Aaaages Since My Last Post!

So it's been a while since I posted last. This is not due to lack of activity on the bike I can assure you!

I've been making it to the track most Saturdays, and also recently Monday nights. Mondays are race training so it adds a bit of excitement to the mix.

Thursday nights are for "the hour of power" - a one hour effort round the regents park outer circle - 8 laps in under an hour is the target although I never quite make it in under this time on the purple fixed...

A few updates to the purple bike - I went for shiny shiny and recently fitted a new headset, chrome forks and chrome track drops. I think all that's missing now is a chrome seatpost to finish it off.

Track Drops

Chrome Forks - Excuse the exotic backdrop!

Chrome Headset

Lugged Fork Crown

Tweed Run 2011

What can I say? What a day! The weather was excellent, the crowds were great, the route was awesome, and of course the riders gave it everything they had to make it a great day out! The highlights for me were the guys on the penny farthings, the cockney songster on the pedal powered piano and the sheer amount of vintage bike goodness all around me! My thanks to the organisers and all involved to create such a great atmosphere!

Without further ado, here are some pics from my camera on the day;

The Tweed Run pack

Humber Streak at the starting point

Rider number 90!

The weather was so nice I ended up strapping my Tweed Jacket to my saddlebag!

Pedal powered pianist...

...and again!

Heading over Westminster Bridge, shame about the modern cars.

Me looking rather dapper

Penny Farthings, I have to have a go at riding one of these one day...

The Humber Streak - Revamped!

So in preparation for the Tweed Run I began changing components bit by bit. I started with a new Brooks B17 (standard) in honey which is still giving me a bit of a hard time on the arse to say the least, but they do say give them a good 500 miles to break in... To match the saddle I opted for the Fizik Microtex bartape, also in honey. At first I wasn't so sure the colour was a good enough match but forking out £40 for the Brooks leather bartape was not really an option. After a good few miles and a bit of dirt and sweat and its definitely grown on me, particularly with the bit of Brasso polishing I gave the stem. Finally I got a pair of Panasonic Panaracer tyres in 25c. A lot of my mates have been running 25's and 28's recently and I thought I'd give it a go, plus the slightly wider tyres and gum sidewall will fit perfectly with the look I'm going for. The Panaracers are excellent tyres, they're so much smoother than the old cheapo Vittoria Zaffiros, it's like riding on velvet!

Here is a photo of the bike at the start of the Tweed Run, taken by the statue outside the bank of England;

Retro Refurb!

The upcoming Tweed Run 2011 has inspired me to convert the purple bike back from hipster special to it's retro former glory.

The original frame is a c1953 Humber Streak. Humber were apparently one of the three main divisions of the famous Raleigh bicycle manufacturers. Here is a link to a short Wikipedia article on the Humber company; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humber_(bicycle)

Unfortunately there does not appear to be much information around anymore on Humber, however they were made in England in the mid 20th century and as such featured Raleigh's propietary threading (26tpi) as opposed to the more common "english" 24tpi used on modern bicycles. This usually creates issues when fitting modern bottom brackets and the original forks into a modern headset...

I overcame this issue by having the bottom bracket shell re-threaded and re-faced not only to make the threading english standard but also to shave 1mm off each side fo the bottom bracket shell, again to make it the standard 68mm width as found on modern bicycles today. This work was carried out by Hilary Stone, who supplied the frame and offered this service for £12! Hilary is a collector and supplier of vintage and collectable bicycle parts. Hopefully he doesn't mind me posting a link to his site here; http://hilarystone.com/

INSERT HUMBER CATALOGUE

I had the frame powdercoated at Armourtex in Hackney, North London, early last summer. In the end I decided on a deep purple colour with a metallic finish. Armourtex did a sterling job on the frame, it came out like brand new! The only minor critisism I have is that the metallic laquer is more glittery than i expected, but this is only noticable close up. Still better than a boring flat colour, and not too far from vintage (although the original colour of the bike was a flat dark blue)

As can be seen from the original spec of the bike given in the catalogue it came with fluted cranks, which I have managed to replicate by total coincidence with the Andel track cranks I fitted. To get around the issue with the original forks I fitted a new sealed 1" threaded headset and a pair of cheap black forks off eBay - I plan to change these to some shiny chrome forks shortly.

I fitted a Brooks B17 Standard saddle and Carradice "Barley" saddlebag to fit in with the original style, and also some perforated honey brown bartape to match the saddle. Initially the saddlebag was fitted to the seatrails and seatpost, however this put the bag too far forwards so that it rubbed on my legs and also swung around a fair amount, especially when standing to pedal uphill. I rectified this by fitting the Carradice Bagman Sport support rails and must say i'm more than happy with the results!

INSERT RECENT PICTURES

So 5 days until the Tweed Run, better get polishing!

Sunny Saturday on the Bike!

So after another session down at the track I met up with a friend and had a roll around London for various errands! Took a couple of pics of the bikes as we were resting up eating pizza in Shoreditch. The purple bike has had a bit of a refurb in preparation for the Tweed Run (separate post to follow!) and the green frame is Iain's bike;

Bike Tag!

So after getting back form the track I had an afternoon to myself and had heard about a thread on the forum (LFGSS) called bike tag.

Basically the idea is someone takes a photo of their bike near a London Landmark (or somewhere easily distinguishable or else its no fun!) and then you have to find that spot, take a picture of your bike in the same place and then find a different place for the next guy to hunt down. Luckily the last post was not too far from my house so off I went...

The previous place (on the South side of the Thames inbetween Surrey Quays and Greewich) The boat in the picture is some Navy vessel that's been moored up for the past week or so;

The new place - shhhh, it's a secret for now!

Track Training @ Herne Hill

No update last week as I never managed to take any pictures, which would have made for a boring post! First session on the track was last week and just got home from today's session. Currently I'm doing the basic training sessions from 1pm - 2pm on Sat afternoons. Generally the session is split into three parts and consists of 6 man team pursuit, 20 lap race speed and 2 man pursuits to finish. The bike feels good and the training is going well, give it a few more weeks and who knows, I may advance to the intermediate sessions.

A couple of pics of the track, not great as they were just taken on the phone camera but better than nothing!

The Back Corner

The Finish Line!

Spin Training @ Hearne Hill

Down at the track again lastnight for a session in the pain cave. Similar session to that posted earlier this month. Legs are hurting this morning on the commute into work, but its all good and hopefully all this hard work will set me up nicely for the track proper!

Planning on heading down to the induciton session at 11.30am tomorrow followed by the beginners session straight after.

Dolan Track Champion

So after my last update I got hold of a chain and got the track bike up and running. Only just had the stitches out of my head after the accident but couldn't resist a blast up the road and back. My excuse was getting the seatpost setup at the correct height, ahem...

Here's a few pics of the new weapon by the Thames;

I'm very very happy with the bike, its pretty much my dream bike since I got into fixed gear riding. Yes we'd all love a Sir Chris Hoy carbon fibre bike but we don't all have sponsors! Just one thing left to do this Saturday and that's give it a maiden voyage on down at Hearne Hill, I can't wait!

The New Track Bike!

Here is an initial photo of the new dedicated track bike;

*Note its missing a chain!

The spec is as follows;

Dolan Track Champion aluminium frame
Alpina alloy seatpost
Alpina straight blade track forks, undrilled
Aplina integrated headset
Miche Primato track BB 107mm
Miche Primato Advanced track chainset, 48T chainring
Dura Ace 15T cog & lockring
Deda Track drop bars
Truativ 110mm stem
Bioflex carbon saddle
Look Keo Classic pedals
Hutchinson Equinox folding tyres, 23mm.

Overall I'm more than happy with the way it looks and want to keep it in pristine condition so it will be living in my room and getting transported to Hearne Hill in the car!

New Wheels for the Track Bike!

Here are a few pictures of some wheels I've been waiting to build up for a while. These will be used on the track only, hence no braking surface on the front rim.

They are Dura Ace HB7600 high flange hubs laced onto Velocity Deep V rims in titanium grey. The wheels are slightly mismatched, the rear being a 36 hole with double butted spokes and the front being a 32 hole with plain gauge spokes. This was due to me buying things at different times/places and wanting to get the wheel build done in time for the track season and the new frame. Regardless you'd have to have a keen eye to spot the difference and I still think they look great. It doesn't bother me for now, maybe re-lacing the front with double butted spokes can be a job for a rainy day?!

Crash!

Had a fall off the bike on the way back from work on Monday (28th Feb). Cab turning right into the cycle lane as I was heading past the Hilton Hotel near London Bridge. He hit the brakes and so did I, only thing is I ended up over the handlebars still clipped into the bike!

Long story short i ended up with a few minor cuts and bruises, a badly bruised shoulder and 5 stitches in a gash on my forehead. Healing up now though and will be back on the bike next week.

I was riding the purple bike at the time of the accident. Initially all seems ok apart from bent handlebars but I'll strip the bike down and rebuild it before i ride it again just to be sure and check for any signs of damage.

The Purple Bike

So this is a picture of my current all purpose bike for getting around London, mainly to work and back, but given the current status of my Fuji it's become my only working bike at the moment.

The frame is a 1953 Humber "Streak" made from Reynolds 531. Nicely lugged and powdercoated in metallic purple. The original forks proved to flexible so I replaced these with a cheap set of steel forks off eBay. The wheels are currently mismatched and slightly hipster but hey, this bike see's hell and back on a daily basis!

I'm thinking of building up a set of retro style wheels and adding a riveted saddle in time for the Tweed Run on the 9th April.

1980's Raleigh Winner

Got given this frame as it was apparently heading for the skip! As it was a small sized road frame I took the opportunity to build it up as a singlespeed for the girlfriend this summer. She didn't want anything too special so I kept to a relatively low budget but tried to keep a retro theme going.

The rough spec is as follows;

The wheels are Zenith track hubs laced to Mavic Open Sports.

Sugino R2D cranks with a 46T chainring

17T freewheel

Retro riveted saddle from Velo Solo (http://www.velosolo.co.uk/)

Stem & bars were rescued from the original frame with a clean up and some new bar tape.

Pedals, seatpost and brakes are just generic items i've picked up over the past couple of months.

The next build for me will be the new dedicated track bike, watch this space.

Wheel Truing

Had a request to true a couple of wheels. On-one hubs laced to Rigida DP18's. The finished article;

Turbo Training @ Hearne Hill

Another Thursday night session down at HH. Session was as follows;

====
Part1
====
20secs sprint / 40secs recovery x 5
repeat 3 times

====
Part2
====
2mins medium pace
1min fast pace
10secs sprint
1min fast pace
2mins medium pace
repeat 3 times

====
Part3
====
10secs sprint
20secs recovery
repeat 6 times

Welcome to my blog!

OK so i'm new to all of this but don't get along very well with Facebook and wanted a place to document my bike related activites in and around London. Seeing as the spring of 2011 is approaching it's as good a time to start as any...