Dopey Sion, Oh Dear, Oh Dear

I'll apologise in advance to Sion for stealing this picture and embarrassing him here but sometimes it just has to be done!

He'd been having some trouble with the arm coming loose so he was probably a bit pissed off and flustered when he re-attached it, he's not usually so silly...

"...thats what happens when you re-attach bits of bike in morrisons car park without paying attention. tightened it right down like a bitch and then couldnt get it back off."

Sun Worksop Re-Paint

The last paint job I did on my frame was bloody awful so I decided to give some enamel paint a go and to at least try and strip the frame properly first. I busted out some Nitromors and it beat the living daylights out of the graffiti paint, it came right off. Unfortunately as soon as the Nitromors had done its job it started pissing down so I had to paint ANOTHER frame in a dark, small, filthy shed in damp weather. I primed and painted it blah blah blah, then made a truly pathetic attempt at baking the enamel dry using a rotating heater, they paint still wasn't fully hard this morning and I ended up leaving some fingerprints on the top tube but they may come in handy one day! I can't be bothered to write any more now, if it's boring to write then it must be really boring to read.
Primer, enamel gloss, Nitromors, Bianchi cap, Silver Jews t-shirt, boosh!


Ready for action

As dangerous as they make out?

Within seconds!

Within minutes...

...fizzle, fizzle

After some chiselling
Mostly free of paint


Primed in the shed

All the bits wait patiently

A pathetic attempt at baking the enamel dry

Looked nice in the morning

Ready for work
Outside Exist in town

New (old) Drops

I got myself a bangin' set of drops today from Re-Cycle, it took a fair amount of scavenging through the bar box (see pic) to find a super shiny, rust-free, wide (I've been watching all the old 70's documentaries), nice shaped drops. A bit more looking around for a long stem and I was in business. Now my bike feels like a rocket :-D

Sun Worksop Frame Fixed Up

I picked up this snazzy 19.5" Sun Worksop frame at Re-Cycle, it had seen better days, in fact it looked like it had been stored outdoors for the last 20 years but that didn't put me off. It proved to be quite a project, the cottered cranks were well and truly stuck so I 'employed' the services of my good friend Julian who is a real man with tools.
The crank arms had to be angle-ground off the spindle, then one of them welded to a bottom bracket cup in order to unscrew it, he then went to work on the pump arms, cable guides and the hideous light thing on the right fork. Next he beat the living daylights out of the worst of the rust using a wirey attachment for the grinder. Last but not least he got the head badge off for me.
I then did a terrible job of sanding the remaining parts of the frame before masking it up and spraying it Montana 94 Valley Green (9r-6018) which is a super thick, sweet smelling graffiti paint available at Exist. The colour is awesome but its a bit knobbly bobbly cause I really really hate sanding, it's gotta be the worst thing in the world!

I'm not afraid of a bit of rust!

Angle grinding the cottered cranks off

Off comes all the "faff"

Welding a crank arm to the seized bottom bracket cup

A gentle whack and...

...out it comes

Removing the snazzy head badge

Sweeeeet!

Sanding the worst of the rust off

Before

After

Ready for graffiti-ing

"Heroes in a half shell, Turtle Power!"

Lookin' fresh with the classic 'Kids of Clase' graffiti, booyaa!

Broken Chainring

Oliver from Cardiff added this photo to the Fixed Gear Wales Facebook group. He was riding with only 3 chainring bolts, did a skid and KABOOM! You have been warned...

Metal!

Had a good "trick session" on Saturday with Ric, Ev and JT. Everyone was trying the both legs on one side of the frame skids with not much steez. There were some leg over the bar skids from the other dudes but I'm still not happy about the slam I took on one the other week. I failed terribly at Keo spins, how the fluck do they work??? I've even frame by framed some on video but instead of the wheel coming off the ground all that happens is that my arse comes off the saddle, they are haaaaard!

Ev managed to snap a toe clip after going through all the effort of finding one of the nut, bolt and washer combos that held it together, luckily there was a handy metal recycling facility close at hand. Then later on I realised that I'd snapped one of the serrated spacer / nut things on my System Ex rear hub, quite a common problem apparently, I've replaced it with a track nut for now which is way wider but does the job.











Anyone up for some bike polo? Get in touch.

Stripped Thread, New Hub, My First Wheel Build, Swans

I got a new 20t (!!!) sprocket to try out a lower gear inch, I wanted to bring it down from 70 to mid 60's so that I could take on some more hills. I whipped the 18t off to find that the thread on my hub was completely stripped, I don't know why but it was and was unfixable so I had to spend out on a new rear hub. I got the System Ex from Schmoos cause it was all I could afford and gets good enough reviews. My first wheel build began. I used this article to learn how to lace it up and then this video to true the bugger, which took ages! It's still a little bit off but I'll get some help to get it spot on, every time it was practically perfect one tiny turn would throw it out again, I enjoyed though. Here is a photographic diary of the process...

Stripped Thread

System Ex 32 hole hub

All the bits

Don't copy this!
Or this!


Note that the spokes are coming from the inside out...

On both sides! :-(

They should be from the outside in

3rd of 4 groups done

Now some go from inside out

Turns out that brakes are actually useful for something
First build, DONE!
And now for something completely different, me with some swans...