Search results for:

For £750 i'd buy custom to be honest. Plus I like running a front brake on the street.

natureboy I think my frame might be slightly bent.

I measured my chainline front and back as best I could: it's between 42 mm and 42.5 mm at the front which I measured 2 ways. Firstly, using a metal ruler, I held one end against what looked like the centre of the seat tube and read off against the centre of the chainring. Secondly, which involves less guess work I think, I measured from the chainring side of the seattube by butting the ruler up against it (28mm), and then from the far side of the seattube using a flat surface held against both the tube and the end of the ruler (57mm). Chainline = (28+57)/2 = 42.5mm. It would be better to measure the diameter of the seat tube but I don't have a vernier caliper. It should be 57-28=29mm.

At the back, the spacing is 120mm while the cog centre is 19mm in, so the chainline is 120/2 - 19 = 41mm.

So in theory, it's out by 1 or 2mm. But when I check it by eye, sighting along the chainring, it's much more, 4 or 5mm. So does this mean my frame is bent? Or maybe just the track ends? Does anyone know a good way to check?

is it really that much off though? even 1 or 2mm will look quite off to the eye if you squint down the chain because of foreshortening. 5mm would show a really obvious angle looked at from above, not just when you squint down the chain.

Tommy - normally that's right, but with the Kuwahara frame he's got (it's an old 9 speed I think, I have one that looks near identical) the rear spacing is 126mm, and it's cheaper/easier to put a 120mm rear hub in there and squeeze the stays in. That gives you a roughly 42mm chainline, but it's best to get a BB that you can dial in/out so that you can fine tune it.

re cranks - erm, if you don't titghten them properly, they'll work loose and the spindles will get rounded out, meaning dead cranks. tighten up as tight as you can the first time you put them on, using a proper wrench, then put some allen key bolts in and don't tighten them up again even if the bolts feel a little loose (the cranks will squirm a little up the taper as you use them, which is what makes the bolt loose, but they're jammed tight onto the spindle so they're fine).

chainline - if its for the kuwahara, best thing is to assume the same chainline as you'd get on a track bike, because you'll not find a 126 rear hub - is a lot easier/cheaper to just squeeze in the rear stays to fit a 120 hub.

btw - chainline was okay but noisy when i was running some cheap sugino cranks. when they broke i bought some miche - and the bb they come with can be dialed in/out, which made it a lot easier to get a good line. now it's very quiet... of course, no reason you couldn't get the cheap cranks and the nice miche bb, it was hardly the most expensive bb.

brick lane on sunday is notorious. I locked my bike up for 10mins a couple of weeks ago to buy a coffee and a bagel and someone nicked my seat. all the thieves round there go equipped with spanners and allen keys, so pitlocks are indeed sensible. though to be fair it's rare for it to happen if the bike is easily visible - i live round the corner from there and have only had something nicked the once. (not counting my waterbottle, which seems to just attract a certain kind of person... god knows why)

It's a bit too small for me but hey ho, it rides well enough. One day I'll get my Mercian...

edmundane thanks guys for the input...
wow, h2o, mind showing me a picture of your bike? would like to have a look how you set it up. can't believe someone's actually got the same frame on here! i might annoy you further until i finish building this thing up... and from the look of it it'll be a while! for now, thanks a lot for telling me about the b.b. much appreciated!

annoy away! i'll post some pics over the weekend.

the tektros I have came with a nut at the back rather than a recessed bolt - got them from brick lane bikes.

hippy I've been hit undertaking a line of right-turning cars when one silly bint decided she'd had enough of waiting and suddenly turned left into me without looking or indicating. In this situation I would always be undertaking (even with this risk) because there's no room on the right and cars are turning right anyway.

That's one of my biggest fears, actually, as there are quite a few junctions in London where there's a queue to turn right and a clear lane to go forward - you want to go at your normal speed, but you're scared someone will pull sharply in front of you...

The over/undertaking thing is difficult. I was overtaking stationary traffic on Clerkenwell on the right, and a guy almost hit me doing a u-turn without indicating. there was a turning to the left and no turning to the right, so i was going at a reasonable clip, thinking that i was okay. fortunately it was dry, or i'd have gone over the bonnet.

a policeman saw the whole thing, and pulled me over to the kerb and gave me a lecture about being careful!

then in another instance, i overtook some stationary traffic and the lights and went to filter in as the lights turned green. a guy in a merc took umbrage and decided to speed up and slow down to stop me filtering into the lane (and over to the left, out of his way), so i was dodging him and oncoming scooters for half a mile. i yelled at him at the traffic lights and he followed me another mile to my office so that he could threaten to break my legs. nice!

despite that, on the right is generally the best place to overtake slow/stationary traffic.

miche bottom brackets are about £12 and they rule.

i have the same frame!

I had some cheapo long reach brakes from condor, swapped em for some tektros a while back and they work fine. most people i spoke to advised against enlarging the hole because if you don't have a proper drill, you can put cracks in the fork crown.

bb - english thread, normal size. i've got a miche 107 in there at the moment, chainline's dead on - though you have to squeeze the seatstays in a tiny bit (they're 126). it's not a problem but putting the rear wheel on and getting the tension right is more fiddly than it would be on a track frame.

i've been looking for a decent 27" wheels though, I don't like having the big gap between the fork crown and the wheels... though there's supposed to be a bit of clearance for mudguards.

that's the road i work on. there are building sites up and down the road, hence the men at work signs. didn't see this yesterday as i come from a different direction. will have to go have a look at the damage!

i suspect he tried to overtake someone on the junction and got surprised...

sorry, it just looks like this to me.

the concept/execution are good, to be fair, i guess i just like how on an old track bike everything seems to fit within mm of each other.

what's with that huge bloody gap in the front fork above the wheel?

Buffalo Bill [quote]h2o Bill, when you say 'tipper lorries', do you mean those ones that pick up skips or rubbish trucks?

Just curious, like.

edit - or those ones with the big hydraulic flat bed thing on?

The spoil lorries that we will see a lot more of in East London, carrying rubble to and from the Olympic site.

Pic here:

http://www.movingtargetzine.com/article/cyclist-killed-this-morning-by-lorry-in-clerkenwell[/quote]

ah, right. 'orrible things.

Like I said before, there are two things here - one's the principle (which is that drivers are usually the ones to blame and that government policy is a bloody mess) and the other is the practice (which is to take care of yourself because drivers/govt are doing such a poor bloody job of it).

I dunno, I've seen a couple of nasty car accidents (not involving bikes) where someone did something because they had the right of way when it was obvious that someone else on the road was acting like a loon. I don't think it's wise to assume that principles are any kind of physical safeguard.

(response to rpm, btw)

Bill, when you say 'tipper lorries', do you mean those ones that pick up skips or rubbish trucks?

Just curious, like.

edit - or those ones with the big hydraulic flat bed thing on?

Hear hear alex - beat me to it!

There are two arguments being conflated here, one about blame, t'other about brains.

On the blame side - the guys in the 2-ton (and more) tanks are in charge of dangerous machinery and should bloody well make sure they don't squash anybody with it.

On the brains side - the guys in 2-ton (and more) tanks are bloody morons in charge of dangerous machinery and you'd be best advised to keep your wits about you, or they'll squash you.

I think that there needs to be a shift in the social dynamics of road use to address the fact that drivers seem to think that it's their god-given right to drive how they like, and that somehow cyclists are inferior road-users. I'm very enamoured of the Dutch experiment in removing road markings and forcing road users to interact properly, though I suspect that London in partic and the UK in general lacks the kind of solidarity needed for that system to work. We all got too 'beggar-thy-neighbour' in the 80s...

I think also cyclists need to take more responsiblity for themselves, not because they're culpable, but just to stay alive/unhurt. The same 'rights' style of argumentation that drivers are guilty of, cyclists are also guilty of - but your 'rights' don't mean squat when you're a smear on the side of the road.

(As to red lights - treat as a Give Way sign, I'd argue)

i saw a tiny blonde girl messengering on one of these on marylebone a couple months ago. was an odd combo. she looked more the type to have pink rims and wraps than some mean black knight rider looking thing.

I dunno, most of the people I see on the road seem pretty oblivious to lorries. I'm paranoid enough of them that I tend to hang well back behind them until I'm sure they can't suddenly pull left/right, then go past on whichever side seems safer. I'm probably being overly cautious, but I wince when I see people squeezing past them with nary a glance at the rest of the road to work out what the lorry might do next...

But I'm beginning to see cars similarly too. After almost getting badly hurt a couple of times by w_nkers trying to run me off the road/hit me with blunt implements after I shared with them my thoughts on their driving, I've taken to just letting them get on with it and cycling more defensively.

What with their co-sponsoring of the Nocturne, Condor being about the only place that stocks them, and their jointly branded obscenely expensive carbon-monster bikes - how long d'you reckon it'll take before they merge?

Am new, btw. Hello.

(And this is probably not usual banter, feel free to ignore - was just wondering while listening to the repetitive PR spiel down Smithfields earlier...)

I have a pair of Times and some Diadoras that I use most of the week. The weekends and when I'm feeling lazy I put on some mks gr9s with clips and straps so that I don't have to faff around with another pair of shoes. Especially if I'm carrying my camera - no space for shoes in the camera bag. It's only about 5 mins to change them. The pedals, I mean. I don't mind walking in the Diadoras, but they're sweaty...

I'm new btw. Hello.