It lives!

Things happen fast at Pogwards school of wizardry and bike building, so much so that the major effort since the last post has achieved so much that I have actually ridden my bicycle!

Totes awes as my children would say....

Firstly though I had to get through a few niggly details;

The brake cable brazons

I put the same brazons underneath the downtube (and one under the chainstay) to guide the alfine shift cable - much tidier than the cable ties of yore.

Shortly after my last post I went out to see the lovely Mr Bob, who has most of the tools needed to sort the finicky bits of the frame; cutting the fork bearing seat, cleaning the threads and facing the bottom bracket, cutting the headtube bearing cup seats, and tweaking the fork ends so that they faced each other correctly. Unfortunately Bob does not have a seatpost reamer, which is surprising given the number and completeness of the tools he does have. Knowing the incredible level of engineering that Bob is capable of I suspect he simply hasn't found a suitable source of Magnetite with which to smelt the required parts. Fortunately Dave does have one, so I dropped in there to sort that one out and purchase a couple of bits, ie a 27.2mm seatpost and a seatpost clamp.

A beautifully cut cup surface

Many, many brazons

Then came time to actually build it into a rideable bike...

There were a few issues, mostly around the recently discovered need for the riding position to be exactly like the Surly, as I may have mentioned before it is super comfy, and I wanted some more of that right there.

I popped around to a local bike madman's house and grabbed an armful of bars to try out to see what worked the best. Now as I will be using this for the 10km sprint to work every day I have no real need of drop bars and multiple positions, so the set of bullhorns that Stacey had seem to fit the bill, so this is where I am right now;

Mmmm, bicycle. Those cranks will be swapped out for my nice campy ones when I find a new Bottom Bracket. And the brakes will be those nice Paul touring canti's.

Horrible BBB stem that needs to be 50mm not 80mm, so I will get rid of it. I will probably make a custom stem once the riding position has settled down... Also see the sexy little Cane Creek cyclocross brake levers.

A pretty brake stop thingy.

The brake bridge is the chainwheel off something English and one hundredish years old - I have Jones to thank for that great idea that I had.

Stupid Alfine shifter that needed some time with the file to fit on 24mm bars and yet is still large and ugly.

The bars are still a little too high and forward, a smaller stem should see to that.

Mudguards will make it look a bit more gentlemanly.

One thing I have slightly bolloxed up is the angle of the brake bosses. I stupidly put these in line with the rim, not the stays, so the brakes angle outwards ever so slightly. It is not too bad, but I wish I had thought that through a bit more.

To get around the stupid position of the Alfine shifter I have ordered one of these puppies;

Which should solve some size and positional issues.

So there will be a gradual swapping out of unsuitable bits for lovely expensive bits, but first I need to strip it down and get it coated. And it needs bar tape, and new pedals, and all sorts of other rubbish.

And that is all, I have yet to take it on a bigger ride than the 500m around the block, but it hasn't broken yet, and feels really nice and solid. It is surprisingly light as well...