cfkb's garage: mostly steel (ft. surly, paul donohue, rourke)

Took the advice and went into Surrey on 53/39. Did not have to walk my bike once, pretty happy with that achievement!

Well done!
Difference between 34/28 and 39/28 gearing is 4.7 gear inches.

At 10km per hour, thats 65rpm vs 57rpm,
15km per hour, thats 98 vs 85rpm.

I've always been a slower cadence, out the saddle climber though.

Inspired by this hysterical listing I find the urge of having my own SR dream build. Parts have been ordered, but for now just a spec list:

• h+son archetypes in shinny silver
  
• silver alpina spokes
  
• miche track hubs in not-so-shinny silver
  
• miche pistard air 2.0 cranks, also not-so-shinny silver
  
• spinny campag record 43t, silver
  
• basil portland rack, silver
  
• Kinesis Fend Off mudguards, silver
  
• Some chinese silver 17deg stem (unless someone has a thompson x2 for cheap)
  
• Gravel kings SK with brown wall 32c
  
  

Because I'm shallow and like shinny things. Still debating whether I should get myself some luxurous king cage, or just go with a generic alu cheapo

What it looks like now

Spares will go on this beater PD which I recently acquired for that iconic PD tear drop down tube fetish

Rims are in. Very bling! For anyone's interested in the weight of these, this one weighs 478g on my scale. (There were some online claims of 450g)

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More parts coming in:

1. 70 x Alpina double butted spokes. Not very exciting. Something I couldn't find on the internet: these are ~7g per spoke-nipple pair.
   
2. Basil portland front rack. I saw pictures of both brushed aluminium and chrome online and wasn't sure which I would get. This one from amazon is brushed aluminium unfortunately.
   
   

Hopefully hubs will arrive tomorrow and can start lacing

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hubs are here! Quoted 450g, came out to be under. I specifically chose these low flange ones because the high flange ones can weigh quite a bit. Also because they were just £38 a pair

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Front wheel. 32h is probably more than necessary, but I don't have much to choose from among low flange silver track hubs. I did debate whether to get a road front hub instead, but in the end I was tempted by the sale price of a set of front/rear and gave up that idea.

First 8 spokes in

1 side done... except I crossed the spokes in the wrong direction. Redo...

Got there in the end... I think?

another day, another wheel

Did you miss a cross here (circled in red, bottom right)? Hard to tell!

Or is this before the rebuild?

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It was before the rebuild - The valve hole should be located at one of those "free" channels for easy access. Basically all the spokes just need to be shifted by 1 hole

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Missed this up until now. Any idea what the bars were originally on the red Donohue, in the first pic of it on page 1? They're a cool shape.

ITM mod europa super racing italmanubri is what written on the bar. Don't know too much about them. Came on a 2nd hand bike I bought for cheap

Getting the valve hole between the uncrossed spokes is the bit I always bugger up!

Agreed. I redid it without really thinking what went wrong and got it right the 2nd time for no reason shrug

Onto truing (and dishing the rear)

My truing stand a.k.a. I don't have a truing stand

Rear is way off to the NDS, which makes sense as I got 290mm spokes for a recommended 289mm/291mm L/R. In hindsight I wish I have got either 288 L or 292 R as it would save a bit of time dishing

And results

I didn't just rely on the zip ties - had a digital calipre on the side. I did had to rely on the integrity of the frame though

apologies for the heavy bokeh. it was to hide the messy living room. also note to self to adjust white balance for night time indoor pictures

Had a front brake on, which makes truing way easier: loosen calipre, slowly tighten it and adjust nipple with every rub. Should have done that on the rear too but I cba to dig out the rear calipre

Next question - to tubeless or not to tubeless?

If you run pressures over 3 bar I wouldn’t, anything below that is a yes from me.

I quite like the cable tie idea, I'll have to try that. I usually use my thumb on the stay to find the high/low spots.

In case you don’t know the turn the wheel around trick: If you turn the wheel round, it'll tell you if you've got the wheel centred. If it's in the same place when you turn it round, it's centred. If the wheel looks centred in the frame but goes off to one side when you turn it round, that probably means the frame is lop-sided.

So things got complicated, patience grew short, and I stopped documenting.

First, the stays for the rack is a no go. The stays were meant to go directly on the track axle, but the fork lugs stopped it from angling up. Together with the fact that the rack is a dull grey finish, and the stays are less slender than I would like them to be, I'm looking elsewhere

After a seemingly pointless session of pumping my tyres with my success, I concluded that the tubeless world is not ready for me.

Next up, mudguards.

I have never fit proper mudguards, so what is straightforward to others become a complete headache for me. These are the kinesis fend-off metal guards, and they come with a frustratingly small amount of fittings. That means no supplied washers, bolts. Even the little screws that bolt the mud flaps on are missing. A bit of a nightmare for me to go through my ikea-leftover fittings to find the right stuff.

Rear is relatively straightforward

Front is a bit more complicated. My biggest complaint about the surly steamroller is the missing mudguard eyelets on the fork. Not sure why they decide to have them only on the rear. I was debating between p-clips and axle adapter - in the end, with this being a commuter, I do not want to comprimise the ease of removing wheels and went with p-clips.

Threw a cheapo planetx flatbar cockpit on

Completed! Now looking forward to riding in rain...

I say "completed", but there is still minor touch up required. The miche crankset is on back ordered and so the andel is here to stay for now. I tried to swap on the 43T campag ring, but only then I realised the andel crankset is "stepped", making it incompatible with other chainrings. So to facilitate the spinny ratio I like, I put on the biggest sprocket I have (20t). Unfortunately this means that there are a mere total of 5 skid patches. Mental note to self to use the front brake more frequently in the mean time. Anyone has a 19t for cheap?

I haven't given up on the rack idea yet. Might go down the DIY route

Spare parts have quickly gone onto the not-so-beater-anymore PD track