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Some great hacks in here, here's mine:

Recently got a spesh pizza rack, but when loaded with bags etc the beam from my front light gets blocked a bit. So I've 3D printed a neat little mount to go on the eyelet underneath the platform of the rack which solves the problem quite neatly:

Glad you're enjoying it!

Part of me is tempted to rebuild the rear wheel as 26" to make it a 69er...

Been some time since I updated this. Finished the build and I've been riding it for months. Wanted a surly 24 pack rack to complement the forks, but surly have some sort of recall notice out on those at the moment and so they're currently not for sale - hence the pizza rack.

The bike has been absolutely great so far. I appreciate the retro crowd that wanted to see a more authentic build, but bad sus forks, 26" wheels and an old groupset just don't make any sense for a commuter. It's not like this bike was ever worth anything anyway, and I'd rather be using it every day than leave it rusting in the back of the shed.

The rear wheel moves in the dropouts when you shift?! Bloody hell...

If you just want to get going with minimal cost and don't care about having bling parts, definitely investigate local charities. I used to use the Julian House place in Bath a lot - it's a goldmine of old, average, but perfectly usable parts that are dirt cheap. Plus the mechanics are always more than happy to help with stuff that you don't know how to do

Obviously @broken_777 is first in the queue for this, but if that falls through can I call 2nd dibs? I'll be about in the South East area this weekend and would be happy to collect from Hastings.

This is really cool, I've never seen one of these!

How old is it?

...what on earth

"I've being buying up all the old school BMX parts for the last few years, my plan is to hold the entire scene to ransom..."

God I hate people like that. It's a hobby, can people not switch of the part of their lizard brain associated with fucking others over in their spare time? It's shit like that that made me stop collecting vinyl.

You've got some awesome builds here man, that colnago is gonna be tasty!

Got a rolling chassis, just need to find some decently cheap cranks. Bikes always look wrong without the cranks but I think this is absolutely rad and I can't stop laughing at it

Worked a treat, cheers

Anyway, I've scoured the parts bin and found just about everything I need minus the crankset. Anyone expecting an aesthetically pleasing matchy matchy build is gonna be disappointed

To try and keep things bodgy I made a headset press using some blocks of wood and threaded rod. Still trying to work out how I'm going to get the crown race on the forks, I might hunt locally for some 1 1/4 tubing that'll fit over the steerer tube as it didn't look like there was much available in small quantities/cheap online.

GT update: finished painting it and I'm kinda annoyed at how nice it came out. I sprayed the rear end with some dark blue I had hanging around but otherwise left the stonechips in place and just gave the bike a couple of coats of lacquer to prevent it rusting. For an incognito commuter/pub bike it's turned out far too nice and shiny for my liking.

Yup, picked one up on here pretty cheap recently. At full price they're very pricey but it's a beautifully made hub

Eccentric rear hub, rotating it moves the axis about which the rear wheel spins, allowing for chain tensioning in vertical dropouts - it's a neat little bit of kit.

And no, I've got a nice magura hydraulic disc brake leftover from another project to go on the front. No rear brake because fixed

Cheers man!

Too late, I'm doing it! I do agree though, it ain't proper. I'm using this as an exercise to learn wheelbuilding, and then once I can afford to I'll build a nice wheelset, convert it back to 26" with a nice groupset etc. The only reason I'm going for 700c is that I've got a 700c wheelset lying around that I'm happy to butcher.

Pics of the bike as it was on 26" wheels, and now stripped down with a 700c CX wheelset to prove to myself that I've got adequate clearance at the back.

The Sun served me fantastically last summer, but now I'm going to be working in Cambridge full time and I feel bad abusing that lovely old frame through another winter, so for now it will go into storage and await a genuine restoration with period correct parts rather than living as a shitty fixie conversion. Godspeed, patriot.

Which brings me onto my latest in a long string of dumb ideas: turn my old GT Palomar beater into a fixed gear commuter. The reason for this is that I love this frame and can't bring myself to sell it, despite it being utter garbage and having virtually no working parts right now. It's supposed to be a 26" wheel frame but lacks a rear disc mount, and I'm sick of using crappy old 26" rim brake wheels that weigh a ton and don't brake particularly well. So I'm sacking off the rear brake, squeezing in a 700c wheelset with an eccentric rear hub so that I can ride fixed, and mounting a Surly Straggler fork with nice hydro disc brake up front.

Am I insane?

Can't resist that price, I'll take the lot if you'll post

Stunning work

Beautiful bike. The purple paint looks much better in daylight than it did in the original pics. Love the patina too

well damn, might as well dibs the lot! pm incoming

Keen to buy the pair, but if @mcvw decides they want both I'm happy to let it go as they commented first!

There's a guy at my work that prides himself on his DIY ebikes, dude gave me a lift back from the pub once on his pannier rack and it was terrifying. I've ridden slower motorbikes