Ideas for bike build

sarkozy

Say I'm tired of fixies, I have a bunch of stuff to cobble together (Nitto moustach handlebars, cork grips, bar-end brake levers, Brooks saddle, long-drop brakes, 500c wheels, stylin' front basket and old Carlton frame), and I want a little yoke to beat about town in style but would like a few gears, what are my realistic options?

Find a banjaxed bike with sturmey archer gears? But a new internal gear hub? I suppose, while the bike was designed as a 5-speed, I prefer the idea of an internal setup.

What do ye think?

Maybe it's biting off more than I can chew. I'd just like the bike to look 'classic' and not have the whole rear derailleur thing goin' on.

Otherwise it's back to finding a way to get my 1980s carbon fibre look frame converted.

sarkozy

Bizarrely, this is roughly what I've had in mind for the last two years (but was away and couldn't make it). Different colours, though.



Perhaps I'll keep it 'pure',

happytramp

What size are your wheels? 500c? I imagine it would be very hard to find a strumey archer hub on a wheel that size. Hmmmm, how do you feel about learning to rebuild a wheel while your at it? Rothar offer four hour courses for 40euro! If so then buy one of the many strumey archer hubs on ebay, lace it to your current rims, hook it up to some sexy old school downtube shifters (never seen this done, but i'm sure it's possible) and Boom! Other wise you'll probably just have to source an internally geared wheelset in a more convenient size , there's a couple on ebay.co.uk at the moment although you might have to ask if they'll post to Ireland. Good luck!

techieelectric

I've got a sturmey hub I could be parted from if you're looking for one actually, I'm not doing anything with it at the moment, about 10 years old but works perfectly, or it did until the wheel it was attached to was kicked in.