PINK-E : Sirius, Reynolds 531, Franken-fixie

Intro
PINK-E is my daily. Its a bike that is constantly iterating so watch this space. I’ll try and get you all up to speed over a week or so, then I will continue update this as and when interesting changes happen.

Background
A little context; when I was 20ish and living at home in Dundee the prospect of moving to London became real. My dad - who knows London a bit - thought it would be fun to build me a bike. He bought me a frameset, it is pink, I thought "cool dad whatever", end of.

Flash forward 6 years and I’ve lived in London for 4 years. Always too far away from work to cycle I told myself. This summer I decided to change that and there was only one bike for the job.

A little about Pinky
Pinky is a Sirius frameset in a garish pink colour. The shade of pink that is neither cool or uncool. Its 531 tubing on the frame and fork (thanks dad) and was apparently a serious (pun intended) bike of its day which I think is the 80s. Anyone who knows anything more about these I’d be really interested to know; PM me.

It came with handlebars and stem (long gone), Ultegra cranks, a rolls saddle, headset (a nice one), brakes (missing various parts), and wheels.

Pinky V1 - She Lives!
28/05/16
—

I set myself a £60 budget. I sold some car wheels for £60 hence the weird number. I genuinely didn’t know how much I was going to use this thing so why not make it a fun, cheap build. With that £60 I bought;

• Missing parts to make the cantilever brakes function
  
• Brake pads
  
• China-spec “Alloy brake levers”
  
• Brake cables and outers
  
• Charge “Bullet” short, straight bars
  
• Continental semi-slicks
  
• China-spec grips
  
• China spec “Black Alloy pedals”
  
• China-spec chain
  
  

Not bad for £60. My dad and I built it up in a day . Only 7 years late. Here are the results (try not to get distracted by any of the machines in the background):

Note the hacked single gear setup. Also we could not get the rear brake to perform despite hours of fettling and adjusting but despite all that she lives!

V2 tomorrow…

Nice write-up. Frame seems a bit large for you? Saddle is all the way down, I mean.

@russmeyer Good spot. Its bang-on for me actually. What you're seeing is the kind of schoolboy error a guy who hasn't cycled for nearly a decade makes. Lacking the confidence to get my feet off the ground.

I have about 3 inches of exposed seat post now. You probably wont see that until about V3. Stay tuned! :)

Pinky V2 - She’s working!
07/07/16
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I live in Chiswick and work in East London which is a 9.6 mile commute each way. I start cycling Pinky to work and I love it. I immediately invest in things like padded shorts, lights, a nice helmet, etc.

The rear brake is bugging me, as is the fact it has a hacked drivetrain. I liked that initially but I’m actually using this thing and becoming dependant on it. I won some Shimano Exage brakes on eBay for £4. Once fitted the front brake is even better and the rear brake improves marginally. At this point I can still barely lock up the back wheel. I have never encountered a rear brake that can’t lock up a rear wheel. Annoying.

That's a nice frameset you've got there. To be honest it makes me a bit sad that you put all this crappy chinese parts on it (it at least deserves a nicer stem). And it looks silly that the canti mounts are unused now, why didn't you go for some canti levers?
On the other hand it's nice that you are enjoying this bike again!

@kjlem thanks. I agree about the unused brake mounts. The gear posts bother me too although I don't really have any plans to utilise them. If it's of any comfort, I'm not going to take an angle grinder to them either.

I do have a better stem now (next update should include).

Really nice to see this thread.

Agree ^ on Cantilever brakes. It may be that you could find some more effective Cantis at some point:
I put Avid Shorty 6 on my tourer (your bike is a tourer really) and they're really effective. Cantis are a little fiddly to set up mind.

That frame is built to take luggage racks. How are you currently carrying your things, locks etc? One you get panniers, saddlebags or a front carrier you'll wonder why you ever put up with a sweaty backpack for 18m a day!

Also: putting a single gear lever and a rear deraillieur would be pretty easy, decent deraillieurs go dor peanuts on here every day.

Have Sirrius fun!

@Skülly I've had a google/eBay for Avid Shortys. They look great. My current brake setup (different to the above but I'm updating this as quickly as I can) is not ideal so I will consider that when/if changing. The faff of setting them up does bother me though.

I just hate the look of panniers. And the sort of deadness the steel frame feels when riding with a loaded one. My Brooke's bag does me fine. Also no gears for me! I just enjoy single speed too much.

Re cantis not working well, in this pic you have the yoke set quite far from the tyre, if you could lower it to get the straddle cable at a less pointy angle that might help. But cantis are fiddly to set up, better to get some v- or mini v-brakes.

@russmeyer mini V brakes. I like the sound of those. I was mad into mountain bikes as a teenager so V brakes are familiar territory for me.

You might be surprised with how your frame handles when loaded. After all, it seems to have been built for that.

It's a great looking tourer, and a great starting point to build a lovely bike. I'd spend some time perusing the functional thread, discarding most of the pron and expensive stuff. Mudguards, rack, cantis (or mini v), gears, etc.

Surely it's your bike and you build it as you like, but the frame is crying out for something else.

@ough I might give it a go. This is not a purist build and interesting to here the general LFGSS opinion.

What's coming up is only going to divide opinions more. Maybe I should stick a censored tag on the thread.

Pinky V3 - Rims
11/07/16
—

I had a theory since I had now replaced nearly every part of the braking system only to see exactly the same issue; the rims. I’m sure there’s a scientific way to know whether there is any braking surface left on the rims or not by my approach went as follows. Remove pads, clean pads, sand pads a bit, remove rim, clean rim with IPA, re-fit. Same issue. New rims time.

Some Gumtree haggling later and I’m in possession of a brand new, flip-flop, Redneck rear rim (black), and a 40mm deep, white and gold aluminium NOLOGO front wheel. The front wheel is a bit off-piste and low quality I’ll admit but I liked that the gold and white matched the saddle. Wheel swap time. Easy peasy I thought.

Firstly, whatever wire Continental chose for their Tour Ride tyre is immovable. I can only imagine they used some offcuts from Captain America’s shield to make it. My dad and I struggled enough to get them on, getting them off was a two man, blunt object kind of job. Then they didn’t fit the frame so my local bike shop (Fudges Chiswick) kindly angle grinded 0.5 mm off the inside of my forks and rear stays.

Finally, finally my brakes work. Assessment correct. And the drivetrain is no longer a hack. The black bars and stem were bugging me. Pinky’s colour scheme has moved on. So I changed those too.

Fair enough on your decisions mate. I'd get mudguards and racks on that like a shot mesen. From what's in the garage up there Ican see you're from a cycling background and you seem to know what you're doing.

MiniV aint a bad shout on the brakes question.

Edit you got a new wheelset

But what you been grinding off it?!? What?

@Skülly see the above update :)

No don't censor :)
It's your bike and you will build it how you want it or can afford. It is a nice old touring frame and many would go for a period parts build up but thats what they would do.

Mini v-brakes are cheap enough, easy to set up and work with most brake levers, add in some cartridge brake pads and good cable outers and performance will improve.
V-brakes require a longer cable pull brake lever, and the taller brake arms (over mini V's) may get in the way of rack fitting.

A rear rack is the way to go, never used one myself until now, much joy :)

oh I see, the olns of the wheels were a bit wide for the ends, I see. 531 can take a bit of springing put but I'm sure you won't die.

ohhhh, just read the update that came in as i posted.........

Angle grinder and frame.........

Is that a kitten or puppy on route to heaven now :)

@Skülly Yeh. They fit in the end

@853Superfly Maybe both. Do you want to retract that statement about not censoring?

Naa, it's a big forum, whatever you do will offend someone at some point :)

The build projects are the best thing on here :)

I dont want to come across as 'OMG how dare you?!?! Thou must be punished', or something. But my genuine, unrequested, unqualified opinion is that there are other frames out there that are more suitable for this build. It still looks like the frame is way too big for you, also.

But hey. Such a nice frame, I'm a bit jealous :)

@ough You're entitled to that opinion. I like making nice things work for me. This is a nice frame and I'm making it work. I'm surprised you're not more upset by the fact I let it sit in a garage for 6 years. I have considered selling it for a cleaner frame but the cost (time and effort as well as £££) just outweighs the gains. You're not going to like what's to come...

If I come to sell it I'll let you know. You can save it :)

Oh that was not the point, it's way too small for me anyway

@ough That's ok. I'm not selling it anyway :)