An idiots guide to building a bike

 A guide by an idiot building a bike

Part Four: Gears

Well finally, after a few weeks wait, I've pretty much got all I need to finish the bike.

A few more bits.

The first thing I need to do, so I can get the saddle & bar heights right, is fit the chainset. I was going to get a full Campagnolo Centaur groupset but this Fulcrum carbon chainset is basically a cheaper re badged Centaur one that I think looks better. I think Campag' (and Fulcrum) are the only manufacturer that do a split crankshaft that bolts up in the middle. This leaves very clean crank arms with no bolts to collect the muck.

Fitted bearing shell.

Another move away from the norm is the fact that the bottom bracket bearings are not fitted in the shells but fitted to the crank arms. The shells are simply screwed into the frame with a special tool (luckily its the same tool that fits the Shimano external bottom brackets, which I have). Then all you do is slide the arms in from either side, fit a little spring clip on the drive side to hold the bearing in place and fit the centre bolt. This also needs a special tool as its a long 10 Allen key. Nothing that a hacksaw, a 10mm Allen key and a 10 mm socket won't fix. Then out with the torque wrench to tighten everything up correctly.

Chainset fitted

Modifications required from the start

Very early in the concept stage of this build I knew I would have a few issues to overcome. So none of the following were a surprise, just added to the challenge and the delivery times.

Cyclocross frames are designed for mud and to be carried over obstacles, so unlike normal road frames the gear cables are fitted on top of the top tube rather than under the main tube. This is all well and good until you try and fit gear designed for the road. My first problem was that all Campagnolo front derailleurs are designed to be pulled from the bottom (bottom pull). One solution is to fit a pulley below the front derailleur that changes the cable direction, these are not very aesthetically pleasing and a mud magnet. So along comes some simple but cleaver German engineering, an Umlenker from Speen.de. This little piece of stainless steel acts as a lever which changes the pivot point to allow a cable to pull from the top (top pull). It just bolts to the original cable clamp and allows the cable to be clamped at its end instead.

German Engineering at its simplest. The Umlenker

Fitted to the front mech.

All connected up.

My next problem was a compatibility issue with the rear gears. No one (well at least no one I've found) makes a disc compatible wheelset that take a Campagnolo cassette. Shimano and Campagnolo spacings on the rear cassettte are not quite the same. Its down to about 0.16 mm per cog, on a 10 speed set up this is 1.6mm total and makes the difference between perfect shifting and jumping gears. The solution for this is made in America, the Shift Mate.

Shift Mate

This simple device uses a double pulley that has two slightly different diameters, the cable enters the pulley on the larger side and goes right around the pulley, at the half way point it jumps to the smaller side and so changing the amount of cable pull. This allows for a Shimano compatible cassette to be used on a Campagnolo system.

Simple double pulley

Rear mech fitted with shift mate

Its not tested on the road yet but while setting up the gears it seemed to work a treat.

Well that's about it, bar tape is on, bottle cages fitted, gears set up (after adding some in line gear adjusters, I just couldn't get the new single action drop front mech set up without it!) and peddles fitted, I've finished building, a good test ride is needed to make sure all the heights are right, the gears are right, the brakes are bled properly and everything is tight. but that'll have to wait until the weather warms up. Yes I know is meant for the winter weather but its just to shiney to get dirty on its first ride out.

The Hydrocross. a.k.a. 'The dogs..........'

Not sure which is my best side, this one or....

This one.

Nice clean crank arms

An idiots guide to building a bike

Or...an idiot building a bike

 

Part three: Bars and brakes.

 

Rule #8

Saddles, bars, and tires shall be carefully matched.

Valid options are:

• Match the saddle to the bars and the tires to black; or
• Match the bars to the colour of the frame at the top of the head tube and the saddle to the colour of the frame at the top of the seat tube and the tires to the colour where they come closest to the frame; or
• Match the saddle and the bars to the frame decals; or
• Black, black, black

So without any consideration for the rules, which are of course only there for guidance, I still managed to comply with all options. Not hard when everything is black!

Christmas has been and gone and I've got my brakes, wheels and a few other bits so can start building again.

The fork headset needed to be fitted first, this is as easy as sliding on the lower race seat, then the race sliding the fork through the steerer and dropping the top race into place. I put on all the spacers supplied to start with to allow room for adjustments later and also slid the clamp that my brake master cylinder will attach to, then dropped on the stem.

At this point you need to decide how long you need the steerer tube, draw a line around the top of the stem where it meets the steerer then disassemble again, I cut around the steerer about 6mm below the line to allow for the stem adjuster to slot in and then the top cap. After cutting the steerer, carefully with a hacksaw dress with a file, reassemble and tighten everything up.

Bars, stem, shifter and master cylinder adaptor fitted.

Next to fit the shifters, these just slide on and then clamp up by a torx headed bolt hidden under the rubber grips. Now finally after a few weeks of waiting I can fit the brakes. These are Hope V Twin, this is a hydraulic brake set up that uses normal road shifters by using the brake cables to actuate the master cylinders under the stem. This means you get the benefits of hydraulic brakes with while using road bike drop bars and shifters.

One of the other problems with fitting hydraulic brakes to road bikes (other than no one is currently making hydraulic road shifters) is the lack of road wheels that take discs. The solution is to use mountain bike 29er wheels which are exactly the same size as road wheels just generally over built as their designed for off roading, not a big issue as they will be put to good use on our great lakeland roads! So I opted for a set of Fulcrum Red Power 29ers which are a good compromise of weight against cost.

To fit the brakes properly the hoses need to be cut to lenght then the system re bled to remove the air so i lso took the opportunity to fit some colour co-ordinated caliper caps (little red things) fitting these means total disassembling the caliper screwing the old black caps out and fitting the new ones from the inside then filling the whole system back up with brake fluid. I ended up placing the full system on the work bench, fitted a small clear hose to each caliper bleed nipple in turn and bleeding through the air by pumping each master cylinder in turn (while keeping it topped up with fluid) a bit of a faff but effective.

Rear wheel with caliper and disc fitted.

So now I have the bars, saddle, shifters, brakes and wheels fitted. So I can stop and turn just need some gears to be able to go!

Ready for some gears.

 

Whinlatter 29 12 12

I don't think this needs any introductions. Seems to be a habit riding Whinlatter in the rain, especially on 29th of Dec. Well its better than snow surfing!

An idiots guide to building a bike

Or........A guide to building an idiots bike

 

Part two: Decals

Rule # 57: No stickers -
 

Nobody gives a shit what causes you support, what war you’re against, what gear you buy, or what year you rode x,y & z See Rule #5 and ride your bike. Decals, on the other hand, are not only permissible, but extremely Pro.

 

So ensuring that I obey the rules I set about designing myself some decals for the new frame (they are definitely not stickers).

 

The decals have gained inspiration from several sources:

• 5 four..3 - A spin on the Longitude and Latitude that this blog gets its name from.
• Legs speak louder... & It's all about the bike - Paying homage to the Velominati rules and its disdain for a certain famous, now disgraced, multi Tour de France winner.
• Ride 'till the bell tolls - a play on - 'Weekends are like recess for adults so play hard until the bell rings'  with a twist on mortality - Not sure who the original quote is from.
• Hydrocross was the obvious (to me) amalgamation of hydraulic (brake) hydrocarbon (oil and carbon) cross (cyclocross and everything else crossed into the bike). When you see what else I have in mind for this bike you'll possibly understand the 'cross' bit.
• Various other inspirations long forgotten but still in my head.

After a few weeks of messing around with various art work packages, confirming that some ideas were far too cheesy with Alan, my cycling style guru, and sticking paper proofs on the frame, this is what I came up with:

 

 

My next problem, getting someone to make them!

I sent the proof to some local vinyl decal suppliers and a few Internet suppliers. I got a few replies and initially went with the first to reply. After a week or two of endless questions from the supplier they still hadn't given me a price! I tried a local supplier who had responded, they obviously didn't want the job as they were as help full as..... well they just weren't. So finally I went with an Internet supplier who's price was fairly high but communications were great.

http://www.vinyllettering.co.uk/

I'm glad I did, my feeble attempt at designing looked good on paper, however the vinyl cutting software had different thoughts (probably why no one else would have a go!) Nick at vinyl lettering had to redraw the design again to get it right and then send the proofs back for me to approve. Even then the design in places is fiddly to say the least and took a fair amount of work to get right.

Applying the decals with the backing paper.

 

Thats 54..3 or 54 North 3 West. Latitude and Longditude of West Cumbria.

The finished article, I'm biased but it does look cool... to me.

So what I thought would be the easy bit, actually getting the decals, ended up a long winded affair but worth it. They are supplied in a three layer sandwich with the decal in the middle. After positioning each one in turn you remove the base paper and apply with the top paper still in place. After giving it all a good rub then the top paper is removed to reveal the decal.

So this is the frame ready to start building, the only second hand bit will be an old carbon seat post I have, everything else will be new. Hopefully some will turn up with a man with a beard on the back of a sleigh next week. (Yes........... my Dad's coming for Christmas!!)



An idiots guide to building a bike

Or is that.... a guide to building a bike, by an idiot.........you choose.

Part one....Frame

Over the last two winters I've refurbished and modified my 50 year old dinghy, this year I'm back in bike mode.

I've been dabbling with disc brakes on other bikes (rather than a mountain bike) for a couple of years without great success. I want a proper road worthy bike (drop handlebars and light weight etc) with good disc brakes (hydraulic) and Campagnolo gears (Italian). So it had to be carbon fibre with disc mounts.

In 2010 the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale is the governing body for international competitive cycling events.) Cyclocross bikes to compete with disc brakes, this change in the rules stimulated manufacturers to start developing frames and disc brakes for cyclocross they still have not allowed the same on road bikes and so road frames with disc mounts are very limited.

So with a few cyclocross disc frames available it seemed this was best way forward for my project. But as the development is very new so are the frames! Enter China..............

Its long been known that most bike frames are made in the far east and imported into Europe, the main bike brands do all the R&T and then get the frames mass produced in a factory somewhere around China or Taiwan etc. This way the suppliers can make a top of the range frame cheap and sell it in Europe with a big mark up. So how to cut out the brand middle man and go direct?

'Alibaba' is one answer: 'Alibaba Group is a family of Internet-based businesses which makes it easy for anyone to buy or sell on line anywhere in the world'. I'd stumbled across Alibaba a few times while doing searches but always thought it was, as the name suggests, a group of people selling slightly dodgy copies of stuff, so always steered away.

I stared searching for a frame in this country and did find a suitable frame at a fairly reasonable price. search for 'cyclocross carbon disc frame' and you'll soon see what I mean. However I wondered if i could get the frame cheaper, direct? So searching internationally I came across 'Miracle cycles' their main web site only does bulk orders but they had a link to the Alibaba site that does small one off orders http://www.aliexpress.com/store/409931. for a fraction of the cost of a very, very, very similar frame from the UK.

So the seed was sown, could I risk placing an order with a supplier in China? well after a week or two of deliberation, a few questions via Email with very quick responses (not great English but hay ho) I went for it. After a small delay in sending the order (they promised dispatch in two days, it took about 6) the parcel was sent. Two weeks later and daily tracking the parcel on its journey it arrived in the UK. Into customs and back out then arrived in the Carlisle showing 'awaiting customs payment' dohhh. I phoned them up, paid the charges and the very next day it was delivered. Total including shipping and import duties £360.

 

 

 

Rear fork

Full carbon fork with disc mounts.

 

My first impressions are the general quality is great, as good as my other road frame but for about 1/5th the price! I had a few niggles with resin in the head set bearing seat, this took about 3 min's with a file to sort. Lets hope the ride is as good as it looks!

The frame was supplied with a full carbon fork that tapers from 1 1/8 to 1 1/2. There was also the corresponding headset and carbon spacers supplied. (The headset and spacers would be £30 - 40 alone).

So is this a dodgy copy of a frame that sells for over twice the price in this country? I'll never know, but if it is, its a very, very, very, very good copy!

Skiing.

Long legs?

Winter is here again, hurrah. I got my skis out today, Max and I headed up to Great End.

The snow was really high well above 2500 ft, with the skis strapped to my pack and my big boots on I'm always bothered it might be a waste of effort if the snow isn't deep enough or the wrong snow!!

Yep you need the right sort of snow for my short snow blades, they are no good in powder, just sink in and you end up doing a face plant! What you need is good hard snow.



Great Gable from Wasdale



Great End from a frozen Lambfoot Dub

My boots are fully rigid Salomon winter climbing boots that I've modified to fit the snow blades, the bindings are very similar to a reversed crampon style that just clip on from the front. They a good compromise, fairly easy to walk in (for big rigid boots) and just about stiff enough to ski in (with a bit of experience and continually remembering to lean forward)

Big boots and little Skis



Wasdale from Lambfoot Dub.

Loads of snow, if you go high enough.

Well my luck was in today, perfect snow with a good frozen crust, bright sunshine and absolutely no wind (no that doesn't happen very often). A brilliant day.

Ski Sunday on Great End 2 12 12

Changing seasons

 

Nature and seasons. The rain comes and goes, the trees drop their leaves, the snow arrives, all of a sudden its winter. Life goes on. Hope to be in the snow at the weekend, if the weather permits.

 

 

Sept 2012

Nov 2012

Skiddaw round 4/11/12

Andy, Col and I headed out today on a cold bright day for a Mountain Bike tour of Skiddaw.

Autumn has quickly turned to winter with snow on the fells over the last few days. We headed out along the Keswick Railway Cyclepath then up to Blencathra centre before heading up to Skiddaw House.

Glenderattera Beck

On a bright, clear day like today the views are excellant.

Looking towards Mungrisdale Common

Normally after the descent down Whitewater dash it's just a long road trip back to Keswick, however last year we found a nice little detour that takes in some more off road to the west of Skiddaw, skirting the bottom of Longside Edge. After a cafe stop in Dodd Wood cafe its just a quick climb up Latrigg before the blast back into town.

Borrowdale from Blencathra Centre



Skiddaw from the side of Southerndale

Check out the video below.

Skiddaw Round