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Sorry, the pics aren't great, the proper camera needs charging, but happy to meet up for people to take a proper look at them before finally committing to buying them. I want to keep this as simple as possible, so am going to give preference to people who want both wheels, sorry knowthejo et al.

So that means fourteenwinter head of the queue, followed by tobyprice.

These are great, but I've just got too many wheels and now I'm commuting on a S3X these just aren't going to get used. I used these on my daily commuting bike for about a year, but wasn't doing a lot of miles at the time, so they're used, but not abused.

32 hole Goldtec track hubs in pewter front and rear, front is laced radially, rear is 3X. Front rim is a black Mavic Open Pro with ceramic braking surface, rim looks pretty much like it did when new, no signs of wear. Rear rim is a black Mavic Open Pro with normal braking surface, rear rim has never seen a brake, though it has picked up a couple of cosmetic scratches, though nothing problematic or of any significance.

Looking at Goldtec's website they'd charge you £260ish for a similar set of wheels, minus the ceramic braking surface on the front rim. Looking at Chain Reaction Cycles website the ceramic rim costs another £40 over the standard rim, so I'm asking for £160 for the wheels along with a brand new (still in the packaging) set of Shimano ceramic compatible brake pads.

I'll post some pics tomorrow, dibs followed by PM please.

As I understand it a Path Racer and a Porteur are rather different bikes with different purposes in mind so somewhat different designs.

A Path Racer is a bit of a club racing bike that you can ride on the track but then also comfortably ride home afterwards, seem to remember that they also had a nod towards grass racing. So a fairly lightweight bike with geometry predisposed towards racing, but with slightly slacker geometry than an out and out racer and a lower bottom bracket than a bike solely intended for track riding.

A Porteur is a load carrying work bike, built to stably carry a load rather than for speed, so more heavily built than a Path Racer, with fork geometry tweaked for stability and predictable steering when carrying a load over the front wheel.

While I'm sure the designs aren't mutually exclusive, not sure I'd consider them interchangeable. My current commuter is a Kogswell G that I'd say broadly had Path Racer geometry. I initially tried building this up as a shopping bike with a Paul Flatbed, it looked great and handled okay when not heavily loaded, but when heavily loaded the steering became much more ponderous and unresponsive, it also felt less predictable. So not a very successful Porteur bike, even if it looked the part.

Kogswell produced a purpose designed Porteur bike, the PR, they did a lot of work getting the fork geometry right, seem to remember that they also had some input from www.blackbirdsf.org . The Kogswell website seems to be down and I get the impression that they've stopped building bikes, but there's still quite a lot of info/discussion about the PR on the Kogswell Owners Group .

You might also want to look at On One's Lincolnshire Poacher as a recent example of someone trying to do a traditional path racer, don't think this was a huge success for them. It seems that while a lot of us appreciate the classics and think it'd be a damn fine idea to revive them, when a budget one comes along very few people seem to buy them. At a completely different price point Rivendell have built their business building these kind of genuinely multi-purpose bikes... but at a price.

I have rear entry horizontal drop-outs on the Kogswell G, which I also use with mudguards and it's a nightmare, the one bit of the design of the bike which is a complete dogs dinner. Rear entry drop-outs and mudguards are a shit idea, sorry, but it's true. What (I think) would be a worthwhile idea would be a Path Racer design, taking advantage of modern advances in tubing design with shortish forward facing horizontal dropouts a-la-Velo-Orange Polyvalent, but for 700c wheels and without the mech-hanger. I know mech-hangers make the frame more adaptable, but they also make my purpose built fixed bike look like a conversion job, which (probably stupidly) irks me.

Them's my thoughts anyway, good luck to you :-)

^ One day I WILL learn brevity.....but not today :)

As poly said "... if you rather pay top dollar for your bling to be reassured of it's absolute value"

You either misunderstood the point I was making or were intentionally quoting me out of context.

Last time I was in Tokyo Fixed I remember seeing a Truvativ Omnium chainset priced on what seemed the high side (probably just RRP) when I'd managed to buy one online for rather less and they had some retro (2nd hand) Campag track chainsets that I thought were priced rather more than optimistically. They also have some designer Japanese bags which are undoubtedly nicely made, but I thought were overpriced for what they were if you ignored the labels and just concentrated on the design/build quality.

My point was there are people who gain that greater confidence/pleasure from their purchase because of the designer Japanese label and aren't sufficiently sadly obsessive (like me?) to track down a NOS retro Gipiemme track chainset (not Campag as everyone else has got those) for next to nothing, ignoring the time (and time is money) it took to find the bloody thing. These I'd argue are the natural customers of Tokyo Fixed, not slightly obsessed bike nuts, they're also probably the customers Tokyo Fixed would prefer , so good luck to both of them. In the nicest way possible I'd say the same is true of Shop 14.

My point now is that if rusting 70s/80s Peugeot frames are indeed rare (not sure they are) it's probably because they were budget bikes in the first place that no-one thought worth preserving, not desirable then, not desirable now. Definitely not worth £400 and to charge this for one is in my opinion obscene, you clearly disagree, as, of course, is you're right.

One last note to try and illustrate my point I just browsed Tokyo Fixed's website to try and find something that looked a bit overpriced. Best I could come up with was a Nitto S65 seatpost they're doing for £57 and a VeloOrange seatpost they're doing for £40, when Freshtripe are doing them for £45 and £30 respectively, bearing in mind Freshtripe are an online only operation and are now, I think, VeloOrange's UK importers these differences could hardly be called obscene, so I may owe Tokyo Fixed a bit of an apology, er, so "Sorry Tokyo Fixed".

But as examples of fixed bike shops Tokyo FG and Shop 14 are miles ahead of Foffa or Caramel.

Different universe, no doubt about it, sorry if I didn't make that clear :)

^ er, that got a bit longer than I'd intended :)

what about shop 14, good bikes, good service, not everything is cheap but you get good things etc etc

or tokyo fixed - lots of bling etc, generally good service with the odd slip in standards

both of those shops are run by people who are well versed in bikes and have a passion

foffa, caramel etc appear to be run by chancers, who like the idea of cashing in on a "scene"

I'm not about to jump to Caramel etc. defence, anyone selling a SS with no rear brake, let alone the other shite they seem to be peddling deserve nothing but opprobrium, but citing either Shop 14 or Tokyo Fixed as model bicycle shops is, for me, a bit wide of the mark.

I rate both shops and have brought stuff from both, but they are fundamentally fashion stores, not quality bike shops, while both have lots of nice stuff and some staff that know about bikes, in my experience, the average bike knowledge of their staff is pretty low and they're not above making up what they don't know.

I've had someone in Shop 14 tell me they (Shop 14) did the design work on and commissioned Goldtec's Pro track hubs, but then try and reassure me the White Industries track hubs on my bike were a good budget/beginners choice. I've heard someone at Tokyo Fixed tell someone, with absolute authority, that you need to change a 9 speed chain every 6 months, because it's so thin. Daft thing is they weren't even making a sale out of it, they were directing the guy to Condor. So don't think it was malicious, just a level of ignorance about basic bike mechanics. Like I say, for my money they're fashion stores, not bike shops, with the resulting inflated margins.

Shop 14 have perfectly good frames, but don't they still get them made by Lee Cooper? To get an idea of the margin you might want to contact him to see what he charges for a made to measure frame. Last time I looked his website is down, but he's still on the phone. If anything I'd say Tokyo Fixed's margins are higher, which is fine if you rather pay top dollar for your bling to be reassured of it's absolute value.

If I want good quality advice and knowledgeable service I still head to Bikefix, Brixton Cycles or occasionally the West London Bicycle Work Shop. None are fixed gear specialists, I'd expect all to give better mechanical (as opposed to aesthetic) advice than Shop 14 or Tokyo Fixed. Like someone said if you want knowledgeable advice about fixed gear bikes, your priority needs to be someone who knows about (and is fundamentally) interested in bikes.

I think the reason it's so hard for a small fixed gear specialist shop to emerge selling a budget bike is because some of the OTP's are so good. Someone at work recently brought a white Fuji track, found a white dia-compe lever and ? white front calliper, I think spent less than £450 and has a put together a nice riding and pretty svelte looking bike. If you don't have to the scale of manufacture savings of a Specialized/Trek/Fuji how can you undercut them without producing a worse product?

I don't see how a new fixed gear bike for less than £300-£350 will ever not be a bit shite, manufacturing costs have come down a long way in the last decade, but there are limits. Also I'd guess as living standards in China go up, so will prices, so grab those OTP bargains now, chances are in 4-5 years time they're going to cost rather more.

I'm away, out of town, all the week, if you can wait till Friday, dibs on the Chub hubs.

Fucking awesome;

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4142/4868430886_463e0a22c2_b.jpg

It is isn't it? love to have a go on that, how awesome would it be to sit on front of that bike?

You mean something like this?

http://www.bilenky.com/navy_viewpoint_files/OriginalBlueVpt-filtered.jpg

As well as the Cargo, Bilenky make the Viewpoint tandem.

Does anyone here have a Mission Workshop Vandal? If so how's it working out for you?

I'm currently use a PAC Ultimate, which is just awesome, has the best cross-strap design I've found on any bag, one area in which it out performed my grobag, but an old back injury is increasingly giving me grief, so think it's time to swap to using a backpack.

From what I can see the Vandal looks like the best backpack out there, so curious to hear from anyone who's using one, or if anyone had another bag they'd recommend - though I'm pretty much decided on the Vandal.

This is a massive, massive long shot, but my Grobag was stolen when I got a burgled a couple of years ago. If you're reading this thread the chances are you're interested in bags, it's very distinctive bag, so thought I'd post a pic just in case it's resurfaced anywhere. Please PM me if you have seen it, I'd be happy to pay to get it back.

I'm looking to standardise the pedals I have fitted to my bikes so want another pair of Time Axion pedals. With or without cleats, anyone got a pair? Happy to but them or swop/px against another set of pedals, I've got various, a nice new and unused pair of Xpedo shiman clones, used Look or Speedplay Zero's road pedals and probably others if I look more closely at my spares box :)

A couple of years ago I brought a pair on Endura Humvee baggies, third or fourth time I wore them they split across the crotch. I was a bit gutted at the time but thought maybe I'd brought them a size too small so was partly to blame, I also brought them on line, making it that little bit more difficult to return them. So I put them in a drawer and forgot about them.

A couple of weeks ago decided it was time to have a bit of a clear out, was about to chuck them, when i thought better of it and decided to return them to Endura. Sent a polite letter explaining what had happened, acknowledging they were well out of any kind of warranty period, but expressing my disapointment that these hadn't performed anything like as well as the other Endura products I've brought over the years.

Two days later I got a phone call from Endura saying they'd received the Humvees, had a look at them, agreed the splitting of the crotch was down to a manufacturing fault. They apologised for this and asked if I'd like a replacement. I said because of the experience with the Humvee's I'd prefer a pair of Zymes, they said no problem and agreed to throw in a pair of their cycling boxers to cover the difference in price between the Humvees and the Zymes. Two days later a pair of Zymes and cycling boxers arrived. I couldn't be happier, not just because they sorted it, but did so with such grace and ease. I can't recommend Endura highly enough :)

Jtek came out with a very good indexed shifter for the nexus hub, so im sure someone could do the same for this?

The Jtek shifters do look nice, but they do an almost identical job to the Sturmey Archer one, which is pretty elegant itself and works fine once set up properly. The problems with the S3X hub changing cleanly are all to do with the proper adjustment of the indicator chain and nothing to do with the shifter.

A Jtek shifter would almost definitely be a few grammes lighter, but the S3X hub itself is hardly for weight weenies.

Have finally (just about) finished the S3X Kogswell and had my first ride on it and while it still need some tweaking, am very happy with it. Here are a couple of pics;

Initial impressions are that there is some backlash in the hub, but not enough to worry about, not sure I'd want to rely entirely on the hub for stopping, hence the rear brake.

To start with the hub kept dropping out of gear in the lowest gear when under load (i.e. making my way up a couple of steepish hills) but think I've got it properly adjusted now. This wasn't a problem once I got a feel for what was required, instructions weren't great, very minimal, but like I said think things will be okay now.

Started with 48x14 gearing as I thought 46x14 would be a bit low, but think I got this wrong, 48x14 is too high, think I'm going to try 49x15 next.

The Kogswell frame has quite a long top-tube and relaxed geometry, so thought the straight seat post and short stem would work with the moustache bars, but this is feeling a touch short in the cockpit, so am going to fit a slightly longer stem and a seat post with some lay back.

Going to fit some black Brooks bar tape, swap the Lepper Voyager for a black Brooks, haven't decided which one yet and will fit a Velo-Orange Constructeur front rack, will also fit mud guards in the winter. Think I might ride this for the Dunwich Dynamo.

Current state of play is:
Profile Airwings - jeez, 2nd dibs buddha fingaz, 3rd dibs jonlubi
Syncros Risers - swellins
Cinelli Pistas - nuknow, 2nd dibs nukeluc, 3rd dibs Marcus
Cinelli Flats - still available

How did I accumulate this much stuff?

42cm wide Profile Airwings In pretty good condition, looking for £17.50 for them. Can supply with a set of Dia Compe bar end brake levers for another £7.50.

**Syncros FL Oversize Stem and Riser Bars/B] These are as new, came of the GT Gutterball I brought as I prefer my Thomson stem and straight bars, still think they're a nice bit of kit. Looking for £30 for the pair, which I reckon is a bargain. Stem is 90mm long.

[B]42cm wide Cinelli Pista Bars** These are for standard size bars, are used with some tape residue on the drops. Unfortunately previous owner rather scratched up one side of the tops fitting them, though the scratches are fairly superficial (more so than they look in the picture) so might well polish out. Want £17.50 for them.

Straight Cinelli Bars A set of straight Cinelli bars with about a 5 degree sweep, want £15 for them.

If any of these interest you, feel free to dibs them, but could you pm me as well, as pms are easier for me to keep a track of than dibs in the thread. Thanks :)

Saddle and pedals now sold, I'm going to keep the wheels and am putting the chainset on ebay, Adding the bars to another posting of various bars I'm selling.

All now sold.

Latest update:

Fizik Aliante: Is available again,price drop to £30
Ambrosio Brakes: Sold and posted, thanks markrjohnson
TTT Moscow bars: Sold, good to see you again James
Mavic TT bars: Sold and I'll post today, thanks Mechamorgan
Profile Airwings: Sold, thanks SimonInd, but I've dug out a second pair, same Airwing bar, same width of 42cm, same price of £17.50, could supply with a pair of bar-end brake levers if the buyer desired.

Current state of play is:

Fizik Aliante: Provisional dibs Dan
Ambrosio Brakes: Dibs markrjohnson
TTT Moscow bars: Dibs pistoffski
Mavic TT bars: Dibs Mechamorgan
Profile Airwings: Dibs SimonInd,

will post an update if any of this changes :)

Fizik Aliante Saddle This is as new and unused, came off my Cannondale as I wanted to stick with my old Arione. Now looking for £30 for this.

Ambrosio Carbon Look Brakes Brought these as I thought they'd suit a bike I was building and then changed my mind, so as new and unused,Sold.

TTT Moscow TT Bars These are used, have some unfortunate scratching around the clamp area, but are uncut, Sold. They look like they're 42cm wide.

Mavic TT Bars Bull bars with aero extension bars, these are really nice but I just don't think I'm ever going to have the right build to put them, but don't want to give them away, on second thoughts, £40's a bit optimistic Sold5.

Also got a pair of 42cm wide Profile Airwings, don't have any pictures of them but their in good to excellent condition, looking for £17.50 for them. If you want any of this feel free to dibs them, but could you pm me as well, as pms are easier for me to keep a track of than dibs in the thread. Thanks :)

^^^ Ah! Looks like Naim got in ahead of me, 2nd dibs on the 165mm Sugino 5-pin Chainset (in case Naim changes his mind)

Dibs Black Front Dia Compe Aero Gran Compe caliper, PM sent.

Bump, as I've updated the original post and dropped a couple of prices.