Gettoo - The Shopper.....project

Awesome!

Will the box capacity allow carrying of your turbo trainer? :)

(Happy to bring them back to you whenever btw)...

Which makes me think: don't you need permanent trailer attachment for that bike, and a trailer powdercoated to match the bike frame?

Salut! Bring it back any time you like, or I can collect.

No trailers. I'd just get a box for the back. :)

And I found the tyres.... This is going to be a seriously cushy bike to ride.

Just the replacement cranks and the rear light for the dynamo left to arrive.

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How do you find the ride of the bike in its pre-upgrade state?

Really good fun actually. It's got quite a long wheel base for a run around, and with the big tyres and spinny gears it's huge fun. It reminds me simultaneously of my very first bike (all the fun!) and my very first car (a giant beige sofa on wheels)

This is pretty much my first car, except mine was the bigger size up.

I know that it will change a bit with the box up front and the even bigger tyres, but it is a seriously fun bike.

And the cranks are here! Cheap Sun Tours but with a 3/32" 42 T chainring so that solves that little conundrum. QR seatpost clamp also acquired today. Just the rear dynamo light is missing.

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Salut! Bring it back any time you like, or I can collect. No trailers. I'd just get a box for the back. :)

Was kidding about box capacity to carry a turbo trainer, will bring it back!

Love that project and thanks for linking the other threads, I found myself looking at shopping bikes on eBay because of you!

Join us.....

There are some rather nasty rumours floating around about a sequel to that^.

my first car was a VW camper - literally a sofa on wheels. Retro, not that fast but bags of personality and great load carrying. Hmmm I see a pattern here..

Great to hear that even in its - beige - state it's a fun ride so the upgrades will make it even more so.

It has begun....

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Progress so far is smooth. Very pleased to see that the 50mm Big Apples fit without needing to fettle with the mudguards.

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Well, shit.

Things progressing well and then I go to install the cranks, realise that the BB is too long to get a sensible chainline. The NDS of the cheap cranks then refuse to take the crank puller, cue much swearing. I have managed to get the crank off but only by brute force which involved cross threading and then stripping the extraction threads. Bah.

Cheap cranks means cheap replacement though, especially as it is NDS. Replacement on the way. Also the original chainguard won't work with the new cranks either so they'll have to go and I'll get an after market one. Also Bah. I have no idea why I got so ambitious with the drive train.

Everything else looks good though. New sweep on the bars are really nice, new brakes look good as does the new shifter. The SA 3 speed on the back is not nearly as fiddly as I had expected.

Need more P-clips to attach the rack box to the rack though. The 19mm ones I got are too small - should have gone for the 22mm. With the box in place I'll be able to start the dynamo wiring. I haven't used a soldering iron or heat shrink tubing in many years so looking forward to that.

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It's done. That last bits were a massive faff to be honest.

I managed to sort out the stripped crank arm and reuse it so that was all good. I had some serious challenges with the box on the front. It's attached with P-clips and it's really solid but it is really heavy. I understand why all bikes have super lightweight materials for carrying stuff on the front. With the box on the front I need to do some fettling to get it set back close to the fork as possible. That helped a lot with but I still needed to add a stabiliser spring to keep things in check. I might also reconsider the VO adjustable double kickstand. It's great but when it's folded up it doesn't sit very high which means no tight cornering without scraping the feet on the tarmac. I like the double kickstand a lot but there are almost no options available for bikes with 20" wheels. I may have to back to a single leg kickstand instead. It's hugely long too - the wheelbase is about 50-80mm longer than my 60cm Cross-Check which is surprising.

So if you combine all of those factors together, you get a bike that handles like a giant 70s American luxury sedan - so I'm totally good with that.

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You'll notice that the chain guard is gone - a casualty of moving to the 42T ring up front. I looked at the after market options but none of them worked. I will keep an eye our on ebay to see if anything suitable comes up for something of this size.

The mud guards are also gone too and replaced with some SKS ones. The originals were casualties of the move to the 50mm Big Apple tyres. I just couldn't get them to play nicely together. I appear to be quite lucky and it appears that SKS have just stopped making these super wide mudguards for 20" tyres. I only found one place on ebay that carried them and they don't appear on the SKS website any more.

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Overall the aesthetic without the original bits works fantastically well. It looks a lot less twee and a bit more useful.

I've already done a quick trip to grab some booze and it's great. It is a bit bouncy on the front so I'll need to line the bottom of the box with some high density rubber matting to protect the contents. And a cargo net or bungees to keep things from moving around too much.

The dynamo lights are great and that was my first experience with dynos. Huge thumbs up from me and I suspect that dynamo lighting is very likely to end up on the cummuto-dad cross check.

Over all I am really pleased and it turned out far better than I was hoping for. I think that I have managed to tick all of the practicality bits so everything on top of that is a bonus.

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And the last bonus - I grabbed a stack of these stickers years ago when I stopped by the Harris Cyclery on a personal tip to Boston. I has lost track of them but rediscovered them after our most recent house move. Very appropriate. I think I'll end up stickering up the bike over time.

Will trade a few of these originals for a "Ride Bikes - Listen to Slayer" sticker.

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Well done on the build - liking the 70's sedan reference...

I haven't got any stickers to trade, but would still like a Sheldon sticker.

Looks great, thanks for taking the time to write up. Stickers are pretty cool and seem appropriate for some reason.

That box is mad! Looks great though.

Ok. But only if you collect in person.

Thanks. It's an old cheese crate from some dairy company apparently. It's just the right size to hold 6 bottles of wine and a lock.

Cheers.

I'm considering one last finishing touch...

big yes to this bike and big yes to the bar-ista, proper shopper including coffee break

Cheers!

Ok, but only if you race @mmccarthy on his cruiser.

This could serve as the inaugural coffee caddy cruiser contest.