Rude lunchtime Rudy

Wait, pardon?

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Posted this in the Hacks and Bodges thread. I’d wondered for a while if the lower frame on a Hamax seat would make a good quick-release rack, since the mounting point basically lives on this bike. Well I found a broken Hamax seat dumped in the local woods - perfect! It works really well. Makes quite a big difference to riding comfort now I’m regularly carrying my work laptop etc in my bag because of the Covid mostly-WFH situation.

I realise the red ano seems to be spreading like pox. It’ll be coming off.

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That’s a clever hack. Never thought of it before.

The mount is very high, could you lower it or does the canti arms get in the way?

The mount is very high, could you lower it or does the canti arms get in the way?

I think you're right, I'm not really sure how high or low it's supposed to be but it seems to work where it is. I had to have it mega high on the other bike because of the aero section in the seat tube. It is quite close to the cantis though, I had to take the splash guards off the seat to clear them.

I think you’d want it as low as possible, but high enough so that it doesn’t touch the tire when it’s bouncing.
It made such a difference on mine when I lowered it and moved the seat a bit forward.

Red chainring gone. Black bottle cage in the post.

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First actual bike ride in Lockdown 2 and first time I’ve done any real miles for a while apart from local dadding duties. 25 with some hills has killed me. Bit of an uncomfortable ride in general due to neck, back and shoulders being as stiff as a board. Conclusion: Rule 5 and need to get out more.

Bike, amazingly, just needs a clean and an oil. Not bad considering I pretty much haven’t touched anything since I put it together earlier in the year and it’s been out in all weather.

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Well this has ended up being pretty capable in this bizzaro drop bar fat tyre rough road guise. I’m glad I put a few pics on here as it has reminded me just how much it’s been used over the last year. Started out on dadbike duties, doing lockdown adventures with my then 2-year old / now 3-year old and it had been brilliant. Then I added my early lockdown commutes when I was allowed back on site and it proved excellent on the smashed up roads and potholes. Also started to add 25-40 mile weekend rides with a pal, though it was evident that I was having to ride a lot harder than him on his road bike.

I’ve done nothing to it whatsoever for a whole year; not even a wash. Gave it a clean down with Grimex wipes a few weeks ago and checked the state of the bottom bracket. It’s got the Race Face Team bb well known for premature failure. Sure enough mine has shit itself and is properly wobbly after no more than a couple of thousand miles. Glad I asked on the AQA thread, because picking a direct swap wasn’t as straightforward as it appeared, which I seem to remember was the reason I just went for the matching Race Face one for the cranks originally. Anyway, now have this Shimano one to fit which ought to last a bit longer.

Tldr; came here to post that I was having dirty thoughts about putting straight bars back on, but didn’t post anything about that at all and turned into a tldr post about something else instead.

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Glad to hear it's still going strong and being enjoyed. I loved the riser bar look more but its still a great looking bike with drops!

Winter rolling in and I’ve been looking to switch back to using this. Time to do the bottom bracket and bar tape. I might get lucky and get it done tonight.

Stuff:
-1x Shimano SM-BB52 mtb bottom bracket
-1x Specialized S-Wrap Roubaix bar tape in red
-Tesa electrical tape (I’m probably fooling myself into thinking this is any better than the cheap stuff)
-Tub o’ grease

Tools:
-3/8 drive ratchet
-3/8 drive bb tool
-crank puller
-30-150 Nm torque wrench with 1/2 to 3/8 adaptor
-soft-faced hammer in case the cranks need any help going in
-lifetime collection of washers in vintage I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter tub (one of them will be the right size for packing out the inside of the crank)

Right, I’d better get on with this instead of wasting time lining my tools up and posting about it.

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Ah bollocks, I need these as well.

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Huh, well that was disappointingly straightforward. 23 minutes to do it and post about it, according to LFGSS clock.

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First commute on it this winter. Oiled the chain and put air in the tyres and everything still works like it did when I put it away. BB feels much better. I'd forgotten:

1. How good Shimano 105 is at shifting. Very light and precise compared to Rival.
   
2. How DGAF you can ride with big tyres. Don't need to worry about anything.
   
3. Cantis look great but they really aren't very good, are they? Remind me why people like them.
   

Also just had a crack at this from the Mechanics n Fixin' section:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkTxYsdzo0I

All four were a bit annoyingly loose on this. Now fixed!

2018: I need to adjust my headset before I go home from work but I don’t have a 40mm headset wrench. I’ll just bodge something up on the composites saw to get me home and buy one later.

2022:

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did you ever chop up the Ali express seat post and test it? that would make for interesting reading (for me at least)

I didn't test it, but I did section it to have a look inside at the layup etc. I thought I posted the pics here but must have put them in the Orient Express thread.

It would have just had a conventional bag poked inside it, nothing exotic, hence the wrinkles in the resin. The white stuff is filler, presumably to give the bag something smooth to press against so it didn't pop. The grey stuff round the holes had us stumped for a while until one of the older laminators recognised it as a shoot-in consolidator which they used to use back in the old days when bagging wasn't quite as advanced. They used to have trouble getting the plies to consolidate into tricky corners like on the ends of wings, so they used to squirt a bit of this stuff in and it would fill the gaps in the mould when it went into the clave. He reckoned he hadn't seen that stuff for over 10 years!

Layup appeared to be +/- 45° UD on the main bit, so the post itself would have been strong enough. The concern was really around the clamp area as there didn't appear to be much material around the rearmost clamp hole!

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Loaded up this morning with about 20kg on the back. Got an amp at the bottom, bag of sales shopping to return after work, lock, lunch and a pair of pants.

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How does it ride with that much weight on the back? I reckon it helps that you have your weight shifted towards the front with that long and low stem/bar setup. With swept bars it would probably be the ultimate wheelie machine.
The wall thickness of the laminate on the seatpost seems less than ideal, as luescher would say. Then again some ‘high end‘ carbon frames have similarly uneven wall thicknesses. I guess I‘m an RTM fanboy for a reason :)

How does it ride with that much weight on the back?

Obviously it feels like it's loaded, but it's fine as it's just forward of the back wheel so it doesn't try to tip up by itself. It was a handful like that on the GT - with its shorter stays the weight was well behind the back wheel.

My initial reaction was "god, that's a lot of weight", but I guess you can have confidence in the load bearing capabilities of your "rack" given that it's designed to carry children! That's so cool to see.

Really awesome bike, love the build. Old MTBs make such great drop bar commuters.

Cheers, yeah the Hamax can take a 25kg child or something, so I just don't exceed that.

Wheel upgrade and a rebuild today. Winter this year seemed to take its toll and rotted all the spokes. The old wheels were running badly out of true, but the spokes were so rotten they would have snapped if I’d tightened them. Figuring I’d struggle to find the time to re-spoke them, I decided to just buy another set of wheels.

The whole bike was looking a bit worse for wear tbh. The chain was looking equally rotten, cables all attacked by salt and the rear brake jamming on. Partially my fault because I’d just been riding the **** out of it but not really doing much in the way of cleaning or maintenance. So today I managed to strip it down and clean and lube everything and swap the wheels.

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That's such a cool commuter. Might be worth checking for grit and crap under the Hamax clamp too - I did this for the first time in a long time on my commuter to fit an extra bottle cage and was unpleasantly surprised to find it had rubbed a bit!

That’s a good point, it was caked on below it but I was reluctant to take it off. I probably should.