OK, I lied. I thought drivetrain would be next, and at the time of this writing I DO have stuff to post about that, but before I do, what I managed to finish yesterday were the wheels. My wee Z got her first bee sting and was high maintenance the rest of the weekend (crying, unhappy, swollen, etc) so I stayed low-key, doing household chores and hanging out with her. I brought the wheels upstairs from the bikeBasemtn(tm) and assembled them in the house while she battered my iPad.

These are Velocity A23 rims, laced to All City fixed/free. The hubs were chosen based on a darker metal finish, in keeping with the look of the build, and the free is on there in case I want to throw it on so wifebot(tm) can ride it. The tyres chosen are an old story made new again. These are Forte knobbies that were purchased and used on Fix-e 1.0 before I pulled them off on that rebuild and gave em to Lung, who had them in the shop for what, years now? I don’t remember if he mounted them, but when I was shopping for fatty, old-timey tread tyres, he remembered them and gave them back to me, in the Lung-Wrongrobot tradition of sharing our pieces parts. Allmost all modern tyres have sophisticated tread patterns, and I wanted something a little retro looking. I was looking at slicks but fat slicks are a rare breed. Anyway, these are absolutely perfect (except for the gross Forte branding, but one must check one’s snobbery sometimes)…

The original concept was to go for that oily black of iron, but after flirting with the idea of using Nightshade and a sealant, I decided it wasn’t likely to last on there. I didn’t want to be painting these parts, so I decided that they could just be what they are. The cranks are silver anyway. So the hubs are a dark anthracite to black color.

The knobbies are perfect! I’m going for that old-school utilitarian bike look, like one might find breezing through sunflower fields, with a front basket filled with cheese and wine and bike grease.

The A23 section is a short, trapezoidal shape. I wanted the rims to be decidedly NOT deep, and look very utilitarian. These came out even better than I expected, thanks to the handy craftsmanship of Joe at 718c.com.

It’s still hard to get a sense of what it will look like completed, with the seatpost and stem so far up and out of the frame, but you can at least see the knobbies in relation to the frame. It’s starting to come together.

Next up: drivetrain. Promise.

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