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I'd heard of this concept of non-pneumatic honeycomb tyres a few years ago but hadn't realised these things have begun to hit the mainstream. Apologies for any repost, UTFS has been employed.

Here is a vid of a non-pneumatic army tyre, which shows the tyre structure and the way it flexes in use:

Cool new army tire technology - YouTube

But this video of the Michelin "Twheel" product discusses the engineering advantages - which probably apply to bicycles at least as much as they apply to cars. Mainly that you can begin to do away with the rigid wheel to mount the pneumatic system on and can have a lighter, flexible wheel which can act as part of the suspension system by flexing where needed:

Без воздушные шины на ауди / Without air tires on Audi - YouTube

If this technolody works in the extremely narrow wheel profile of bicycles then it could potentially lighten or even replace suspension systems for many cycling applications. The possible benefits seem pretty far reaching to me.

Puncture-free cycling on shock-absorbing wheels that won't ever need spoke tension adjustment? I'm in.

I hate climbing hills* when there is traffic passing, especially heavy traffic like buses and lorries.

*Actually I just hate hills.

I've been doing 1 minute full gas, 1 minute rest for 10 repeats to try and get my stamina up and local climbs (telegraph hill in new cross, fountain drive, and the one up to blackheath).

I used to live just on the edge of the heath and you can make a great loop out of the 15 or so routes up onto the hill. If you started at Blackheath Hill, immediately on your left at the top (slightly back on yourself) is Point Hill which is short but pretty steep, next around is Hyde Vale, the least steep of all the routes up the hill, then there is Crooms Hill next to the park, cut round to the right and you can come back up the hill through the middle of the park, left at the exit of the park and left again at the 5-way traffic lights is Maze Hill going back down the far side of the park, turn right at the old swimming baths and along Trafalgar Road, then right at the crossroads by the Ship and Billet and the big bingo hall - that's Vanburgh Hill, always a laugh, turn around at the mini roundabout at the top there and you can do it all again in reverse! Or just turn right at that roundabout, back to the park and stop for a well earned cuppa at The Tea Hut on the heath. :-)

There is also Westcombe Hill next around from Vanburgh (comes out at the bottom by the big A20 flyover, bit busier though, not so fun) and going back the other way from Blackheath Hill are Dartmouth Hill/Morden Hill, Lewisham Hill (AKA Wat Tyler Road), Belmont Hill and Lee Road, that you can work into another loop, coming back via Blackheath Village and past the station. There are probably a few others but they aren't packed in as tightly as the ones on the river side of the hill.

Enjoy!

Thanks for the offer Ed. You going to be at Souths tomorrow? I'll be in London - stopping in on an old friend in Southwark after lunch, so we'll probably chat the afternoon away, which puts me just a few miles away.

The headset is fine for now, I filed out the old one a little and got it back on (still with more force needed than normal though). I'll park the ideas for the future though, thanks guys.

We've had the leather saddle vs massive padded "Barcalounger" chat Ed and she wants a honey leather saddle and grips anyway. So it made it easier to convince her that ditching the padding might still be the way forward. None of the Brooks range got her very interested though, but I found this on Velo Orange...

https://sslcache.se/e5373177d2975ee709e12ea9870de4b9ada81a9f/687474703a2f2f73746f72652e76656c6f2d6f72616e67652e636f6d2f6d656469612f636174616c6f672f70726f647563742f63616368652f312f696d6167652f353330783533302f39646637386561623333353235643038643665356662386432373133366539352f762f6f2f766f5f736164646c655f6d6f64656c5f382d325f315f312e6a7067
It's a wopping 205mm wide and coil sprung, so she's definitely sold on it as an idea. Plus the price is now US$95 (I'm sure these saddles were more expensive a while ago), so it's not extortionate either. Just need to find a few more opinions/reviews about VO saddles and see if the quality matches the look.

The original idea for this build (as stated by my wife, not me trying to dictate) was that she wanted an old bike that fitted well, then rebuild it with good vintage components and new bits that she liked. It wasn't so much a restoration project as a slow progression to as functional a machine as possible but making it pretty along the way. The sort of bike that "looks smart, but someone who knew their stuff would notice some class components on it".

But mostly, things are being picked on what looks pretty and the usual forum favourites are falling by the wayside like flies.

The crankset needed to be rounded not square edged, and have a spider. she likes both of those features. But the really nice Shimano 105 crankset I picked up on fleaBay for £3, she wasn't interested in. Nicely rounded, good, slim lines - perfect, I thought. But it's been cast aside by a Suntour SR crankset.

It's white. And pretty. Apparently the Shimano 105, although much more rounded and less chunky wasn't pretty enough. Even offering to powder coat it white wasn't enough. So bye bye £35, hello set of white cranks. That I can't actually use though, until I change the BB for a cotterless one, but my wife is happy. :-)

Yeah, I don't trust myself to take just 0.6mm off the race area.

However, because I ran a file around the inside of the crown race, I don't want to re-face the fork just yet, otherwise the race may not fit properly afterwards. If we decide to upgrade to a more posh threaded headset, I'll risk giving it a go though. Verniers at the ready, people..!!

As I happened to be passing, I asked the Evans Cycles shop in Docklands if the could re-face the JIS headset down to ISO, had a debate with the mechanic who insisted there is only 1" and 1 1/8", then was told they could do it, but only if I bring the whole bike from Oxford to them (which means cycling a bike that's too small for me across London) and they will kindly do an entire headset service for me (which I don't need).

Or I could buy the tool to do it but realistically, how many JIS headsets am I ever likely to run into to justify owning the tool for this? Vitually none I reckon. So maybe I'll just leave it.

I also took the front end apart and found the only distinguishing mark on the entire bike, which is "Akisu 80" stamped on the fork steerer tube. Google says they are a Taiwanese manufacturers of f&f which were rebadged for other people. Well made, but definitely lower end, seems to be the suggestion, which fits with the rest of the frame detail.

In servicing the fork, I prised the crown race off and found it was a nightmare of a job, it was jammed on harder than any other I've dealt with before. Then found I couldn't get it back on. At all. So I ran a file around the inside of the race and just a teeny bit around the base of the steerer tube.

Checking on Sheldon (http://www.sheldonbrown.com/headsets.html), it looks like this is a JIS fork (27mm at the crown race area) with an ISO headset (26.4mm internal diameter) jammed onto it.

This is the most distinctive feature of the frame - I haven't seen this kind of triangular bridge before.

/attachments/61495

/attachments/61490

This is the state of the chain ring, with just a few tiny spots of rust, which I could probably polish out, if we were keeping the crankset. I'm slightly upset at the prospect of having to discard it in the future.

Bastards!

It had slightly mis-matched pedals, which my OCD just couldn't cope with, so I chucked an old set of plastic pedals on. The saddle got changed for her big padded thing off her hybrid. The bearings on the front wheel were grinding, so I've thrown on an old spare with a narrow axle for now. Changed the ratty old chain because it was pretty stiff, but kept the cog and chain ring because they were both fine with a little cleaning up - those old steel parts just last forever!

The biggest problem I have is that it has cottered cranks. The cotter pins just made faces at me and told me to get fucked when I tried taking them out. I could just take an angle grinder to the BB spindle, but the bike is running at the moment and in fact the BB is actually pretty slick, which was quite a surprise. So I've left the BB, cranks and chain ring alone for now, whilst I try to work out who made this and what parts might fit, before I go and kill anything on it to death.

I see my future... Much interweb searching... and reading of old articles about vintage bikes on Sheldon...

So, it looks like this is a case of "Welcome to vintage bicycle hell".

I've been bad keeping this thread up to date - in my defence, I don't own a digital camera and pics from my phone just aren't decent enough quality.

So, here is a catch-up...

/attachments/61477

This is the bike that my wife tried and liked. It's an old mixte of indeterminate origin. I have no idea of the make and any decals fell off an age ago. There were no distinguishing marks on the frame or distinctive features that I recognised, the lugs are ok but nothing special and it was fitted with pretty standard parts and inexpensive wheels. So it's not going to be a secret Cinderella of a purchase.

On the plus side, the frame is light enough but it's dead stiff (my wife hates the frame flex from step-through steel frames). So all in all, it seems like a decent old steel frame, which rides really nicely and for some reason just feels naturally quick. We managed an hour on it a couple of weeks ago, with no lasting wrist pain, so it's already an improvement on her Trek hybrid.

It needs to be ridden though, to see if it's genuinely right for her, before we start throwing money at it, so updates are going to be sporadic in the early stages as it gets road tested.

I didn't come.

Life got in the way.

Nobody cared.

kissy kissy

I'll be in That London later. It's a bit far west for my geography, but I think I can find the pub. I'll eat beforehand though, if I can make it!

Not having gloves or a windproof are making it a bit of a daunting prospect though. Must rub some HTFU in before I set off today.

If Murts doesn't like it/didn't think of it/discover it, it's not a good idea.

Word.

Not quite the same thing, but a guy I know does downhill MTB racing and said someone that no one knew turned up to a race on a old no-suspension bike and proceeded to trounce much of the field. He was apparently flying down the courses and got massive respect from the people he had beaten.

In the same vein, I know a few people who like having old kit for competitive sports - it keeps you focussed on you and your performance, not the performance of the kit. If you've just started out, you're new to the sport, you have old equipment and you're getting beaten, nobody will be at all surprised. On the other hand, when you start beating people using clearly sub-standard kit, they will KNOW they've been beaten by you.

If I were any good at racing (which I'm not) that's how I would start.

You could tell it was headed that way from the start though. It was fate. Like two star-crossed lovers, doomed to an inevitable tragic end...

^^^^^ Ha! That's fantastic! :-D

Fat tyres all round on the family's bikes from now on I reckon. If only there were some decent off-roading here in Oxenfordinghamshire...

Didn't think the pilot is pedalling the plane into the atmosphere.

You've clearly never flown EasyJet then.

If you haven't seen them, the guru has articles on fixed gear conversions, with further information on chainline and most importantly, about chainline on singlespeeds.

When you say you got it to fit with brute force, do you mean you perma-bent the rear triangle in a bit, or just pushed inwards hard until you could mount the wheel?