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Ha! It was just built up like this because I wanted to see whether the wheels (with Dugasts) would fit in the frame. Turns out they do which is a bonus.

Now on the look out for a groupset, possibly Campag.

(Post will be dropped and longer stem on order)

Had some time and spare wheels yesterday...

Was searching through the garage at the weekend and found a brand spanking new box of 'Limited edition' Cinelli Mash bar tape....in some weird pattern type thing. Needing some new tape on the Singular for the commute this morning I was made up until I tried to wrap the bars. What a load of wank, like trying to wrap the bars with the sheet of protective plastic you get in a box of Milk Tray. I still have one side unused if anyone is running a uniped set-up.

On that basis I think prices will stagnate...

So, after 2500 miles of commuting it was time for a bit of an update. I finally succumbed to a smaller chain ring, fitting a 42t Narrow/wide effort from superstar. Unfortunately they only had lime green in stock and as I didn't think I'd get on with it (previous one was a 50t) I thought it wouldn't matter. Anyway, turns out the bike is MUCH nicer to ride and my knees and hips don't hurt nearly as much...who knew! Actually faster as well, guessing because I now get some recovery in rather than smashing myself to bits on 50/28. Looks a bastard but it's normally covered in so much shit it's barely visible anyway.

Other additions - nutted up and bought a Carradice - so much nicer than a bag on the back or that stupid bag thing I had on the bars. Plus I feel like a proper commuter now. Still run a dry bag inside it but it's been mega.

Finally gave up on TRP Hy/Rd as they needed constant adjustment. Stuck some RS785's on it which are SO much better in every sense and having stuck about 400 miles on them I haven't had to touch them yet (compared to the Hy/Rd where adjustment was a weekly thing).

Got rid of the horrendous Salsa bars and stuck some Zipp SC ones on in their place. 42mm because #aeroiseverything or something.

Wheels - after 2.5k the ksyriums feel...fooked! Not sure if its because I've changed the rear tyre to a harder compound (4 seasons) or if its just standard Mavic build quality but I'm getting some choice noises from the rear and the front has a nice wobble despite adjusting the front hub. They just feel draggy and not nearly as sweet as they did. Maybe a service is needed, or maybe I should just move them on and get something else. I've got Hunt's on another bike but they feel a bit fragile compared to these. Who knows...

Spends wise, i've probably done nearly 2x the value of the bike upgrading it over time. However the position is now much better and I've saved a fortune on rail fare. I've also got better fitness than I have in years which is always nice...

Yep, I probably just need to ride it a bit more to be honest. I just can't get excited about going for a spin on it though, its just a bit....dull

Yep, lower pic is the new one. Next step is to swap the chainset for something not made by 'Fucking shit always' and possibly some black bar tape (only had white in the spares box). It is a bit....er...white though

So I bought one of the cheaper R2 models when they were selling cheap at Swift cycles. I've had an S3 before that I didn't get on with so obviously thought the solution to the problem was to buy another. Being frank, it looked friggin awful when I bought it, I've made it look slightly less awful (in my opinion) but I'm still not a fan of it. I think I've ridden it twice since buying and fortunately now I've cut the steerer it's pretty much unsellable to the target market for Cervelo.

I'll let you decide which is the 'before' and which is the 'after' photo

Phone call to Matt made, am excite. He knows his stuff doesn't he!

FYI I didn't ask how fast he is....

Rob English surely?

Excellent - will be placing a call shortly, thanks!

Super tempted by one of these as a fixed disc type affair for riding to work. Anyone know what the lead times are like on getting a frame?

Yeah, southborough wheelers top on a shonkey planet flex with skinwalls. Not raced there before, really like the circuit though apart from the wind and the chopper in the royal navy skin suit.

Did you do any good? I punctured about 6 laps in, that'll learn me for using turbo cottons in winter...

Spotted @MechaMorgan today at the cyclopark on what was a pretty windy afternoons racing. Shouted DAS at him and got a 'what?' In return which was fair enough....bike looked cool...

He does indeed do bumpers and scrapes. In fact, he prefers doing that to painting but obviously they go hand in hand. Don't want to plug the business on here so drop me a message if you want the contact details.

Righty - I've used this a bit now, did eventually do my ride to Lincolnshire and it was...wet, cold and miserable. Surprise! Anyway, after building up a bike specifically to use the tyres I've decided I'm going to change wheel sizes. Also, I've got a couple of disc road bikes already and frankly they're both faster and comfier than this so I might as well modify this to be something a bit different.

Currently eyeing up a set of road plus wheels from Alpkit plus a pair of WTB Horizon tyres. My obvious concern is that they won't fit the frame - I'm pretty sure the front will clear as essentially it's a 29er fork, however the rear may be tight.

Also considering a Jones H bar but this will require new brakes (or at least levers and if I'm changing brakes I may as well go full hydro) and new shifters/rear mech.

Finally I want to run a decent front rack but the fork doesn't have any rack mounts. Therefore an upgrade to a Surly disc trucker fork may be on the cards, but that causes the obvious problem with clearance for the Horizon. Hmmmm

Rode like a weapons grade bellend this morning, need to have a word with myself. Still, set a new STRAVA pr on the way in, so not all bad....

Lovely looking thing is this - inspiration for one of my builds at the moment, to the point where I'm hovering over the Buy Now button on the Alpkit site on their 650b wheels...

You're right, with a paint scheme at our disposal we should have been a bit more creative than gloss black. I actually wanted to go for something like the Audi flat grey but grey is a bugger for showing marks and I'd have had to put a lot more effort in to the prep (see previous post - hunger won). We also had a stack of work on that day so I didn't want to take up too much time in the booth.

Anyway, not to worry. I've got a mountain of shit old frames that need painting so I'm sure Kawasaki green will get used at some point..

Ha! As much as I'd like to 2Jz it, the wiring alone would scare the nuts off me. We did consider putting something different in it, along the lines of an LS3 as they're easy to get big power out of but the end cost would have been mega to the point where I could have just bought a newer M5 (which is what I should have done in the first place).

Anyway, as expected I got well acquainted with my friend San Nigel last night and consequently this mornings ride was dismissed in a blur of foggy vision and dry mouth. So with a sore head (bad pint yo) I decided to finish the odds and sods left over from yesterday. Firstly, a spot of heli-tape on the chain stay and round the head tube. Not pretty but I'm not running a clutch rear mech so it wouldn't take long to remove most of the paint off the chain stay.

Next up, mudguards. I've got a lot of odd sets and by 'lot', this is about half my supply.

Because the rear calliper is mounted on top of the seat stay (unlike the newer designs that have them inboard on the chain stay) it means you have to get creative when mounting guards (fnar). I could have bent the stays all over the shop to accommodate it, but in the end it made sense to use a slightly longer bolt on the adapter for the calliper and mounted them from there. It took a bit of bending but nothing like if I'd used the smaller lower down mounts. Which was a bonus because I finished it in time for crumpets. Win. What I didn't cater for was the lower bolt hole on the chain stay bridge being full of paint (Widget and his masking eh - no breakie for him next week) so I had to clean that up before fitting.

Searching in the box o' bits turned up an SKS flap that should normally reside on the front. Bit of drilling and nut and bolt later we have a rear flap. Win.

Then it was just a case of doing the front. Again, I used the calliper mount on the left side for the stays as again it would have been a major ball ache to reroute the stays. Clearance wise its fairly tight with the 30mm's on but I think it should be sufficient and doesn't currently rub. I'll be taking an 8mm spanner out with me for the first few rides in case I need to make some adjustments.

I did offer the rack up, but its going to foul majorly on the rear calliper. I could space it but that'll look shit, or I could by a disc specific rack but they too look shit. So Revelate bags it is.

Next step is to ride it. It weighs a friggin ton but I suppose thats why I've got a 32t on the front. A quick roll down the road with 50psi in the tyres shows it does ride pretty nice. Once it stops being quite so baltic, I'll nut up and go for a proper spin.

Err, yeah....err, so about that.

If I can drag my fat arse out of bed early enough then it'll be around 10'ish (with the bare minimum done to the bike to finish it). Failing that I'll set off Saturday although I need to be back in London on Monday for meetings so we shall see (we won't, I'll drink too much beer tonight and bin off the whole idea in favour of going MTB'ing in Thetford).

I love boring people about my tales of woe regarding the M6. I bought it two years ago as a minter from a super car dealership in Goudhurst. 1 owner, low miles. I'd actually gone to see an AMG merc they had, but I've always wanted a V10 M series car and this was there. Anyway, I bought it and roughly 100 miles in, the clutch started making some funky noises. The place I bought it from argued that it was me doing doughnuts in it that wrecked. I argued that even if I had (I hadn't) then I'd expect it to put up with a bit of stick. Anyway, they agreed to chip in an £5k later it had a new clutch and flywheel. Running the new clutch in, I heard a tapping. Being the utter pro I am, I ignored the tapping and continued down the A21. At which point the engine seized solid.

So its been sat in the shed since then whilst I fight it out with the dealer and BMW, neither of which want to help (surprise!). Its now having the engine rebuilt in Darlington by a bloke who specialises in V10 BMW's (and apparently the V8 ones now too as they're basically the same engine minus 2 cylinders). It needs a bit of a refresh paint wise and I may or may not change the suspension as the current stuff isn't great. Its definitely getting new brakes as the originals are crap and once all done I'll use it for a bit and sell it.

It's due back at the end of March, fingers crossed it actually works for more than the 200 miles its done so far..

Thank you, thats muchly appreciated.

Righty, updates - I got updates. After a somewhat lazy start and running mum down the doctors (I was easily the youngest in there by a good 30 years - welcome to Suffolk!) I headed over to the paint shop armed with breakfast in the form of bacon rolls for both Widget and myself. He complained because I opted for brown sauce and not tomato, I ignored him because I was too busy getting all excited about the now dry Crap Diem. As mentioned, if you look up close you can see the paint chips under the paint, but from arms length it looked mint. The forks came up even better although it was noted by Widget that they weigh more than the frame. I told him if he stopped eating breakfast I could afford a decent set. Queue awkward silence....Such was my excitement that I forgot to take any more pictures, but if you scroll up it looks very similar to the ones above. Only dryer.

Anyway, after picking bits of paint off a battered splitty for a bit I could contain my excitement no longer and headed back to the garage to build it up. Her up? Him up? Anyway, the whole point of this exercise was to spend as little money as possible whilst still using the tyres that I'd bought. Raiding the spare parts bin, I came up with the following list of parts

Stainless Hope BB
BB7's with a new packet of pads
Fizik Gobi (or a special edition TDF Arione which is the most uncomfortable saddle I've ever sat on)
Some no name bars
Bontrager stem
Thompson wonky post
SLX cranks with a Raceface narrow/wide ring (albeit a slightly small 32t)
105 10-speed group set with some shifters that have been down the road at some point.
A new pack of bar tape. Winner!
Some weird SPD's that I used to race XC on (these are actually race winning pedals - true story bro)

Needless to say, I was quite surprised. I need to stop buying shit.

There are some builds that are an utter bastard to put together. Shit just not fitting, or bent, or seized in place. Cables that are too short, or frayed, or just not being able to find bits not to mention cross-threading stuff. This was not one of those builds.

I wanted this to last a while and be solid enough to tour on (I've got a few other bikes that are probably better for quicker stuff) and ultimately not worry too much about if its getting slung on trains or being left outside for any length of time. To make sure bits could be replaced, everything was treated with a liberal coating of grease and I used those fancy Shimano teflon cables to ensure decent shifting hopefully without needing much maintenance. These came from one of my other bikes that got written off by an Addison Lee car, bastards that they are.

Anyway, finished up by wrapping the bars with the tape (BBB stuff - hella cheap but actually really nice to use and much easier to wrap than Lizard Skinz stuff). Pro tip - wash your hands before wrapping white bar tape. Or don't fit a cassette and chain prior to wrapping bars. Either way, greasy marks ahoy!

Really pleased with how it turned out. There's still a fair few jobs to do. Firstly, invisi-tape the frame or at least cover the bits that'll see chain/cable rub. I'm pretty sure I can bodge a set of guards together from the billion half sets I've got in the garage and I need to order a bigger chainring. Also need to finish stripping the wheels of stickers (see big white line on front rim - need heat gun!). Also need a rear tube with a shorter valve - had to pinch this one off a set of deep carbon rims on my race bike.

Luggage is a big question. I've got some Revelate bags for the front and back but I've also got a rack and Ortleib panniers that I could use. Will have to see whether the rack clears the rear brake calliper otherwise that decision may well be made for me.

Will also cut down the steerer at some point once I've worked out the best position on it.

Excuse the decor - its my mums gaff!

And the best bit - total cost over two days = £0!

Three bottles on my wagon..

Possible room for 650+ at some point

Change of plan tonight regarding wheels. As much as I love hope hubs, I couldn't be arsed to unlace the rims off them, then lace up another set. So replaced a spoke (guess which one) in a set of novatechs on Alex rims that came with the GT and stuck TBT (them bastard tyres) on. Look mint in my opinion, let's see if they stay on this time...

RP Autoshop - in Elmsett. He's only been trading properly for about 6 months but previously worked for a chap who restores air-cooled stuff.

Here's a picture of the stuff he's currently working on (in addition to the two bay windows in the other unit). At the front is an F150 lightening that's being painted as a shop truck, behind that is an F100 with Corvette running gear and next to it is my M6 in for paint whilst the engine is being rebuilt

I bought some Challenge tyres about 3 months ago with a view to fitting them to my daily commuter. However, they proved an utter bastard to fit and I didn't end up using them. So they remained on the shelves gathering dust with all the other cast off bits.

The tyres have this picture on the back

Look how easy fitting tyres is! What I did notice missing from the pictures is the one of snapped thumbs, blood everywhere and a wheel being launched across the garage. Challenge lie like a walking lie machine - these tyres are an utter bastard to fit....

Anyway, I'm at my mums at the moment looking after her whilst she's not well. Fortunately she's playing her part and sleeping a lot which means I can spend my time building up shit bikes from bits I have in the garage.

I have a lot of shit bikes in the garage, 9 frames as of this morning (plus 5 completes!). Anyway, one of those is my old airborne Carpe Diem and fortunately said frame will happily accept the Challenge tyres in a fruity 30mm flavour. It's not without its issues though, not least because of the slightly 80's paint scheme. It also has three sets of bottle bosses (so Adventurist) but sadly one has a snapped off bolt very much 'welded' into it. So I dragged it out and stuck it in the stand.

I then realised I don't have a clue what I'm doing and dragged it back out the stand and took it to my mate Widget. Widget is my best mate (ahhh) and collectively we own a paint/body shop in darkest rural Suffolk. I say own, he does all the work and I pay the rent. Anyway, first job was to remove the stuck bottle bolt

Here it is stuck in the frame

After much drilling, using some sort of tap thing and a helicoil we ended up with this

Hurrah - ready for 3-bottle adventuring. Mint.

Widget then suggested we paint the frame. Which involved prep. Now we (he) could have gone down the route of stripping ALL the paints off the frame and then filling any dings and what not for a mirror like finish. However I'm lazy and impatient and wanted to go get some lunch so I suggested we (he) flat back the paint, rough it up a bit and then paint it. Widget wasn't keen on this idea, but I was buying lunch and therefore that decision was made. Here it is being prep'd. It doesn't look much but the paint was crazy thick and frankly I was crazy hungry. Hunger won..Note the P2 steel fork also getting some lovely painty goodness. That thing weighs more than dark matter, however its very strong and its the only straight steerer fork I have. So its going on..

This is Widget masking off the BB. Everyone should have a Widget

He then got stuck into the painting. Now all joking aside he's a bloody good painter and has ALL THE THINGS to paint stuff. Like a mixing scheme that weighs paint and shit, you know - good shit. Anyway, I went with black because..well because it'll look mega with the skin walls. And it covers up the chips a bit better

Widget painting and looking like he's cleaning a crime scene...

So the end result. It looks great, although as Widget pointed out, if I'd spent more time prepping the frame I could have removed all the chips in the paint. Prepping doesn't get me breakfast, so obviously I ignored him

Tonight whilst making mum soup, I shall be re-lacing some rims on to a spare pair of Hope hubs I've got, and then trying to fit the tyres after they've been on the radiator for a bit.

Rest of the build will be whatever I have in the garage. It'll be 1x10, thompson post, BB7's, Fizik saddle and possibly some pimpy carbonz cranks depending on the BCD (I've ordered a Narrow/wide ring which may or may not fit.

Hoping to have it finished tomorrow to be ridden to Lincoln on Friday. From Suffolk...yeah, like thats going to happen