Genesis Vagabond

A little way off starting this one, as I need to rebuild my shed to keep it in, but I have the frame on order and some of the parts. Had a ride on a large complete a few weeks ago and really liked it, and although the complete looks like good value I have a lot of the parts to do a more 'all-road' orientated build, which will probably be more useful for the short term, with the option to stick some knoblies on and go off-road touring in the future. Also because purple.

Here's what I have so far:

RD - bashed up old LX thing, may get something nicer
FD - standard XT one

Wheelset will probably be these but with silver rims and SP hub. Tempted to polish up the rear hub, there's a bloke nearby who'll do it for around £35, I think it may bug me if I don't. The frame has 73mm BB drop, same as the CDf, so 650b could be an option. Not sure if this'll have any advantages beyond hipster points though.

Tyres - may try and get some of those Soma Shiroko 42mm, although this could be challenging.
Saddle - probably a Regal as I'm liking the one on my SS at the moment, or a charge Pan or Brooks B17 special
Bars - would like something quite wide and flared, not full of dirt-drop, but maybe the Salsa cowchipper, spendy though. Any alternatives appreciated.

Think that's it. As I say, slow build.

Ooh, nice. Looked at one myself, but sizing was a bit off for me, inbetween two sizes. Love the colour.

Oh yeah, might want to stop sometimes, so I have these:

and will be getting TRP spykes. Sounds like they might be a bit more hard-wearing than the sypres, hooked up with jagwire compression-less full cable runs.

The hoods aren't very comfortable, when I ran ss I had them to start with, soon moved to Sram.

Those are the 520s, linear pull ones, you had those?. I have some of the cane creek ones (that are the same as the 340s I think) which I'm not keen on. The ones above seem a lot chunkier and like they would be more comfortable, but it's a good point, I should probably work out a way to test them properly before committing to the Spykes as I don't think there's a lot of other options.

Yeah, had both 520 and 340. Not tried much else, but sram are the best I've come across. Even on the geared bike I find Rival a lot more comfortable than 105, so next year, when the frame gets resprayed, I'll probably switch to sram levers.

S500 yes? I was thinking of trying some on the SS so may well have to do that and see how I get on with them.

S500 wont work with Spyke. You will need Spyre.

Great project btw.

Yep, which would be a shame as anecdotally the Spyre seems a little more temperamental in terms of maintenance and set-up. I guess using a travel-agent would be a step backwards too.

S500s. Shame that the spykes won't play nice. Never had a problem with the spyres though.

Having sleepless nights about which dirt drop to go for. I like the look of the Nitto RM014 but have a feeling the reach will be too long (30mm longer than my current road bar)

The Midge is also a strong contender, being 10mm less than my current. This would mean I could re-use the Thomson X4 off my road bike.

How do frame manufacturers measure reach? Do they factor in a standard stem and bar reach too? I think I may just have to buy both and see what works.

Do they need to be silver?

There is also the Genetic Digest and the new Alp Kit Love Mud Bomber, but they are black only I think. 78 and 70mm reach. The Alp Kit is dirt cheap too.

http://www.billys.co.uk/english/group.php?prod=hbge-digestbars
https://www.alpkit.com/products/love-mud-bomber

Yeah had seen them. It's a preference but if there's something else that works I'll polish it up. Thing is with those (and possibly the case with the two I've list too) is that the hoods end up quite slanted, Ideally I'd like the hoods to stay usable. I have trouble with my median nerve getting irritated sometimes and wonder if that would aggravate it. That's why I was thinking of the Cowchippers, but they're not available until late June apparently.

Edit: pretty sure I'm going to use the Midge now and see how I get on. Anyone have a silver pair to sell?

From where did you get the frame? Tempted but its hard to get hold of fair priced Genesis bits in Sweden and Google leaves me with UK stores I've never heard of.

From my LBS, they're a genesis dealer. I have heard the Madison overseas distro is a bit hit or miss. Sure you could convince someone to ship a frame if it works out on prices though. This guys always seems to crop up on my ebay searches, not sure if that's a good thing, but he does seem to stock a lot of Genesis bikes.

Thank you. Had another look around and saw that Evans now sell them. Free delivery!

Bike jumble bargains and a pretty new hub salvaged from a wheel. Ordering shiney new chainrings for the cranks in 48/38/28 I think, the arms will get a polish too. Anyone got any idea on how to strip the paint from the hub without damaging the bearing races?

Also, might try and strip and clean the calipers if that's possible. I haven't looked into that yet. The guy I bought them from reckoned they were losing their bite around 1/3 of the way through the pad life.

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Oh yeah, got the Sram levers on the SS now too, seem comfy so far.

Any updates?

Fark! No, it's still hanging in my cupboard. I have managed to get hold of some Cowchippers and stripped the paint. Just need to do the same to the hub then send them for polishing. Might end up building the wheels myself at this rate as I plan on doing a course at some point.

I really need to get my shed built first anyway or I'm not going to have anywhere to keep it. Was hoping to start building this week, but I can't get the 100 x 100 posts from the merchant just yet.

Anything ever come of this?

No :( and doesn't look like that'll change very soon.

;(

Projects back on!

It's going to be more of a standard drop-bar MTB build, as I already have at least 2 fbnpna bikes, so this can be a little more fun.

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How did you go on stripping and polishing the hub?