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Mmm..... What time you thinking?

Starting from where, to which beach?

Matt, I'll drop the boards for wheel-discs off at RCYB or bring 'em to polo next week, whichever you prefer. Oh, and I'm still game to look at that Sturmey for you, if you want.

How polo has changed... Once upon a time I would have been impressed by this.
Now I like expensive and over-engineered polo bikes!

No bank-loan no polo!

It's grim oop North!

Yeah, what's the score for polo tomorrow?
I can pretty much make it any time too!

Any more details on how you went about doing this?

Not that tricky, actually.
Place the brake disc on top of the cog, taking care that the centres are concentric, centre punch through the bolt holes in the disc to mark where to drill the cog. I found it easier to mark one hole, then drill it, bolt the disc and cog together, then mark the next hole, etc, etc. I also used a bench-mounted pillar drill but I guess you could use a hand held power drill if you're careful, and it's all you've got. Also, use the best drill bits you can afford. I ruined several doin this.

OK, so I've snapped another leather toestrap so have decided I need some doubles(Ideally brown). Oh, and some chrome toeclips (pref double clips for double straps) And if anyone has some tasty pedals to attach them to, I might be interested in those. Otherwise I'll just use the Lyotard style pedals I've got kicking around. This is for the recently restored Viking so must be in reasonable condition. Thanks. Beer tokens or swaps await.

For any noobz out there looking to build their first polo bike this cheap and dirty polo steed project of mine may be of interest:

Frame:
21” steel MTB frame salvaged from a skip, with short and quite steep headtube for quick steering and good torsional rigidity. All lugs and braze-ons removed. Rubbish pressed-steel seatclamp ground off and replaced with modern alloy clamp. Chrome, one inch threaded headset with caged ball bearings, which are replacable and cheap.

Forks:
Steel MTB 26” forks. Tried shorter 24” ones, but no real advantage and a bit too quick steering.

Wheels:
Front – 26” alloy hub and rim. 1.5” slick tyre. Home-made wheel disc. Solid, nutted axle.
Rear – 26” MTB front disc wheel, converted to rear use with longer, solid, nutted axle and a cog from a dismantled cassette drilled and bolted to disc flange(Fixed). 1.5” slick tyre. Home-made wheel disc. I tried converting a shimano cassette freehub rear wheel to fixed and, although it worked well, the bolt on method is stronger and is quicker and easier to do.

Bottom bracket/Crankset:
BMX-style bottom bracket and one-piece steel crank for strength and ability to use solid 1/8” BMX chainrings down to very small tooth count which are readily available and cheap. Black plastic BMX 1/2” platform pedals (sacrificial in a spill) with home-made powergrip-style straps.

Handlebar/Stem:
22.2mm stem is super-strong BMX 4 bolt top loader alloy clamp with short reach. Bars are home made from cut down and welded-up BMX bars.

Brakes:
Front cantilever, very powerful, easily adjustable and quick release for easy wheel removal.
Rear – no brake, fixed wheel.

Current gearing – 38:24 giving aroung 39 gear inches and 12 skid patches on 26” wheels. May go to 33:20 in the future when I change chainring and cog for new ones, rather than salvaged ones.

Most parts were salvaged, secondhand or surplus that I had lying around. Only parts I had to buy were the tyres - £12.50 from Ebay.

Total cost - £12.50

Currently being used and abused playing polo in Newcastle. Testing is going well with only a few adjustment needed.

Prepared for a flaming from established members but WTF.

You probably made the right call Phil. I swung by just on the off-chance, and Ed had the same idea, but we were the only two there. Three wouldn't have been enough for a game. It seems quite tough to get people together in the same place, at the same time. See you Wednesday ;)

Was just about to set off and thought I'd better check the forum for an update. Sorry to hear that there's not much interest. Dave's busy so it's just me. Glad to turn up anyway - is it just you and me, Phil?

That should give us a good hour/hour and a half of daylight playing time, assuming peeps turn up on time. Were you thinking Gosforth? BTW, what's the weather look like for tomorrow?

What kinda time you thinking?

I'm not sure, but aren't programmes not available on iplayer until after they've been shown 'live'? Anyway, it's just started.

For anyone who's interested, 'The Flying Scotsman', the film about cyclist Graeme Obree is on BBC1 shortly.

Nice one Tristan. Addictive, isn't it? Hope to see more of you there?
Having proved the concept of the Frankenbike, I've improved it a bit by replacing the forks with ones of a more suitable length, and using the brake, bars and wheel discs from the red bike. Oh, and tidied it up a bit:

0k

Aagh! Gutted I couldn't make it into town for this. Just have to console myself with 2 hours of track cycling on BBC2. Is polo still on tomorrow at 5.15-ish?

Preach that Recyke y'bike gospel, brother ;)

Life's too short to be riding new bikes

Seems rock-solid Phil. I'm only sorry I wasted so much time converting the shimano freehub wheel to fixed. This is much stronger, and quicker and easier to do.
I've also been making handlebars:

Edit: Sorry about the poor quality phone pics

I might be able to make it too.
Wanna try out my new bolt-up-fixed wheel:

Was just wondering, since no-one had posted. Seems a bit quiet on the forum right now. Just wanted to try out the new Frankenstein-fixed wheel setup. Might be a bit tight for me too as I'm working on another wheel - a bolt-on-cog fixed, plus family commitments, but I might be able to make it. Is no-one else about this weekend?

anyone about for polo this weekend?

@ Phil & Pete:
Experiment to 'fix' the Shimano freehub on the polo bike has worked at the second attempt. Used small lengths of allen key,filed to shape, and placed where the pawls used to be, to lock the inner and outer parts of the freehub together.
Got inspiration from this: http://www.63xc.com/mathieson/cheaphub.htm but went one stage further.

It's holding up to some pretty heavy abuse so far, fingers crossed, but cassette cogs could be a better fit. Now able to lock up the rear at will. Polo fixie skids a go-go ;)

If it doesn't survive the abuse, I'll weld the fucka!!

Yep, can see the value of it but not everyone plays on faceberk

Tristan,
Free fun is better than paid fun, no? ;)
I also get more satisfaction out of it knowing that I built it myself.
The other beater polo bike is small frame, 21" or thereabouts, short toptube too. It has a one-piece crank, bmx-style, with 38 tooth ring and I was gonna build a bolt-on-cog fixed back wheel for it, (tuff as fook, not even Pete could break this setup) tho it currently has freewheel cassette. Both wheels are 26" with slicks. Will post pics tomorrow if yer interested. Be warned, it looks a bit rough cos not painted yet. Oh, and yes I did paint the red bike.