Team Lope Tyre Clubbe » fork

Fixed-Gear Sale: Ghostal $595

wrongrobot — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 04:57:03 +0000

Ghostal for sale. This was my first bike build on a brand new track frame rather than a conversion. It’s up for $595 obo (Price reduced by a hundy)

This is a complete build, assembled from scratch. The build is tight and true, and the bike rides very smooth.

Current Build:
- Origin 8 Del Pasado Frame/Fork with custom vinyl
- white on white pre-built Fixed wheelset
- white track tyres
- Cardiff leather saddle, white (brand new, already Proofide treated)
- Velo Orange stem and headset
- Nitto Bullhorns with Keirin grips
- Paul Comp cross lever (hard to find, brand new, aluminum)
- Shimano Ultegra brake
- Sugino cranks
- Shimano A530 pedals

The saddle that comes with the bike is the white Cardiff saddle, not the Brooks. The brake lever pictured has been replaced with a streamlined Paul Comp lever as noted. Bike is very clean; Will be sold with brake but you may sell the brake back to me for $20 if you don’t want to use one. That’s your call!

Make sure to contact me early if you want this bike. I will be in and out all weekend, so use phone: four one 5 4 six 5 272 four or email ( wrongrobot at thirdraildesignlab dot com) ASAP to set something up…

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Fixie For Sale: Ghostal $695

wrongrobot — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:02:17 +0000

Ghostal for sale. This was my first bike build on a brand new track frame rather than a conversion. It’s up for $695 obo

This is a complete build, assembled from scratch. The build is tight and true, and the bike rides very smooth. You have the option of Nitto bullhorn bars or Soma Walker drops, which I will mount for you while you wait.

Current Build:
- Origin 8 Del Pasado Frame/Fork with custom vinyl
- white on white pre-built Fixed wheelset
- white track tyres
- Cardiff leather saddle, white (brand new, already Proofide treated)
- Velo Orange stem and headset
- Nitto Bullhorns with Keirin grips; or Soma Walker drops with same grips
- Paul Comp cross lever (hard to find, brand new, aluminum)
- Shimano Ultegra brake
- Sugino cranks
- Shimano A530 pedals

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Rack it Up

wrongrobot — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:41:58 +0000

So while I didn’t get YBD completed this weekend, a last minute opportunity let me to get SOMETHING done, in a weekend where I didn’t imagine to get anything done on anything at all. So win win win!

The main thing that’s been holding up YBD is the front brake situation: getting a brake and bolt that would work, then figuring out how to string all this stuff together. The brake I was trying to use was an old rear brake, and I had hoped to put the longer bolt on it and use it, but that was proving elusive AND it was shorter reach than desired. So I got the long-reach center-pull Dia Compe brake caliper, and this was the chance to finally get int there and make it work.

The tricky thing wasn’t so much that all this stuff strings onto the same bolt, but the sequence and fitting them together that made it challenging. It’s about access. The fender gets partially hung by an L bracket that fits on that bolt. The bracket has to be attached to the fender first, making it nearly impossible to hold the brake, the brake bolt, the fender bracket, AND the rack bracket, in place, thread the teeeeeeny nut from the back, and allen that sucker down without things slipping. But practice makes perfect, let me tell you, because I did it several times: once, the bolt was too long and I required spacers. Once, the rack bracket wasn’t optimized in location and needed to be moved back in the stack. Once, the fender bracket needed to be moved forward so it could be elevated. Anyway, I finally got it all dialed in.

Part of the problem is that each of these disparate elements is just part of a larger bracketing system, so you don’t know what adjustments need to be made after you get it set up. The adjustments to one throw off the next. I would calibrate the rack positioning and the fender would be off, so I’d correct the fender and the brake would hang weird… it was very much like trying to get good at golf.

Anyway, the fender is held by that center L-bracket to the brake bolt, which allows you to raise and lower it relative to the tyre for clearance ( needed more clearance, since I’m using knobbies)… the it’s stabilized by two rods then come down to the anchor eyelets at the tips of the forks. These not only stabilize it but influence it in axis, so there’s lots of tweaking to try and keep the fender roughly aligned on the wheel.

The rack is also supported by an L-bracket. It has legs that bolt to the underside of the rack, and then down to the same eyelets at the fork. The parts aren’t labeled, are symmetrical, and there’s a host of helpful bolts and washers in the package. And no instructions. I mean, it’s not rocket science, but it’s always nice to know what the options are, or the proper positioning prior to experimentation, when you’re juggling so much other stuff. But my dear friends at SOMA Fab seem too busy to answer a three week old request for a PDF of the instructions, so I gave up and proceeded, and it was fine.

The rack comes with a number of pieces of attachment hardware, like I mentioned, and one set were long screws that were perfectly sized to get through the rack legs, the fender rails, and the fork eyelets just so. Took extra hands I didn’t have to get it all lined up and in tension, but it worked.

[My new desktop btw]

One tricky part is that the rack was apparently designed for use with side pull brake levers only. The L-bracket comes off of the brake bolt, same as the fender, but it’s wider and obstructs the passing of the brake cable from the calipers. Initially, I had just naturally assumed that this bracket (more of a fillet than an L) would be the opposite orientation, ie. come DOWN from the bolt, angle out, and then go horizontal. However, doing that throws the positioning of the rack’s legs way off. It’s possible there’s a way to reverse the legs and possibly, with a different eyelet position, make that connection still work, but it seems to jut it way forward. Anyway, I solved this issue by bending the bracket at a sharper angle away from the brake bolt, making the rise more shallow, and then looping the center-pull brake’s arc cable OVER it.

The brake will always be in a mid-closed position anyway, giving the cable ample clearance OVER the bracket to host the cable ‘clothes hanger’ thing. I hope!

So, by the end of this, I had the rack, fender, brake, replacement salmon sticky brake pads, and wheel all together and tight. With another 90-120 minutes or so, I could have been largely done, but this was all happening out on the back deck and once the baby had had enough, she had had enough. She’s been sick, and so my time was borrowed anyway. So i lucked out, overall!

Next step, drilling the rear fender for L-bracket mounting….

Note: these blurry pics are the result of quickly retaking them down in the bikeBasement after discovering all of my afternoon pics up on the deck, surrounded by flora and fauna and microbrew and BBQ, occurred sans SD CARD. Oh brother.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Stop It!

wrongrobot — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:46:01 +0000

So the YBD project stalled a bit for a few weeks, not for lack of progress to be made, because I have several things underway. But when I saw I was going to have to go to a Plan B on a critical part, I shifted my focus to other non-bikery projects until the part arrived. I had been trying to utilize an old rear brake caliper from the Vista that became wrongBike(tm) int he spirit of reuse. I tried to flim-flam an internal retaining bolt inside the fork, but just like with those meddling kids, I couldn’t get away with it: My retainer wasn’t the right size, and the reach was untoward, and I had a fender AND another part to connect with the same brake bolt. I went to three LBS’ and had no luck sourcing a longer bolt or a different sized retainer. Eventually, I found this Dia Compe old school brake for about a third of what most places wanted for it, so you know that got my attention for more than one reason. Long reach, chrome, perfect. Funny part: I ordered a cable hangar but there was already one in the box, unadvertised. Good thing the one I ordered was on sale for 85% off, at $2.00. ha (seems a little high originally but why the face.)

I’m excited. I want to finish this build and get ridin with me Wee Z!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

cane creek angleset headset

ironlung — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:07:23 +0000

THIS is an interesting piece of tech, and i should immediately caveat that it’s made for the downhilling/MTB set. downhill bikes commonly have an oversized 1.5" headtube (news to me, not being a mountain biker), into which one would install this headset, but then run a 1-1/8" fork. by doing so, the tech of the headset allows you to change your head angle by up to 1.5 degrees positive or negative from 0, where 0 is the actual angle of the headtube.

yes, you can accomplish the same thing by running forks with different rakes, but that requires a whole bunch of forks and this doesn’t.

VERY fucking cool if you’re a techie. which i am.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Bike Build Process Log: Crook Type 3 Conversion

wrongrobot — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:46:48 +0000

As you have seen from previous posts, Crook was my Cinelli Mash fixie build, which had an expressed purpose: it was my ride for Aids Lifecycle. When I bought and built it, my vision was just to build the fixie I could do the MOST on… the longest days, the best climbs, the most agility, etc. So, it was done up with road drops, ridden for a few months before the ride (about 400 miles) and then on ALC 9 from SF to LA (another 570 miles)…

But something changed, along that preparation period before ALC. I found my initial rejection of the green limited edition version of this frame turning from dislike to interest. I couldn’t shake it. And then I had the idea: ride the gray ghost to LA, then have a metamorphosis to the green. So I took a risk on the green frame, site unseen, and ordered it before I left.

My initial plan was to come home, strip the bike, assemble the new one, then ride up to the city and meet Lung later that week with the surprise build. I had kept my plan a secret. The frame was shipped to my office while we were on the ride. All was well.

Until I got it home the day after we returned. The frame itself was gorgeous. The color is indescribable, and no pics do it justice. But the fork had carbon damage at the crown, painted over by the factory. Unacceptable! So I had to wait several weeks to get this resolved through my guys at City Grounds (zack is awesome, I say) and an understaffed Cinelli US crew. Ultimately, I got the replacement fork, and discovered the crown race was missing. We got that sorted, and I received the race in the mail last Friday, just in time to finish the build before Lung would arrive that Sunday for a birthday ride. The build was done from the back forward, but the front end was waiting on that race.

The ride is a dream, and you can see the Bio of the bike here.

Below are my process pics from the conversion, which involved using the original Crook bottom end, and a new top end.

:::

Unfortunately, the photos of the frame unboxing and the back end assembly were largely lost to a bad SD card. However, imagine me pulling a brilliant frame from the box and squeeing. The green is this iridescent color… not quite flaked, but shimmery. And more importantly, it’s a warm green, not a cold green. It’s paired with a creamy opaque white, a look I’ve always loved, going back to my one-time plans to white-paint-dip a stained-wood raw coffee table top for a project years ago. I love that look.

First, the original Crook was stripped to the bones, for sale to a fellow who was heading to San Diego fixed in a pursuit of folly similar to our fixed-gear Aids Lifecycle endeavors. How’s THAT for synchronicity! Last shot of Crook 1.0′s frame.

While waiting for the fork situation to be resolved, I dragged everything up to the deck for the extrusion shot (using the damaged fork, because hey.) and then decided to do the back end build work up there, while simultaneously BBQing and hanging out with wee Z. Here’s proof.

Here’s a close-up of that damage to the fork. Not a MASSIVE deal, but the concern I had was two-fold: one, the top surface of the crown is unpainted, so it’s visible in the gap between the frame and fork. This would be more obvious as a result. And two, it’s not like it was a sealed defect. That’s the EDGE of the paint. It’ll fray.

That was never fully resolved at the time of this writing. My boys at City Grounds took up the effort in dealing with Cinelli on that front, as weeks had gone by without any fruitful response from the manufacturer. It will be an argument over manufacturing damage vs shop damage. I believe manufacturing. In the meantime, as these weeks went by, my Crook parts hanging on the bikeBasement pegboards like those trophy skulls int he Predator ship, Lung was fast at acquiring and gleefully riding his new Cinelli cockpit. I was dying. I prayed he wouldn’t have a similar issue, like opening the box and finding his bars twisted into the shape of a rhombus or something. They weren’t. Gorgeous bars!

So as I mentioned, the bottom end was remaining from Crook 1.0. These were all new parts before ALC, right, so this transformation was to swap out frames, and the top end changes were largely cosmetic, except for the bars. So I kept my wheels, tyres, cranks, pedals, cog, brake… well, new chain, but other than that, same same. For the new stuff, the idea was to have chrome up top, black down below. I could have done all black, but the few green builds I see on the supernet go all black in the components or in one case all silver. So, in keeping with the ‘dipped’ theme of the white on the frame, the top end was dipped silver. Conceptually. Here wee Z is carefully scrutinizing some small gifts for manufacturing errors. That’s a shim set for the Nitto bars (unfortunately a necessity), a star nut and a special awesome Thomson solver stem cap. I used Nitto RB-021 compact bulls on this build, since the road drop necessity of ALC was over. I sourced a sweet silver cross lever directly from Paul Comp, too. Awesome. Same stem and seatpost, both Thomson, just now in silver. I used a shorty stem this time, feeling like going compact would get me into the bulls’ drop position easier. This is still pending final approval, as on the road it may be too close to me in this configuration, putting too much pressure on my arms. The saddle is one of my Brooks, already broken in, and the wrap is elkhide.

Here’s one Lung will like. Once I finally got my crown, I built my own crown race setter. And by built, I mean I had the hardware stoe cut me a big section of 1 1/2" black PVC. Tappity tap tap!
Look at that, saved $100 right there!

To me, the scariest step is cutting the steerer. On Crook 1.0, I left about 5mm extra, ringed with a final spacer above the stem, anticipating needing some height adjustment on ALC as I went. Didn’t end up needing it. Plus, this time, the bars are compact, so the taller the stem, the closer they are. Anyway, measure TWICE cut once, here at chez Wrongrobot.

Setting the star nut is actually kind of fun. Whamma bamma.

Here the bike is ready for wrapping. The Paul lever is installed on the thicker portion of the bars, as far over as possible to minimize cable housing scrape on the sharp curve of the X2 front end. This would be the slowest step, wrapping the bike up (literally) taking me from Friday night after getting back from Lung’s birthday party, through Saturday and into the next evening.

The elkhide is really interesting. It’s stretchier than calf hide, and is more porous, shows more defects. It’s really rad though. I had started with a lighter color that purported to match the Brooks honey color saddle, but was too tan, so i sent that back and got the darker brown, which matched perfectly. I used something close to a baseball glove stitch. I had no experience with this. You use one thick waxed cord with two stubby needles, and work from the stem outward. I’d get three good stitches and then a fail, distracted by my baby hurtling herself off of something or Anne Hathaway on film or whatever. But it wasn’t arduous. Just required time to get right. Go slowly, etc. In practice, on the road the wrap slips a bit as it’s stretchy and you apply so much force with your hands, so it pulled away a bit from the edges where they started, but still good. Will take some miles to settle in. Easily the most gorgeous bar covering I’ve ever had.

And with that, Crook Type 3 was born. We rode Paradise Loop under windy conditions, and it was a dream. I have some adjustments to make, reducing the inchgear down to the more universal 72 from 75, and some messing around with seat and stem position, but overall, love it. LOVE iot.

So that’s the story of how Crook became Crook Type 3 in a post-ALC transformation!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

The Crook is Dead…

wrongrobot — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:53:25 +0000

Friends of Team Lope, here’s some news. Crook, my grey/grey Cinelli Mash, is no more.
Or rather, it no longer is as it was. These photos were taken 24 hours before Crook ceased to be in my possession. Not from theft or malady, but by design.

I thought this was a nice swan song for Crook 1.0… the frame and fork were sold the next morning. But what of Crook’s majestic legacy? That bike made it to LA from SF, almost 600 miles of brutal fixie fire. This cannot be the end…

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Rings and Things

wrongrobot — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:36:09 +0000

In this brief installment of the Ye Blacke Death build logs, I messed with rings, and installed other things.

My challenge, as I showed Lung over the weekend, was that the bottom bracket spindle that I have on this build is too short. I COULD just get a longer spindle, but what fun is THAT. So I frankenbuilt the drivetrain. I spent a lot of time, too much time, playing with chainrings. I started by pulling the middle and small rings off of the crankset that came ont he old Vista that became wrongBike(tm) but this led to the discovery that the chainring bolts were too long, even with a huge amount of spacers. And, additionally, one was stripped and took some effort to get it out. Then I went after the Campy cranks I had in the shop, pulled the two rings off of those to get at the shorter bolts, to use on the Vista cranks… but once I did so, and installed the assembly on the frame, I discovered the short spindle. So, off came the ring for the third time, and the Campy crank was reassembled, with a single 53 chainring. This went on fine, but the corresponding non-drive crank arm hit the frame. Through experimentation, I found that the Vista’s crank arm didn’t, so now i have a Campy right side and a Vista (Suntour) left side. Done!

i sure know my way around quickly pulling chainrings, between the Miche cranks and now these.

This is the Bobike seat that’s going on the front of Ye Blacke Death, right above the back of the front rack. It’s a trick little system. I MAY get a windshield for it, but we’ll see how that pans out. I set out this past weekend, on a Daddy/Wee Z day, to get some installation done on the project, and my intention was to get fenders, rack and seat up on there. Each gave me problems but I saw what needed to be done to solve them. The seat clamps to the stem, necessitating that tall Nitoo Techntronic stem, but I need to get the rack on first. The rack wants to go on after fenders, of course, so that made fenders the next in line.

I was installing in the carport, as an experiment while the cat was away. I put wee Z in the pack and Tole, and she was good for about an hour, so that was actually pretty AWESOME. It’s not the first time I’ve wrenched with her hanging out: I’ve done a number of projects upstairs on the back desk with her in the sandbox. That requires bringing the stand, the bike parts and all the tools upstairs, which is kind of a pain, so I wanted to try the carport this time.

You can see I got the fenders out, there. These are from Woody’s Fenders. Amazing build quality, hand-crafted goodness. I subsequently got them on the bike. Not complete, though. The rear needs to have an L-bracket drilled into the wood, and the front has a bigger issue: seating a front brake securely on the fork, on which the fender also hangs. I need a longer bolt. So there’s that. But progress all the same. You can kind of see, from this shot, some of how it’s coming together. Lung saw it a little farther along and up close.

Getting closer!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

MKE polo fork is really original

ironlung — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:20:04 +0000

THIS is marketed as a "polo" fork, but all it amounts to is a fork with a 120mm spacing. apparently, it gives polo guys another two options for gearing. but what i love about it is that it gives ANY rider another two options for gearing. let’s say, oh, i dunno, you’re riding your fixed gear bike to, let’s say, los angeles. and you don’t wanna suffer up any monster climbs or blow out your knees on any monster descents. but you ALSO don’t wanna have to pack a chainwhip and lockring wrench. boom. using two fixed/fixed rear wheels, you could have a total of 4 different gears to choose from. mashing a flat century? roll big. climbing all day? roll low. the possibilities are really very far-reaching. one fixed/fixed and one fixed/free would give you three fixed choices and a freewheel for if you get injured. a fixed/fixed and free/free would give you essentially two different bikes, each with two different gearings. it’s pretty goddamn cool, if you ask me. heavy, though. and that’s before you put a wheel in it.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

bike build process log : bianchiWhite – wins and losses

ironlung — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:51:51 +0000

with half a buzz on last night, i ducked down into the shop to try and make some more progress on the old bianchi i just had powdercoated cocaine white. the fork was already attached, and the upgrade to the cockpit of another bike left a handlebar in the mix for use here, so i knew i wanted to at least throw that on…

great, done. just needs levers and tape.

i also knew that SOMEWHERE in the shop were some gorgeous friction shifters i snapped up at the bike swap a while back. shimano 600s with a beautiful filigree embossing. i dug around until i found them and threw them on…

just by themselves, that’s the most beautiful component on this bike. they look so fucking fly it’s NUTS. i’m very, VERY pleased.

unfortunately, the rest of the stuff i put on ended up being total fails.

waterbottle cage fail…

i actually love those profile cages. i have two of em on an underseat mount on the leader, and one of em on the frame of loos3y(tm), my fixed townie. not only are they super slick-looking, but they are the perfect size for a 24 of PBR. unfortunately, on this particular bike, with it’s vintage lines, lugged steel, and gorgeous color, it does NOT work. so that’s coming off tonight and will be replaced with a more standard cage, probably in silver, if i have one.

front derailleur fail…

i didn’t realize that the new front derailleur i had was gray. i thought it was silver. that’s coming off, too. i think the vintage one that was on the bike when i got it is full-silver, so i think that’s what’s going back on.

rear derailleur — fail? win? yet to be decided…

i thought i had a modern rear derailleur, but i was wrong. this is what was on the bike when i got it. it’s a darker silver than i’d like, but it’s not gray. and it’s vintage, so it fits thematically. maybe it just needs a polish and i’ll be happy, i dunno. more on that later.

the thing with both derailleurs is this — if i fall back on what was on the bike when i got it, it’ll be a complete set, it’ll fit thematically (the bike’s going to remain "vintage-ish"), and everybody wins. if i upgrade, the groupo will be lighter. that’s really the only benefit.

but there’s another factor. i have another road bike, toro, hanging up in the shop, and it has full, modern campy. i would very much love to use that whole setup. it doesn’t matter that i have shimano shifters, cause they’re friction shifters and friction shifters work with any derailleur.

adding to the madness is that it’s very, VERY likely that i’ll be using toro’s back wheel on this bike temporarily, in order to be able to ride it this upcoming weekend. and while that wheel will be a major aesthetic thom in my side in the short-term, it would be much more hassle-free to just run that derailleur along with that wheel.

so i dunno what’s happening, other than more wrenchTime tonight. i hope to get all the rear shifting running, one way or the other, before tomorrow morning.

till then, please enjoy.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!