2 minutes before being ripped off/out..)

appreciate that talbot is precious to many

good wishes to all involved etcetera

does need reflectors on wheels, mind ..

Yes it is. A tip - if you wear a Santa hat everyone knows you're having fun and therefore no humiliation.

How many Santa hats can I wear at once I wonder?

You can nearly not see the leaves on the Christmas tree.

Lametta Lametta Lametta.

looks awesome, but i wouldn't trust the thin wishbone stay

lay off the mince pies then