Wanted: wheels and bits and pieces

Gavin

Hey,
Stuck this on the madmtb.com site, thought I might try my luck here as well !

I'm looking for some cheap as chip wheels for a single speed conversion of an ancient raleigh mtb I'm attempting. The original rear wheel has a thread-on freewheel and hub (thank god for Sheldon's website or I'd never have known this), so conversion is awkward. Newer wheels would be nice too. Anyone got any auld yokes, maybe around 50 quid ? I don't strictly need a new front wheel, but it would be nice.

If anyone has an old saddle, v-brakes, spd pedals, I'd be interested in those too ! Save me the postage from ebay.

Cheers,
Gav

kona

ive chain tensioners, and a gel saddle, you ca have the lot for 20 quid

how is it awkward??
most Bmx run a SS threaded to the hub, now the only prob would be the size,
i can gt you a 16 T sized one that should just screw onto your old wheels.
or am i wrong and your talking about another old system??

TinyExplosions

I've a saddle you can have if you want... don't mind helping someone put together a fixie

Gavin

Cheers Kona,
You're right, I could do that alright, but as I understand it, I'd be stuck with the smallest chainring on the front then. I've gotten new wheels, spd pedals and some spare cassettes for spacers off a guy over on madmtb.com so it's handier. I'm also interested in doing it this way, just to figure out how to do it, I haven't done any real work on a bike before.

I'm ok for the tensioners, the frame has a horizontal dropout, thanks !

Tiny, I might take a free saddle off you alright ! (Although, strictly speaking, I'm going for a ss, not a fixie, heh). I'll PM you, thanks.

So anyone got any semi decent vbrakes? Just looking for front ones really, lever and brake, I can stick with the existing rear ones.

Gav

Raam

I have SPD pedals for touring...

Look at Pedals 2 here
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055180944

Gavin

Hey Raam,

Cheers for that, but I just bought a set of Shimano M540s off a MAD guy! Sorry I missed out on your shoes though, I'll have to watch for a pair of those.

Nowhere seems to stock cheap 44-46 size shoes !

Gav

Raam

Verb wrote: »

Hey Raam,

Cheers for that, but I just bought a set of Shimano M540s off a MAD guy! Sorry I missed out on your shoes though, I'll have to watch for a pair of those.

Nowhere seems to stock cheap 44-46 size shoes !

Gav

I may be selling a pair of these shortly, depends if I get a nice pair of Sidi shoes in an upcoming holiday.
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=6209

Gavin

ok, great, let me know !

Gav

kona

ah got ya!
could you not just chainge the chainset to a single ring like on fixies??
suppose it would cost too much, you should post pics of the build:)

Gavin

I must do alright. Hah, it's a horrible auld frame, it'll probably turn into a complete botch job, but it is good fun.

kona

Verb wrote: »

I must do alright. Hah, it's a horrible auld frame, it'll probably turn into a complete botch job, but it is good fun.

rub it down, prime it, nice few coats of metallic paint and a lacquer:D
will look great!takes a immense amount of effort and time to get it right

Gavin

Well, thanks for the various help and bits and pieces. All finished now !



http://flickr.com/photos/gavinogorman/sets/72157603920092710/

Gav

p.s Cheers to TinyExplosions for saddle !

Bicyclegadabout

That looks deadly, fairplay.

How long did it take altogether? You didn't happen to do a blog of it or anything?

Morgan

It's so.... yellow!

I like it.

Gavin

hah cheers, it turned out well alright ! I am most pleased with the colour! No blog I'm afraid. I'll go through it here.

Got the bike and I just stripped off everything I could, didn't touch the forks/handlebars/stem. Washed it goodo.

Brakes
I decided to replace the brakes cause they are so cheap, I figured why not. V-Brakes, new levers and decent brake cable, in total, around 50 euro. My first mistake was here, I threw out the old cable and housing as soon as I took it off. Don't do this. Keep it and this way you can cut the new housing/cable to the right length without any messing around.

I bought a small bolt cutters and file from Woodies, they went through the brake cables no problem. Much cheaper than a dedicated cutter. Grind down the ends with the file. I didn't have a crimper for the cable end, so I just superglued them on.

Lots of twiddling then to get the brakes perfect, very happy with em.

Wheels
I ended up just buying a new rear wheel, the old one had the thread on freewheel and hub as mentioned up above. It was grand, got the wheel from Joe Dalys and bought the spacer kit from chainreactioncycles. Getting the chain lined up exactly was a bit awkward, but if you have spacers from an old cassette to get it perfect it works fine.

The axles on the wheel were also slightly large, they push out beyond the drop-ons. This ain't good, it means the QR won't clamp onto the frame properly. So I grinded them down with the file. No problem, took around 20 minutes.

I temporarily took the front wheel from my rockhopper, I have another front wheel I got second hand I must get fixed up.

Quick release is enclosed cam, steel skewer. I crank it on as hard as I possibly can, don't want the wheel slipping forward. I don't find I have any problems getting chain tension right.

Other
The chainrings are all welded together, it's an old cheapo frame, and I didn't want to have to go to the expense of buying a crank extracter, bottom bracket tool and then new cranks and chainrings. So I just stuck the chain onto the largest ring. I had to grind a few of the teeth to remove hook shapes, I don't know if that was really necessary though.

Resizing the chain with the chaintool is trivial, no problems. The original chain was thoroughly stretched though and it felt odd cycling on it, so I bought a new chain. I couldn't pass on the gold single speed one, bling bling. It's slightly noisey, I'm not sure if this is just the nature of the chain, or something else is going on. I left the factory grease on the chain, I'll lube it up with something else when it wears off and see if it becomes quieter.

I used a hairdryer and knife to remove the decals, no problems. Used whitespirits to clean the frame and remove any glue. Need to do this again actually, some glue still there.

I got a hacksaw in woodies and took an inch on either end off the handlebars. That was surprisingly easy, hacksaw went through the metal very quickly.

I got the bike on the 16th of Feb and just finished it off there last weekend. I was only really able to work on it at the weekends. It doesn't take very long at all, if you had all the tools and parts needed in one place, an amateur like me could get it done in two or three days. I'm sure someone with experience could probably go through it and be finished in a day.

Cycling it is great fun. It's lighter than my specialized rockhopper which I was using for commuting. It feels strange cycling with the light forks, almost flimsy, but very maneuverable, especially with the shortened handlebars. Not messing with gears at lights and so on is good. When I bump into a hill I just stand up and grind up it, or boot it along and go up as fast as I can. Commute is around 15km each way on it, no problems.

Now I can replace the brake cables, gear cables and chain on my mountain bike, replace the tyres and actually go mountain biking on it !

Gav

kona

looks good dude!

id stick a hollowtech crank in it to make it super light, youd be suprised a bike shop will do it for you although the tools are about e40.

studiorat

Nice Job.

A more horizontal handlebar stem would give it a nice line, don't you think? Guess you'd pick one up real cheap.

What about a "show us yours" sticky lads?

fish-head

"Show Us Yours" sticky is a great idea!

Nice one, Verb. You could stick some knobblies on and take it off road.. that'd be great craic!

TinyExplosions

Verb wrote: »

p.s Cheers to TinyExplosions for saddle !

No problem at all... nice lookin bike sir!