Bought any cycling stuff today?

[Jakob W]

Got the call from Bob Jackson that my frame respray was done, so paid for that. Should be back with me early next week, so ordered some Dinitrol to treat it with, and some new bars. Think I'll then have all the parts needed, so will hopefully get it built up over the Easter break.

[Canardly]

A boil in the bag waterproof for £13.

[rogerzilla]

A Velocity Deep V rim turned up.  They're crap rims: heavy, not very regular, so a PITA to build with, and overpriced.  But they're about the only narrow rim for 23mm tyres that's still available in 40 hole.

This one is actually a 32h to make a matching front wheel; I built the 40h rear wheel years ago, mainly as an excuse to use a Sturmey-Archer AM alloy shell which has survived 66 years without the wafer-thin flanges cracking (it's built x4 and I put two brass washers under each spoke head to get the spoke bend hard against the flange, so it should be OK).  Did the 2009 Dun Run on it.  It looked silly with a Deep V on the rear and a normal rim on the front, though.

This wheel, and the matching rear one, will go on the New Project since the clubman already has a less attractive but more practical AM in a 36h AW steel shell.  That bike is spaced to 120mm and has one of the uber-rare AM 6 1/4" axles; the New Project will be spaced narrower so it can take the usual 5 3/4" axle.

Irritatingly, the 40h is anodised silver and this one is polished silver, but you take what you can get.  When the rear rim has a nice veneer of oil and road grime, it'll never show.

[Jurek]

Back this morning from Arup Sen having collected my re-rimmed rear wheel for the fixie, which I left with him only yesterday  .

He has the most beautiful wheel truing jig I have ever seen, with biggly dial gauges that run-out and eccentricity cannot hide from.
I think it is this one.
He also has a hand built machine from Japan which cuts the threads and the length of a spoke in one operation - meaning that he doesn't have to carry an inventory of spokes in an assortment of sizes.

Unfortunately, this visit has also revealed that the bearing  on the drive side of my Goldtec track hub is shot - which, after ~30,000 miles of maintenance free use, is not that surprising.
I'm going to order another hub from BETD - no harm in having a spare rear wheel for the bike - In the meantime, does anyone have any experience of replacing the bearings in a Goldtec track hub?
Is it relatively straightforward, or does it require the intervention of specialist tools / bearing pullers / presses?

[Tim Hall]

There's a tutorial here, which suggests it's standard whack out whack in cartridge stuff.

(I'd ignore the crows' foot lacing if I were you)

[Jurek]

A Velocity Deep V rim turned up.  They're crap rims: heavy, not very regular, so a PITA to build with, and overpriced.  But they're about the only narrow rim for 23mm tyres that's still available in 40 hole.

This one is actually a 32h to make a matching front wheel; I built the 40h rear wheel years ago, mainly as an excuse to use a Sturmey-Archer AM alloy shell which has survived 66 years without the wafer-thin flanges cracking (it's built x4 and I put two brass washers under each spoke head to get the spoke bend hard against the flange, so it should be OK).  Did the 2009 Dun Run on it.  It looked silly with a Deep V on the rear and a normal rim on the front, though.

This wheel, and the matching rear one, will go on the New Project since the clubman already has a less attractive but more practical AM in a 36h AW steel shell.  That bike is spaced to 120mm and has one of the uber-rare AM 6 1/4" axles; the New Project will be spaced narrower so it can take the usual 5 3/4" axle.

Irritatingly, the 40h is anodised silver and this one is polished silver, but you take what you can get.  When the rear rim has a nice veneer of oil and road grime, it'll never show.

Heh! Funny that. My bold.
They're my rim of choice for the fixer (See the post above^^)

Last year I was hit on a roundabout, from the rear.
I ended up under the bike, unable to get up because the car which hit me was on top of the back wheel of the bike.
After I'd persuaded the driver to 'get their effing car off my bike so that I could get up' I thought to myself 'Here we go - this is going to be interesting - trying to persuade someone to cough well north of £300.00 for a wheel that has just one gear'.
The wheel turned out to be perfectly true in spite of the weight of the front end of a Peugeot 205 on top of it.

[Jurek]

There's a tutorial here, which suggests it's standard whack out whack in cartridge stuff.

(I'd ignore the crows' foot lacing if I were you)

Thanks Tim 
That looks reassuringly straightforward.
Funnily enough Arup has a crow's foot (or is it snowflake?) wheel in the window of his front room - so I do not need to remember his house number

[Jakob W]

He has the most beautiful wheel truing jig I have ever seen, with biggly dial gauges that run-out and eccentricity cannot hide from.
I think it is this one.

Oh. Oh, my. I think I might need a moment.

[Jurek]

He has the most beautiful wheel truing jig I have ever seen, with biggly dial gauges that run-out and eccentricity cannot hide from.
I think it is this one.

Oh. Oh, my. I think I might need a moment.

Arup spun my wheel and put the gauge against it.
The needle flickered across a few increments.
I asked him what each increment represented.
He replied that it was 1/25,000 of a mm something that my mind cannot boggle.
I think I'm quite lucky having Arup a 10 minute walk away.

[fuzzy]

That jig is Proper bike pr0n!

[zigzag]

the jig is well nice! however in real life 0.5mm error in trueness is absolutely fine, as long as it stays that way.

[rogerzilla]

An original Brooks Swallow for the Holdsworth.  Was quite cheap and will look good once I've attacked the chrome with alu foil.  Apart from a few scuffs and creases, the leather is fine: no sign of the rivets tearing through.

[ElyDave]

That jig is Proper bike pr0n!

Very expensive pr0n, a Melania Trump of truing jigs in terms of cost.

How many wheels do you need to true to get a payback on that I wonder?

[Jakob W]

As a home user, 40-50*; as a pro I guess it depends on how much it speeds up your building over doing it by eye.

*If comparing this to paying someone to build wheels for you. Seeing the manufacturer's page for the stand, I may have quickly done this calculation before deciding I really didn't need well north of a grand's worth of trueing stand, however gorgeous...

[rogerzilla]

I say meh, because you still have to deal with less-than-round rims, spoke windup and other banes of the wheelbuilder.  At some point you'll still say "sod it, that's good enough" because you just can't adjust real components to eliminate all hop and runout.  Half a mm is good enough for me, which makes the rim look static if you spin it.  Anyway, my wheels are better than the ones I have from DT's factory handbuilder or Paul Hewitt - neither of those are super-true.

[TheLurker]

Some winter gloves (because cheap* now) and a couple of pairs of B'twin branded shorts from Decathlon.

BTW; what the hell are D playing at with their sizing?

The gloves are marked large. Rubbish!  I wear medium size Marigolds when I'm doing the washing up and these new gloves are a snug fit. As for their shorts!  I'm skinny (30" waist) and since when did that class as european large?  Is this some weird reverse vanity sizing for cyclists?



*I.e. cheaper than usual D prices.

[Jurek]

500g of copper grease. That's enough to last me several lifetimes.
But at £7.99 for 500g, or alternatively £3.79 for a 30g tube, it's a no brainer.
Thing is....... I remember buying a 30g tube a couple of months ago.
Just can't find it 

[Samuel D]

He has the most beautiful wheel truing jig I have ever seen, with biggly dial gauges that run-out and eccentricity cannot hide from.
I think it is this one.

To be acquired after a Jobst Brandt-designed, dial-indicator tensiometer.

(Hey, I just noticed they moved away from Mitutoyo gauges and reduced the prices from $280 to $235 for the dial-indicator version and $348 to $298 for the digital version. I wish I had that lying around because I’m sure I’ll eventually get one of these, probably at some point in the future when they’re more expensive or only available used.)

[mcshroom]

To replace the red Raleigh Criterium frame I broke last week, I've just ordered what I think is a blue Raleigh Criterium frame on ebay.

It'll be late 80s/early 90s so a little newer, the paintwork looks decent, and a bonus is that by this model they'd started to add bosses for a second bottle cage. Hopefully I should be able to transfer all the bits straight over from the old one when it arrives

(I wasn't deliberately looking for another Crit)

[rogerzilla]

A Fichtel & Sachs Duomatic hub for a project that may not see the light of day until next year.  Depends how much it weighs compared to a singlespeed hub and a rear brake, really, but I have an unused frame* that I've already spaced to 112mm.  These are jewel-like inside compared even to the better-made pre-1960 Sturmey-Archer hubs, and quite pretty on the outside too.

*the powdercoated one...some helpful person on CC has spotted that there is another, fainter, frame number lurking under the obvious one (which may be from a 1983 modification when the LH shifter boss was added and it was painted), so I am getting closer to identfying it once I've cleaned off some more blue yuck.  It may be a Stallard or a Major Nichols (Stallard certainly used Accles & Pollock Kromo SAQ tubing, which I think it is; Major Nichols is reputed to have worked with Reynolds tubes but this would be a very early MN).  It still looks more like an Ellis-Briggs than anything else but I think they were/are a Reynolds-only shop.

[rogerzilla]

A pair of new 28h silver Mavic CXP12 rims from a German fleaBay seller.  They were very cheap and no doubt are fairly crap.  However, ISTR that the CXP shape takes higher spoke tension without pringling than the Open Pro shape does, which helps.    I'm not too worried about having 28h on the rear (nearly all Duomatic hubs are 28h) since the wheel will be dishless.  What I don't know is whether a Duomatic hub will be happy about the extra torque it has to put up with in a 700c wheel compared to a 20" Moulton wheel.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

During PBP03, I was told by a German that post office bikes used Duomatics because they were unbreakable.

[CAMRAMan]

I ordered a Brompton M3 through the work Cyclescheme set up.

I last bought a new one - an M6 - in 2003 and it cost £425, including the lowered gearing and extended seatpost.

This one is going to be £970!

[rogerzilla]

Yup, Brompton aren't stupid and they know there's a £1000 ceiling on the scheme, which they've been working towards.

It is the best folding bike for size and parts availability but it's still a £300-quality machine sold for a grand.

[Veloman]

I will be as my Campag carbon crank (drive side) decided to allow the metal insert that accommodates the pedal threads to part from the crank.  Fortunately, only 3km from home after a run out with the club this morning. Same thing happened to one of the club chaps a couple of years back.  Replacement will be all metal and either Campag or Shimano (I use Ultegra HT II chainset with Campag gear stuff on my other bike and it works very well). Doh!