Back at the beginning of August, I rode my first long DIY for a while and (unsurprisingly) ended up with very sore hands, neck and backside. On the same ride I’d had a chance encounter with Lightning Phil on his P38, and it clicked in my head that maybe a ‘bent was the route to avoiding the aches and pains from long rides.
I did a bit of research and following standard advice I called Kevin at Dtek and had a nice chat with him. He suggested I drop him an email and he’d get back to me with some dates for a try out session. After a couple of weeks waiting for a response ( I still haven’t had one!), I saw an ancient Orbit Crystal (Speed Ross) that looked nice on the ‘bay, put in an offer and won
Having ridden fixed gear bikes exclusively for the last five or so years, I was now faced with the dual problems of learning to ride the ‘bent and learning to use gears and coast again! It took a few sessions around the local village hall car park before I was able to start and stop without falling off, and then I figured I was ready to venture out onto the road. The first couple of road rides gave me the fear worse even than when I first started riding fixed! But they were fun too
I’ve now done about half a dozen or so rides and getting a bit more confident; although the longest rides so far have only been around 25km, I’m already as fast as I am on my fixed uprights. I still need to work on turning right from a stop at t-junctions (especially onto busier roads) and hill starts though!
Anyway, onto my question. The Crystal has a 700c rear wheel and a 451 front. The front has a 20 x 1 1/8 (451x28) tyre fitted and with there’s less than a cm clearance at the fork crown, so there’s no chance of fitting a bigger tyre (not that there’s much choice in 451 anyway) and/or a front mudguard. Can anyone think of any reasons why it wouldn’t be a good idea to replace the 451 wheel with a 406 wheel which would allow me to fit a tyre in the 35/40mm range and a mudguard? The original canti’s at the front have been replaced with a Sturmey drum brake so if I build that into a 406 wheel there’d be no issue with brake drop or clearance etc.
I’m still planning on getting up to Dtek at some point to see what other options there might be for me down the line