I picked up one of these from 1954. It was a bit rough, but I replaced:
seat post
stem
handlebars
brake levers
wheels (laced them myself)
…with new aluminum parts, which made it feel quite spiffy.
While I was at it, replaced the chain, the rear cog, all the ball bearings and the cotter pins, and re greased everything.
So it’s sound mechanically, and the fenders and chain guard are in acceptable condition for now.
Eventually the whole bottom bracket assembly will become worn enough to replace, but there are cartridge route ones that will fit.
Don’t know what I’ll do when the races in the head tube wear out though. The only replacements I’ve ever heard about are new-old stock, or parts cannibalized from other bikes.
No pictures at the moment as the bike is on a different continent…
Eta: I forgot the most important upgrade! I replaced the terrible stock brakes with some modern aluminum ones too. Those and the aluminum rims make for much better braking, especially in the wet.
Those Shimano rims are pretty special… (the wheelset doesn’t quite match; the rear is RS80 and the front is the later RS81 with the new axle system) the rims have bulges at the nipples, and almost any such rim is generally pretty fancy, but these are even snazzier: a super-light extrusion reinforced with carbon. It’s a climber’s wheelset, low spoke count notwithstanding.
Unfortunately I couldn’t tell you what those rims weigh, since published rim weights for ‘system’ wheelsets are totally not a thing, dammit, and I haven’t had those wheels apart. Yet.
Are you asking if I use cleats with the clips? That would totally defeat my purpose of running clips - being able to just get on the bike and go, in street clothes. If I’m going to the hassle of changing shoes to ride, I’ll throw clipless pedals on.
Here’s how I look at it: if I need to get changed to ride, that makes it less likely I’ll use it in a utilitarian manner, and more likely to just lazily take the car. Most folks in Lycra are in fact just riding in circles recreationally, using their bike as a toy rather than a tool for making it from A to B.
I fucking love race bikes, so despite my utilitarian leanings, a 7kg weapon is what I use to go round the corner to the shop (it’s less than 200m and I’m upstairs, but I never walk there - walking is for critters who can’t invent the wheel) or I’ll commute on it, without anything but me and the bike - no patch kit or tools, no helmet (despite my idiot country requiring one), nada.
I have the same minimalism thing as the fixie peeps, but for mine, they’re throwing away important bits of the bike that matter and are incredibly sexy if high-end; sweet brifters and derailers are bike geek porn. My only concession to clutter is a tiny set of lights, mounted on the stem faceplate and above the seat rail clamp so you almost don’t see them when they’re off.
The photochop is off the anodising job I want on it, with all the graphics etched and re-anodised, with the fork painted to match, but fading to clear over the carbon. It’ll be eye-poppingly sexy.
Oh yeah, those are Ergolevers shifting Dura-Ace derailers… That little pulley hanging off the RD is a Jtek ShiftMate, which translates Italian to Japanese or vice versa with two different-sized grooves. Super nifty, but unfortunately Jtek is no more
There are loads that work like this - Spybike, for instance (feedback on this brand seems to be poor), although I’ve seen neater ones. The trick is to get something low-power enough to not need constant charging or new batteries - but that then appears to dictate a tracking technique that is fairly short-range. Tile and TrackR both have ‘community search’ type functions to their apps, but without a clear idea of how many people use them (Tile told me that there were 820 users ‘nearby’ - but no idea how nearby that is, or how many keep the app running in the background) in a city of 9 million its hard to say how good the coverage will be). Trackr has a coverage map tool on their website, which is better, and I’m surprised how many users there seem to be locally - if all the dots are real!
Interestingly, my DH wheelset uses 28 spokes front and 32 rear- and it’s been among the most reliable wheelsets I’ve ever ridden (for that sort of riding, anyway). There’s something to be said for a well-designed wheel system (as enthusiastic as I am about “traditional” wheels not withstanding).
When I was a kid, we had a caravan by a saltwater tidal lake. The lake had a deepwater boating channel adjacent to our beach, and a sandbar out in the middle.
The deepest part of the channel was more than a bike plus snorkel, but that bit was just narrow enough that you could make it across before running out of breath. So, diving mask and snorkel on, underwater cycle to the sandbar.
Thanks to the buoyancy of the tyres, bikes get crazy light underwater (especially if it’s a thick-tyred BMX). You bounce along as if you had ET on the handlebars; huge fun.
Not very good for the bike, though. And you do have to dodge the occasional propeller.
A custom Peter Mooney. It’s lugged steel (front triangle is brass-brazed Reynolds 853 with very long webbed lugs and the rear triangle is silver brazed Columbus EL/OS with Henry James stainless dropouts).
A Surly Steamroller fixed gear- set up for commuting with a front basket and riser bar, but I have a a track bar setup as well as a road bar setup that each swap on with two bolts or so.
A lugged steel Bridgestone MB-3 converted to single speed. Fully rigid, and a wonderful bike. Been considering converting it to 700c wheels (from standard 26") just to mix things up a bit.
A 1999 Specialized Stumpjumper Pro. It’s a Metal Matrix frame, and it’s been so rebuilt I’m reasonably confident there are no original parts on it. Running a 2x9 drivetrain right now, will likely move it to 1x9 soon.
An Evil Imperial freeride hardtail. It’s got a 1x8 drivetrain, a FOX 36 for, Deemax wheels, and a host of other trick/special parts that make it enormous fun to ride.
I like steel, though for full suspension mountain bikes, it’s hard to argue against aluminum. I like titanium as well, though my very favorite titanium road frame (a Serrotta Colorado Legend Ti) isn’t made anymore. I hadn’t been able to ride much for a few years- young kids, job, etc, but now I’ve got very decent trails a mile or so from the house, and I’ve been making more time to get out again. My gear is all old by current standards, but it’s all quality and works well. I’m not interested in speed in an absolute sense, and my primary metric on rides is “fun” and not numerical values, so as long as the gear works properly, it’s age doesn’t bother me at all.
The first example is a GPS system. As I understand it, power requirements and size are both factors in GPS based systems, although apparently the power issue had been potentially solved by someone who has stripped down the GPS unit and put all the heavy lifting of coordinate calculation into a companion app. That means that the bike-borne part only needs to signal the satellites which reduces the complexity and power requirements a great deal.
The other issue I’ve heard about with GPS is aerial placement. Assuming that you want to hide the GPS unit inside the bike tubes, you have issues with the frame acting as a Faraday cage and attenuating the signal. For some reason it isn’t possible to solder a contact to the inside of a tube and use the frame as the aerial itself. I don’t understand why.
Another system that people have recommended for bikes is Pebblebee. You can tell all these systems came along at about the same time as their websites are exactly the same. They all have a slightly Innocent fruit smoothie feel to them.
What practical method could there be beyond removal and destruction or disposal? Unless the tracking device was behind a bolt that requires a custom key - such as Atomic22. Then, even if they know it’s there they have no means to non-destructively remove it. But that leaves us with the question of how the signal can pass through the frame reliably.
I think you’re right. So why not visible and marked with market-tested deterrent messages in a transparent ring casing, locked on the outside of the tube, maybe with a custom bolt like Atomic22?
Seems to me that this might work - but an external mount might just end up being something easy to lop off or destroy without compromising the frame or the useability of the bike. So the obvious choice to my mind would be the seatpost - with a keyed seatpost pinch bolt or clamp - since this means that the gubbins can be well down inside the seat tube, there’s plenty of space for a battery, and it would be reasonably easy to keep the aerial free of the main tubes as well as provide something like a micro USB for recharging…
