Wiring it all up

The bike is now loaded with most of the components that it needs, although I have to say I have not put the mechs in the correct positions. In fact I am not even sure what the correct postions for these are! I am sure a little reading and a lot of fiddling around will sort this out. The chain will have to wait until this is completed.

I have cabled up the brakes which was a comparatively simple job. On this bike the brakes are of the cantilever style, which to look at the forum were going out of style in favour of the better stopping power of V style brakes. I am pleased to see that the brakes have made a come back, mostly due to the style conscious fixie couriers who clearly prefer them for some reason.  Not quite an evolutionary dead yet.

Cabling the brakes was simple as the brakes have a fixed length of cable defined by the hanger to operate the brakes. The rest of the cable length is actually irrelevant. It doesn't really seem to change the stiffness of the brakes. This means you can get away with bigish loops of  cable in the housing. Which is exactly what I didn't do, and I am now regretting the rather measly amount of cable I gave myself for the front brake. It is not affecting performance but it does look slight inelegant. I'd go back and change it, but that would mean a new cable and I am loathe to buy more just to satisfy a little bit of artistic flare. It can be correct when the brakes need changing again.

Cursing and fumbling with a 10mm spanner and a 5mm Hex key I remember that there is a pay off for canti brakes. Each brake block is adjustable. Fantastic for getting the perfect fit, but then again each of the two pairs of brake blocks needs to hit the rims at exactly the same point in time. Time slows as I fiddle moving blocks back and forward, fingers cramping from holding spanners and pulling brake levers. Back is aching from leaning over the bike until the stopping power of the brakes can be applied cleanly and evenly. "Think of it as a pay off", I tell myself "in the wet weather when a car decides to stop suddenly or turn across you. Then the bike will stop in a straight line and not slew across the road."
"Or I could just not cycle in the rain!" I reply.

I am now left with a large amount of cable housing and some spare cable. The housing is fine, there is always a need for housing and it fits both brakes and and gear cables. But the cable is a different matter. You can't use it on the bike to replace cable so what can you use it for. I am sure there is some hidden purpose for which it could usefully be employed. But what?

And so the Legacy begins

In the absence of any project bikes, and despite my recent experience with bits falling off the P3 frame (must buy torque wrench). I decided to start work on my hybrid bike. Over the past couple of months I have been assembling a series of spares to overhaul the quite frankly knackered shifters and the aging drivechain parts. The experience of changing gears has reached the top end of tempermental. Which is to say the occasional inconvenience of forgetting your house keys as opposed to the Alzheimer memory loss.

This bike is a Ridgeback Adventure SX120 - bought back in the early 90's and still going strong. When it was relatively new there was an inadvertant upgrade of wheels and hubs which looks to have been a very positive move as they run as smooth as the day they were fitted. It will also allow me to fit a 9 speed to them taking the range for the cassette from its lowly to 7 and adding a bit of low climbing gears for my tired old legs.

In my previous round of parts purchasing I had picked up some Shimano LX mechs and although I had planned to put these on an MTB build, I have decided that these should be the basis of the equipment change. Should these second hand parts fail then I have the option of buying a new part that will slot into the system. As this is to be a workhorse bike I wanted all the parts to be of a decent level of mechanical soundness. Most LX parts are relatively cheap and the shifters were easily located at a low price due to discontinuation of the items. A 9 speed chain and an HG50 cassette make up the drivechain parts.

The brake levers were also a little tatty and quite frankly as the levers themselves are plastic, I decided that replacement with some Avid Juicy 7's was a nice touch. Finally to complete the comfort rating I am going to add some Ergo grips and a new saddle (the old ones have been on from new, and I'm sure I deserve it).

My first task will be to strip down the bike and clean, I will leave the cantilevers on the bike. I'm not sure I want to go as far as a bare frame rebuild, but when I look at the bike I may change my mind.

let the good times roll

It is always good to get out on a bike, the feeling of freedom, speed and the pure adrenaline rush of turning the cranks are always a tonic. It is even better when you are riding the bike you have constructed from the frame up. Slightly different perhaps to riding a new bike, because generally you are certain that everything is set up correctly and all you are trying to do is determine how fast it stops and how tightly you can make the turns. So perhaps it is a good thing that I rode to our local park with the kids and so stopped myself pulling any crazy tricks before I was sure of my mechanical skills. A great leveller of ability, is when you have to stop to support and encourage your 4 year old on their bike.

So what did I find out about the mechanical soundness of the bike? Well, I need to make a small adjustment to the brake and gear lever as they aren't optimal, and I haven't quite aligned the limit screw to allow a jump on to the final cog. Apart from that everything else held together fine. The wheels go muddy, I wall rolled a few steep banks and popped a few (brief) wheelies. By the end of the trip nothing was squeaking or falling off, which is a positive. I washed the wheels off, not because they were muddy, but because of the risk that some of the brown stuff came out of dogs' bottoms, and the paint stayed on. All in all a good start to a career as an amateur bike mechanic and assembler.

Next steps, well I think after the small adjustments to be done it is time to get out on some tame trails near me, and then move out to the bigger challenges after that. I also think that now might be the time to reflect on what I have learned through this process, so I suspect the next few blog posts will carry the dos and don'tsl  in bike construction.

Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war.

Finally, the bike is complete! There are a few niggles, like the fact that it is unrideable in its current configuration, but it is complete and I am hoping that the issues can be overcome quickly and cheaply.

brake boss line up

Finally, I have brake bosses that at least partially work with the XT brake arms. If you look in the photograph you can see the three versions that I managed to get. Look at the different size of the lip next to the screw and if you can compare the profile of each boss fitting. Not all bosses are the same and so when you get to adding brake arms it is clearly a question of the right ones for the job. I'm keeping the others in my spares box for anyother job. The one to the right is from Tiawan and made of titanium, but is far better quality and has a better profile than the others. Even so it does not provide a perfect fit for the brake arms, with a small 3mm gap between the frame and the arm. I am hoping that this will not cause to much strain in braking, because if it does I will need to see if the adaptor kit works any better.

just a small gap

Confident that I would at least have some braking potential, and finding my Sunday afternoon surprisingly free, I continued on completing the last jobs on the bike. First up chain onto the bike. Simple enough, I'm not going to explain the ins and outs as it is done well enough in Zinn and in other bicycle maintance books. I had not appreciated how much you need to be an octopus though. I was most pleased that I was fixing the chain together with a powerlink and not having to force a pin into place with a chain tool. Really simple, but a little more fiddley was the task of aligning the rear derailleur (mech). Setting the high and low screws to match the limits of chain movement is simple in theory. I found that holding the derailleur over the low position and looking at where the limit screw was holding gave me more confidence that this phase was set up.

powerlink

I then needed to cut the housing for both the brakes and the gears. I wish I had a proper wire cutter for this as it was hard work with the cutter on my old pliers, but they worked adequately. Fighting to not strip the wire as you thread it through the housing is also a must. Not only does it make it difficult to thread, it will also weaken the cable.  Finally, I fitted the handlebar grips, (some lizardskin ones which have lock down bolts) and adjusted the shifter and brake levers into position.

I have however, created a bike that is a little overdeveloped in the tyre department. There is an alignment issue with the rear wheel which I think is easy to sort, but there is one major problem that is preventing me from riding the P3 today. The tyres are too fat. Inflated the rear tyre is one large balloon wedged between the downstays. Not so bad at lower pressures, but it still rubs the frame badly. The original tyres that came with the wheels, I seems to remember, were fine. So I will try a switch back. In the short term there is a potential to borrow some from Uncle Riotous who is storing a load of spares. The ultimate will be a rebuild of the hub on a narrower rim. Whilst I have enjoyed assembling a bike from its components and I even feel that framebuilding might one day be an option- I have visions of being an old man with a shed in the Welsh mountains building custom frames. Wheel building is an art that requires specialisr equipment, much patience and many hours. So to rebuild the wheel I think I may need to employ my local bike shop.

The beast nearly ready for action

Making the most of time

Project management is all about getting  a task accomplished within the confines of limits such as time and cost. The trouble with personal projects, such as project bike builds, is that they always cost more and take more time. The former is a result of finding that parts that were thought to be sound are not and need replacing or the need for extra tools. The latter, is the result of the work being performed in your "spare" time. If like me you are a family man with an interest in many things in life "spare" time is a precious commodity. So far this week, I have helped out at mini-rugby, watched a match, taught my 4 year old daughter to ride her bike, said goodbye to the wife, polished all the shoes and boots in the house, cleaned the house, clothed, ferried and fed the kids, knocked down a wall and cleared the rubble. Finally, come Friday, I have an hour to work on the bike. Only, I can't really do what I want to do, which is to assemble the fork to the frame.

You see this is time for another cost over-run. What I hadn't seen coming was the need for a specialist tool for seating the headset cups (Storm in an H-cup). So although, I have set Uncle Riotous to seeing if any of his contacts have one in their tool locker, I am at an impasse. I have managed to source a tool at a sensible price (£30 vs £60), but I am unwilling to spend money if I can borrow the tool. Having said that, at £30 you are only looking at three workshop visits and it is paid for, so there is a potential to earn beer money here.  There is also the ability to make you own, using various bits of DIY ironmongery. However, the precision can suffer, and I would rather not leave the alignment to chance.

So I am waiting, and I have free time, so I do what any good project manager would do and try to find something that can be done while waiting for the next logical step in a project to be completed. Thankfully, the rear derailleur fitting does does not need the forks, but it does need careful storage. A bent rear mech will be no good later on, and a waste of a straight out of the box bit of kit. So I will have to add the rear wheel to keep the rear mech off the ground. With the rear brake bosses also fitted to the bike I can at least fit these, if not wire them up. If I have time I think, I could also add the chain, although this would be easier on a workstand, when adjustments can be made.

First up then, fit the rear wheel. Seated in the dropouts, I am slightly worried. The tyres are rubbing against the frame work, even when seating position is adjusted. I hope this is just due to the tyre being deflated, or else my tyre choice is just plain wrong. In comparison, bolting the rear mech to the hanger is a doddle. I am impressed with how it sits there like some big black spider above the silver web of the chainset. Then comes adding  the rear brakes to the bike, also, I had forgotten, in black. These are returns, and there are signs on the bolts that they have been used. Coupled with some paint and rust, it actually takes longer to fit all the parts and it is time to do the school run again. The chain can wait, but already I can see the overall effect of the bike; black, red and silver.

Cassettes and remasters

It has been a while since I have had a chance to do any work on the project bike and I have begun to get itchy to get on with it. Sadly, my youngest is now at school full time and the list of jobs that need doing round the house have got measurably longer. I often joke to the wife that since we have reversed roles it is her who is supposed to approach the DIY etc, but sadly she insists on baking cakes so what can a man do? It is true that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.  This then is the reason that I am back on the bikes.


So today have completed my allotted set of chores and kept house, I find I have half an hour spare. Time in which to change the cassette on the rear wheel. This consists of unlocking a nut on the rear wheel and swapping over all the parts without dropping any of them. The theory is that providing the cassette (that's the selection of gears at the back of the bike) and the freewheel (which connects them to the rear hub) are compatible it is a simple replacement job.


I start first with the removing the tyre on the wheel, not because it is necessary, but because I wish to check how true or straight the wheel runs on the axle. The wheels have been sold as no visible wobble, but it is probably best to check now and tweak the wheel into shape rather than find out when it is on the bike. While I am doing this I read the wheel size on the tyre 26x2.4 hmmm that could be problematic finding replacements. Note to self when buying secondhand rims check the tyre dimensions.  It also starts to try and rain, I pray it will hold off long enough for me to finish the job outside.

The lockring on the original 8 cogs is a little stiff but the with a little shimmy it opens easily enough and allows me to slide the original cassette of the freewheel. I put this in a bag for later. Maybe I can use them or sell them, either way they will need a clean. Which is what I set about doing to the freewheel. It is not particularly dirty, unlike the rime which is shedding black stuff all over me and the light coloured T-shirt I am wearing. However, I think that if I am building from the ground up it is best if the whole thing is as clean and dirt free as possible. Some degreaser and a good scrub and all is clean. Now to add the new cassette.

The cassette is a SRAM PG970 9 speed, and it glows with a satin finish at me from within its packet. A packet that turns out to be all but impenetrable. Not wanting to score the metalwork with a knifeblade I battle the finally wrap until it begins to give up its precious cargo. At last, eyes shining, I remove the cassette unbroken, until near the end I find a wad of plastic bag inserted in the middle. Removing this proves to be the straw that breaks the camel's back and the last two cogs come loose with the lockring. Oh well not a disaster.  I take the bulk of the cassette and start to fit it to the freewheel. It takes a couple of minutes to realise and locate the alignment spline which is smaller than the others. More a process of elimination here as I go round the set trying each one until it slides smoothly in. Now for the last two cogs, and here is where it really gets messy, because now they are separated from the rest, I really don't know which side is wheel side and which isn't. It takes a few moments of staring at how it will work for me to finally put it all together. Lockring on and tightened with the splined tool and the hole process is finished.


So there is another blind myth explored - if you create a sensible design with a finite series of combinations then the pathways are forced to accept one design over another. Oh and it starts raining after I have put the tools away. Time for the school run.

Bottoms!

Today I decided that I would tackle the bottom bracket fitting on the bike. Now I have to confess this is not entirely new territory for me as I have removed and replaced one before. Essentially, so long as you are careful and don't lose bits it is a slide out slide in job. However, you do need some specialist tools for the job one of which is a lockring spanner.

Bottom bracket shell, TT Gigapipe and TT chainset with chain retention device

The first job is to clean the gunk and paint from the inside of the bottom bracket shell. This is a simple job of toothbrush, white spirit and a cloth to clean up. I don't need to worry about losing some of the paint at the exit as a) its a cosmetic cover up and b) no one is going to see it behind the lockring tool.

Now the real reason for choosing a spare hour and a half to do this is to check out the fitting of the Gigapipe bottom bracket (BB). This is new to me as all my experience is with old square taper brackets. The first thing I notice is that the usual method of locking into place is probably not going to work here. I think I need another tool for the toolbox. I have a bottom bracket tool, but it doesn't look as if it is designed for this type of BB. Curse the world of non standard international design. Shimano are the market leaders, but they do what they like, at least everyone else tries to work from a standard. Although I suspect they wouldn't if they could get away with it. Anyway, it is a Shimano BB tool not an ISIS one. Plus I discover as I look in the tool box there is no lockring tool either. Now where did I put that? Ah Uncle Riotous has it in his garage!  Looks like this will have to wait until the tools are assembled in the same location.

So lesson, learnt I pack it all away again (Bottoms!). Time to drop a message to uncle about said tools. Not all wasted though as having looked at the set up I can see that it is really much easier than a cup and cone or square taper style BB. As an all in one there are no ball bearings or cartridges to chase around and apart from ensuring it is all greased and done up tight the job itself is as simple as pie.

One wheel on my wagon

Holiday has put rather a crimp on buying bike parts and so has the monetary realities of being halfway through the month. Luckily it was my birthday so I have some cash with which to indulge this new hobby and buffer me against the latest purchases. I returned to the world of internet (mountainous regions do not have a good record for mobile signals) to find a crankset with bottom bracket and chain box unbid for. Perhaps due to the slightly high starting price, but when you totalled it up there was some wriggle room for a bidding war, you just weren't going to get an absolute bargain. The pics looked good and the bash guard looked pristine so in the last hour a bid was placed and bingo the whole lot for £50 as opposed to about £80 to buy separately.

Then there was the surprise purchase of a pair of wheels for £40 with an 8 speed cassette. OK so it's not my final destination, but the hub will accept a 9 speed cassette, so we are up one there. Plus the hubs are Deore LX which is a big step up and I suspect the rims will be slightly better than the budget ones I currently use.

So aside from a 9 speed cassette to get we are ready to load the bike with parts. In otherwords the fun really begins as I attempt to fit a style of bottom bracket I have never used before, align mech hangers and replace threadless headset forks (also a new horizon). I will be using my trusty Zinn as a guide and relying on Uncle Riotous' practical knowledge to get over edge of this horizon. Hopefully, a day or so of work and we should be out riding the trails.

First blind moment

I am faced with seat issues - not my rear but the seatpost itself. I had expected differing size seat posts, but I am left with two paths to functionality. Current seat post and a shim or a new post of 34.9cm. A larger area is better able to dissipate impact so new wins there. Current seat post is a little crappy and for safety I have already stolen the seatpost off my sons Hotrock 20" bike. So with an ex-stock EX seat post for £11 and a quick release seat clamp from Halfords I set about installing the seat post.

OK that was unexpected, despite both being the same size they are not, and we are not talking about layers of paint out of size here. The seat post clamp is clearly smaller than the post. With much effort and prizing the seatpost clamp open, it fits on snugly to the bike frame and the the seatpost itself slides snugly in with a fresh coat of grease.

Abendessen des hundes

My eye runs over the matt black frame and alights on a sudden flaw in my plan. I can see two cable guides on the top tube. One for the rear mech and one for the brake cable. Where can I run the third for the front mech? There is no room in the existing guides, so that will be a non-starter. To the batcave Robin! Several hours of internet research later and I find I have two options. Braze on series of guides - possible as there is a local bike builder round the corner from me (Renowned Chas Roberts)- but pricey as I would need to strip the frame, and respray again. Epoxy glue a guide to the frame - a sore point in forum threads on the subject. Buy a seatpost clamp that adds the guide to the bike (Problems Solvers). I look back for the post where in my early research I had read that a P3 had been converted to a 3x7 gear bike. Yes you can, but quite frankly it looks like a dog's dinner and uses the seatpost clamp. Given that the seller has been using it as a commute bike, I am not entirely sure that it will survive much of the hammering it will get from me. So we are going to have to go for a 1 x ? combination and walk up hill, no actual change there then as my current stamina level is still low.

So for a very simple parts exchange and upgrade model we are now beginning to look towards a total rebuild. The shopping list now requires

Crank
Bottom bracket
Single chainset with guide if possible
 

with the following upgrades
9speed hub
9 speed mech
brake arms
new forks if possible to return the freebies back to the pool.

first small steps

The frame is far from the mint proclaimed, but then I never expected mint. Who keeps a frame in the garage that long without using it? Expecting to have only minor touch up on the paintwork, I'm a little disappointed to find some relatively large tool marks from where they frame has been stripped. A minor bit of epoxy filler work is all that is required, but the more I look at it the more the frame seems to require than the simple touch up paint routine. My heart sinks - its a respray job. I haven't done one of those since I was given my grandfather's fixie to do up when I was 13. There are several nightmare moments that await a respray - 1. you are only going to chip the paint again. 2. the pro companies use kilns to harden the paint 3. a spray gun is better than any other method. So no kiln and no spray gun and bearing mind issue number one I go for the overcoat method. Here the aim is to prep the surface to hold paint - apply a primer and then several coats of car paint.

Set up with some old dust sheets in the very small shed at the end of the garden I set to work with primer. Wow, I'm not bad at this, the old skills haven't completely gone. Nice even coat with no show through. Damn I've left a sticker on the frame!! Bugger it, I'll leave it as this a cover up not a vanity job.

Matt black goes on well and I have managed to find a sign printer who runs of decals, so I can brand the bike for those who care about such things. It seems that finally I am ready to start the swap from one bike to the next. All I need to do is start sourcing components required to upgrade the bike.

What am I doing???

There are plenty of things I have thrown myself at without realising what it is I am about to do. Facing the mountain never gets less intimidating even with increasing years. So it is again that I set myself against a new challenge. Bike building. Quite why I should be doing this is a lesson in a renewed love of cycling, economics, and the need for some hardware. Now I have to say my natural forte tends to be in the more theoretical aspects of life, but even so I do tend to manage to bodge and muddle through most tasks because I have at least thought the process through. So it is with the logic being:- I have a cheap mountain bike (given to me free), I have been out riding single track a lot, I am now entering the zone where the flexibility in the frame and some of the components are not going to be so tolerant of where I am trying to be on the hillside, (that is to say not down the slope in the trees). I enter the fierce arena that is ebay and come out with a Specialized P3 from around 2000/2001. My plan was to make a straight swap of components from the old bike to the new and then upgrade at leisure. I could never has been so wrong!