Little Mixte - Muddy Fox Courier

Bought this from eBay for the princely sum of £30.

It's to replace my wife's old Raleigh mixte, which I bought off this forum for £40 for a full bike, and has been a trusty commuter/shopper etc for maybe a decade, with I think every single component apart from the saddle swapped out in that time.

The Raleigh is a cheap frame, and absurdly heavy for it's size. The Muddy Fox won't be super light either (the sticker says PG Tubes which I'm guessing means Plain Gauge), but it should be an improvement.

Being 5 foot 4, she gets on far better with 26" wheels than anything bigger, and I've been on the lookout for a modern steel 26 mixte for ages but they nearly don't exist.

There is a good looking Soma mixte frame which is 26 in the smallest size, but I've never seen one for sale second hand and it's silly expensive new.

So, retro MTB it is, which is obviously much cooler anyway.

Will be a slow build as I won't even be able to pick the frame up for a little while.

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The Raleigh, which will be donating many of its parts, including a handbuilt wheelset with Shimano dynamo and B&M lights, 1 x 8 speed setup with Claris derailleur and trigger shifter.

The comfy bars will be staying but I might be in the market for a positive rise stem, as I think the head tube is a fair bit shorter on the Muddy Fox.

Would like to go for cantis not V brakes, so thinking to keep the silver Tektro levers and pick up something like the Dia Compe DC 980 brakes.

I'll also need a small front rack that mounts to the canti posts, which the basket will sit on. Thinking Nitto or Velo Orange for the rack unless there's a decent budget one in silver.

Then definitely fatter tyres needed, and gumwalls. Most likely something from Panaracer. Nicer mudguards than the current Chromoplastics too.

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Before all that though, I'll need to take a close look at the frame when I get hold of it. There's clearly some rust and looks like paint is bubbling on the head tube. Preference is probably to just clean and scrub off any rust and loose paint, then clear coat for a bit of durability, but a powder coat will be on the cards if it's too rough.

speak to @Psy he built one of these up for @Clara which I saw last year. It is very nice.

Obviously this is a bit late, but did you consider the Charge Hob? They come up every so often on ebay, and my missus has one for city riding, not 26" wheels but it sizes up nicely for the smaller rider..

Thanks, will have a look if there's a thread on that.

The Charge does look good, especially in purple, but even before I bought the Muddy Fox, I was pretty set on 26. Not least as I have a decent dynamo wheelset for it already.

Other minus on the Charge is caliper brakes meaning presumably 35c ish max tyre - fatter is always better in my book.

Ah, can see @Psy went on a similar journey considering the Soma, too.

Any photos of how your Muddy Fox ended up?

@lemonade

Yeah I'll take a picture later.

Clara's was a survivor, all orgininal parts plus period, D-battery plastic lights fitted when it was sold by On Your Bike on Tooley Street. Full service, restoration of some yellow cable outers and some new tan-wall tires and it was good to go.

It came with a Sugino triple (same profile as the 75s), sealed wide flange hubs, and the bars/seat all Muddy Fox branded.

It's a tank, I posit it will be heavier than the Raleigh because of the fork. MTB technology was awful in the mid-80s. Don't forget a granny ring for the mildest of hills. The rust will be fine, there's a lot of metal there, if anything clean it up and it'll be a bit lighter.

Here it is, there is sad news, a literal muddy fox got into the shed and chewed up the saddle and grips a bit last summer so it's looking a bit tatty.

I'll drop you some close ups by PM.

Nice one, that looks great!

I saw a couple of complete bikes on eBay that were similarly all original, MF branded parts, but given I have most of what I need from the Raleigh it seemed more sensible just getting a frame.

Good to see it can clear proper fat tyres + mudguards.

I refuse to believe there is any chance it can be heavier than the Raleigh, which weighs over 14kg in that setup above, for a 48cm frame.

I want so see final weight comparison. I have a luggage scale which is deeply inaccurate. So I can't offer a good comparison.

Once I've picked up the frame and am swapping the bits over I'll do a weight comparison (using my probably equally inaccurate luggage scales).

Do you happen to remember what size seatpost it takes?

Love these bikes. I have a 1986 courier, not a mixte though. They're heavy AF, but doesn't need to be light when you have a granny ring that lets you ride up trees

I still maintain it will be lighter than the frame it's replacing - we shall see.

I definitely won't be putting a triple on it, priority is simplicity which means no front derailleur.

According to my wife she only changes gear 'once in a while' and sticks to the middle 2 or 3 cogs on the current 42 x 11-32 setup, so the same on the Muddy Fox should be fine.

Sadly the days of this particular
Muddy Fox being ridden long distances, fully loaded, off road, are long gone. It will be ridden to the shops and to work and back. The odd cyclepath / canal towpath on a sunny summer weekend. But then it's not exactly cutting edge for an offroader any more.

So, I found the time to travel over to Brighton to pick this up .

Good things:
-no dents
-no serious rust
-paint has a nice pearl shine to it that didn't/doesn't show in photos
-sturdy as hell
-quality dropouts, 130mm at the rear not 135 as I feared, so the wheels I'm planning on using should go straight in with no persuading needed
-many bosses - there will be no need for p clips, full length housing, clamp-on cable stops, weird screw-on derailleur hangers, hundreds of zip ties etc as on the Raleigh.
-headset is in great condition. It's a weird type with a spring inside, I think to help you adjust it right? It's a Mori Epoch and from a quick Google, they appear to be rated highly by the Retro BMX community

Bad things:
-yeah it's heavy, no denying that
-more paint chips/character/patina than I realised

Overall v happy with this and the build is gonna go ahead

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First up was meant to be working out what size seatpost it is, but the battery on my vernier calipers has died so that will have to wait for another day.

Next up is getting my head round how I'm going to do brakes and cables. For my sins I have decided to go canti and bought a pair of Dia Compe DC980s, which look lovely.

So I need cable hangers. Being cantis, nothing is simple. On the front it would have originally had a stem with a cable stop drilled but I don't have one, and don't trust myself to drill one. Fork-mounted is out of the picture as I need the hole on the fork crown for the front rack.

Headset mounted is also unfortunately out of the picture as there is not enough spare thread/steerer height in the stack.

This stumped me for a bit until I found out about Nitto AS 11, a hanger which clamps on the quill stem itself. Internet photo below, hopefully I have managed to order the right thing and will get one of these through the post soon.

I need a rear hanger too. This would be simple if it wasn't a mixte, but it is, so the cable routing is of course weird. @Psy made excellent use of a V brake noodle, but I've gone for a pulley hanger instead which - again assuming I've managed to buy the right size for the seatpost binder lugs, should be neat. Not many of these around but as usual, eBay have got the goods. Photo of how it's meant to work below.

Obviously I could have bought a set of V brakes for less than the hangers cost...

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Front hanger looks super flexy :) I have installed one of those pulleys on a friend's bike and it's OK but the twists and turns in the cable run do make the rear brake feel a bit heavy. Not much you can do about the cable routing though.

flexy

Hopefully not, it looks beefier in this photo and is made of cromo not alu. Wouldn't be like Nitto to make a duff product either

Will have to see what the rear pulley is like - noodle trick is a good alternative if it's rubbish

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Sorry I haven't measured that seatpost for you. We're moving house and the calipers are in a box somewhere.

I do vaguely remember it was 26.8.

No worries, the battery has arrived, caliper reading is ambiguous between 26.2 or 26.4... a very low res scan of the catalogue on RetroBike seems to indicate 26.4 so that's what I'll try first

That would explain the no-name seatpost we bought.

Looks like the excellent Kalloy SP 248 is available in both 26.2 and 26.4. Unusual size saves me from feeling the need for Nitto too

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Small update.

Addressed the worst of the rust spots with a 3 part Tippex pen kit from Halfords - a shoddy job but from a distance it passes muster, and should at least delay further rusting. In the unlikely event anyone is looking to do similar to one of these frames, Nissan Pearl White is a pretty decent colour match, and fits the Japanese made ethos. Half a can of WD-40 inside all the tubes that I could access, as I'm hoping this bike will last many years while living outside.

The other significant progress is the chainset: polished 105 square taper cranks from on here. Narrow wide rings in 130bcd are less easy to get hold of / more expensive than I remember, so I've put on a Surly stainless steel 38t ring I had in the spares box. It will last for more miles than the frame.

Spa cycles chainguard to help with chain retension on the outside and I'll put a dog fang on the inside - should function well although slightly stock-low-end-singlespeed vibes.

One potential worry turned out not to be an issue - these road cranks clear the chainstays fine with the 68x113mm BB they were intended for. Helped by being 165 in length but also I think these frames pre-date MTB standards diverging wildly.

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Now umming and aahing between Gilles Berthoud stainless steel and Velo Orange alloy for nice mudguards in 26". VO only come in 60mm wide so I'll need to check they'd fit; GB come in 50mm too which is probably a better fit for Pasela 26 x 1.75 tyres which are a claimed 42mm wide.

The build is shaping up nicely!

If you still need a post I've got a 26.4 silver Ergotech you're welcome to for free if you want to try the size? I had the same issue & ended up needing a 26.2.

Thank you for the offer - I've got a Kalloy 26.4 on order though, plus I'm based in Bristol.

There is a bit of old paint/ dried up grease/ general detritus inside the tube which I'm hoping explains the 26.2/26.4 ambiguity, and can be cleaned up. Not going to break the bank if I need another Kalloy though.

Do you have any pictures of yours?