Tuesday 27 January 2009

Tri's Katsura


A testimonial from a satisfied customer, he is a good friend so he may be biased, but the bike looks pretty nice regardless. Also thanks to Feride for her expertise in devising colourways. Tri managed the project and built the bike, I did the saddle, you may recognise it from "The Art of The Bicycle".

Tri says:

"Been working on my second bike, it's nearly there only missing a head badge
and a "Katsura" scripted on the top tube. It's named after prince Katsura
from the Japanese royal family.
The Frame is a Royal Harbour?????? (tried to look this up but no luck) from
Japan made from tange 2 tubing. The seat is a one off custom from Mick Peel
and to me is the real highlight. It makes a totally unique bike that has
it's own personality that I love cruising around on."

Looks nice Tri!

Tuesday 20 January 2009

Off The Shelf: Jaffa Mocca Latte




The brown and orange bike is finally finished. I managed to pick up a set of Miche 36h track hubs at a very reasonable price. The set up on the fixie conversion includes the following:
- CroMo Frame (top tube 57.5, seat tube 55.5), powder coated
- Tourney 170 alloy cranks
-52t chainring
-20t Roselli cog
-1/8th inch 1/2 link chain
- Powder coated alloy rims
- Custom covered leather saddle; Selle Italia
- Alloy pedals powder coated to match
rims
- Miche low flange track hubs
- Alloy seat post
- Custom leather bar wrap and toe straps
- MKS toe clips
- Alloy stem and drop bars

Now I need to sell the bike so I can afford to finish the next one, the red Mixte. Drop me a note if you're interested.

Wednesday 14 January 2009

Padded Pants: Bent Frames: Nice Cranks

Cycle Shorts #1, the first prototype of a pair of pedal pushers in wool lycra with a padded seat. Here are a few images of the work in progress. I guess I'm a tailor too. Not just leather saddles and bikes but pants as well.

I've been contemplating some trousers such as these for some time now, but the final inspiration was this:

Just before Christmas Ged and I joined a small group of riders for a 70km ride from South Morang to King Lake and back. There was a serious climb and a serious descent and plenty of km's in between. When we arrived at the designated place TC asked "you guys have free wheels on those bikes don't you? I should have advised that it was a long rod ride." So we managed to finish the ride but with a pretty sore butt.

Pants will be finished today (I keep telling myself).


The Mixte project make slow progress. Most difficult and painful was the re-spacing of the rear dropouts. With the extra set of seat/chain stays it becomes extremely difficult to manipulate the frame. In the end I managed to get the exact spacing for the coaster brake hub, 110mm, but in the process managed to seriously buckle the middle stays. Never mind, everything else lines up nicely.

These Sugino VP cranks have polished up nicely with a bit of extra elbow grease and emery paper to cut back a lot of pitting. Feride says "they look like cranks", Ged, Simon and Thuy all say "the cranks look really nice"..... The cranks presented another problem, the first set I fitted with a shorter BB spindle had a completely stripped thread on the right and the chain line wasn't straight. So I spent most of the day trying to fabricate an alternative crank removal tool, but in the end the angle grinder and the rubbish bin were the only answer.

51t Chain ring and 22t cog from Abbotsford Cycles, Wheels built by Shifter Bikes, forks still at the electro platers. The tyres will be white, along with white leather saddle and bar wrap with red stitch detail. Incidentally, I found a nice set of rusty bars on a bike at the Phillip Island Tip that will be used on this bike.