Team Lope Tyre Clubbe » frame

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…

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Bike Build Process Log: Ye Blacke Death – Rubber Hits Road

wrongrobot — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:38:58 +0000

Well, Ye Blacke Death is finally finished! Finished in the since, of course, that it rolls and pedals and steers and mostly stops, not that there’s not much more to do. But this was the day that I was able to get it rolling and do some tests. Any build, I’m secretly relieved when it doesn’t explode on it’s maiden voyage. Weirder frames and pieces parts and I wonder a little more about that result. I wasn’t going to throw wee Z on here and hurtle down the hill, but I did want to get out and see what needed adjustment and how it held up.

As you can see, it came together pretty nicely. The bobike fits on a a bracket that seats on the quill, and is removable in under 7 seconds. You can pull the clamp off as well and it’s like it was never there, or leave the clamp on and use the cotter pin to remove the seat. Even on the bike, there’s no interference with the front rack.

The combination of matte black, laquered wood, leather and chrome work well together. It has an old timey vibe, but some new school details. More interestingly to me, it’s the most frankenbike build I’ve done, even more than Fix-e was, and it doesn’t LOOK like it. I think it looks like it rolled new off the assembly line of one of your vintagy commuter bike shops.
Most importantly, it came together how I envisioned it, with the black rims and knobbies, the little gleams on the chrome, the general geometry…

Wee Z even helped with spoke tension inspection. Not at speed.

So, what’s left: well, a lot. Some adjustments are required before it can really do what it was intended to do. See, I tried to hop on it and almost became a eunuch. The Bobike is low and back, so you cradle your precious cargo in your arms as you ride. But for most bikes, that means interference with your riding position. I could get between the seat and the Bobike, but I couldn’t get UP onto my seat. Absolutely no-go if there was a child up in there.

I was sort of resigned to the idea that maybe the seat wouldn’t work out (it was designed for upright commuters in Denmark with adjustable stems and that vertical clearance) and that I’d be putting the rear rack on. But I did some research last night and was reminded, thanks to www.longleafbicycles.com why i got my long quill stem in the first place. I was going about this the wrong way: I thought the clearance problem would be the seat being too much in my face, so I was pushing it farther and farther down the stem, to no avail. As it turns out, it needs to be HIGHER, which is counter-intuitive, I have to admit. That’s where the ginormous stem came in. So this morning, I raised the seat high on the stem (didn’t yet actually increase stem height) and equally-as-important, lowered the SEAT. It made all the difference, and it worked. AWESOME.

Another issue is the brake. I’m a mile from where I started: I have sticky salmon pads, a new center-pull caliper, and I spent a LOT of time stringing and restringing it, which is made more aggravating with this vintage of equipment because of having to use double- wrenches on the hanger nuts. I was too weak in stopping power on my test ride, which was after about three stringings already… and then I adjusted it and am now too tight, so i need to let out about 3mm of cable. But I’m close.

The cork handles, which were kind of an experiment anyway, were 50/50. One went on great, and one shredded like you’d expect thin, true cork to do. Wifebot(tm) suggested glue but i don’t think it’ll hold together very long, so if I keep using these, I’ll be replacing one.

The bars, which LOOK rad, once again may not work, just as has happened on my other rides.

The sweep brings you too far forward, and I think I’ll interfere with comfortable positioning when Z is on there. So i may have to switch to sway, or boulevard, bars. I’ll be looking at that tonight.

Lastly, when I set out on the test ride, I was like DAMN this is a bitch. What is UP. The gearing was higher than I anticipated. I discovered the culprit. Remember how I was messing around with different combinations of cranks and chainrings? I ended up going with a 53, not the 39 I started with. Makes a teeeny bit of difference.

I calculated the inchgear at a gruesome 101. GAH.

I’m putting a 20 on the back tonight, getting it back down to my comfortable low-70s.

All in all though, very exciting and satisfying day.

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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

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the snobSum index – tumbler

ironlung — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 18:36:08 +0000

WR came up with the brilliant topic IDEA of a "snobSum index." the idea is that we subject our bikes to a fictitious review by the bikeSnob, using what we know about his likes and dislikes to add and subtract points from our bikes, ending with a completely arbitrary and made up number that represents the snob’s outlook on our bikes.

thus, my leader 725TR build. the bike i ride every day. the bike i rode to los angeles in the AIDS lifeCycle. the bike-shaped hole in the universe. the stealth bomber known as the tumbler…

personally, i think WR shortchanged himself by snobbing a -1 for riding a track frame. i’ve never gotten the impression that BSNYC dislikes or even disrespects track frames being ridden in the city. in fact, i can remember several posts in which he’s expressed great joy at riding his own track bike in the city. it’s brakeless hipsters in flatBrimmed caps doing BMX tricks on the brooklyn bridge before slowing down right in front of him that seems to bother him more. so i’m NOT giving myself a -1 for riding a track bike.

unfortunately, i get a -3 for riding a track bike in this PARTICULAR city, whose main geographic identifier is HILLS. ordinarily, that’d be a -1, but i’m bumping it to brand-aware for having ridden it to LA. DAMMIT!

i don’t know if i get a +1 or a -1 for my waterbottle cage. on the one hand, it’s very lone-wolfish. on the other hand, it’s a long-distance accessory on a track bike build. so we’ll cancel it.

i do know that i get a +1 for the rear fender. snobby’s big on using "wheel eyebrows," because "it’s probably urine."

+1 for the brake.

while i was inclined at first to give myself a -1 for my outlaw bandana around the headtube (in what might be misconstrued as a fashion statement), i’ve decided that he would actually give me a +1 for making my bike look less desirable to thieves by covering the headbadge. plus a bonus +1 for debadging the whole thing.

whoops, -1 for rocking an obviously $200+ cockpit.

another -1 for no tape on my bars.

final tally? -1.
totally hosed.
AYHSMB.

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The SnobSum Index – Crook Type 3 Top End

wrongrobot — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:00:24 +0000

So wifebot(tm) has been reading Bikesnob’s book, and is getting an education in both bike technology/style/rider types, and Snob’s humor, at the same time. SO this morning, as I was preparing to roll out, she pointed at Crook Type 3 and asked ‘would Bikesnob make fun of you for that bike?’

Now, the immediate answer was of course YES. But I had to laugh and explain that well, on some levels he would mock the bike, and on others he might give it a pass, as, like most of my bikes, there’s too much functional junk going on to be ‘cool’ and too much cool junk going on to be purely functional.

This gave me the idea for a new segment we’ll call the Snobsum Index. Based on what’s in view, would it be thrown to the wolves or given credit for not being completely trendy douchy?

Exhibit A: Crook’s top front end.
Like I pointed out to her, I’d probably get some credit for actually having a ‘dont hit me/ please stop riding three abreast’ device, ie my brass bell. I also might get credit for having a brake (spelled properly). But I’d get docked, I wager, for the elkhide wrap as being too polished or hip in some sort of imagined Portland-tweed-style manner. And I’d get a big fat demierit for the track frame in the first place.

Snobsum= 0

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Crook Type 3: On the Road

wrongrobot — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:03:44 +0000

Usually, if one of my rides is going to get attention, it’s either wrongBike(tm) thanks to it’s old-timey nature and glowing nukulurre trigger yellow-orange melon colorway, or it’s in traffic, with me ON it, as I’m getting run down by an irate SUV driver. But Crook Type 3 is getting some attention. Last week, two folks stopped me on the street while I was riding to ask about it. This weekend, on errands, when I went out to unlock it from the drug store, one inked up SF-type guy and his wife were checking it out and commented, and then as I got it unlocked and was preparing to mount the bike (and unmount the curb)… another guy pulled up in a car and said he’d never seen the green Mash frame. Pretty cool.

Also stolable! I’m being more cautious than usual…

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Team Lope Bike Bio: Crook Type 3

wrongrobot — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:03:35 +0000

Crook Type 3 is a transformed version of Crook, the Cinelli Mash I built up and rode on Aids Lifecycle 9, from SF to LA. The concept was simple, and absurd: after completing the 570 mile ride (if successful, which it was) I would swap out the gray frame that made that journey for the limited edition green/ white variant, celebrating the achievement. You can read about the build process for Crook Type 3 here. Suffice to say, I kept the bottom end from the original Crook, and replaced the top end, going with a silver dip theme above the frame line.

Cinelli Mash 09 Limited Edition Green/White Adidas-inspired variant
SRAM Courier 300 Cranks (48/165)
Shimano A520 pedals
Custom wheelset: Soma hubs laced to H+Son 43s
Sugino Track Cog system (17) (Currently 75 inchgear)
SRAM single chain
Dia Compe brake/ carbon fiber cable housing
Paul Comp cross lever, silver
Titanium spacers
Columbus headset and seatpost clamp
Thomson Elite post, silver
Thomson X2 stem, silver
Nitto RB-021 compact bullhorns
VO elkhide wrap
crankbolt wrap caps (!)
Brooks Swallow saddle, honey
Thomson stem cap
Continental Gatorskin Hardshells 25c
Awesomeness

Here’s the build in the wild…

Note the Paul Comp cross lever. That was a hard find, with a deceptively simple solution: Order direct from Paul Comp…
The elkhide is still stretching and getting comfy but it’s gorgeous. I miss gel padding, though. Crank bolts for bar ends. HA!

The gold hub works nicely with the color scheme, which was fortuitous. I’ll eventually have a brass bell on the front end too.

Sneaky inclusion of my Three-Pin rider logo under the chainring, for science.

On Crook 1.0 there was a quote here: ‘by hook or by crook’ which was my inspirational mantra for getting through ALC on a fixed-gear. Now that that was done, I elected to retire it, moving the bike name from the head tube to the usual position here. The cog decal moved from seatpost to seat stay. Oh, and there will be a pinup girl on the nose, it’s just not done. The other missing decals are a Type 3 lettering piece for the name, and a vinyl of our ALC logo used on our ride shirts.

Some adjustments will follow, in seat height and stem. But so far, it’s a greeeaaaaat rahde!

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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!

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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…

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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!

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