Paul Brodie's Brodie Rodie story.

Seeing there is a lot of interest (and appreciation) on retrobike for Brodies the man himself kindly emailed over the story of how his own personal Brodie Rodie has evolved.

The frame was built in May 1993, had a Tange Tig welded "D" fork, and was painted British Racing green. It was assembled with Shimano 600 components. With 74/74 angles it rode OK, but I didn't like it on the fast downhills; it felt like it was on the verge of instability, but I never did get the dreaded speed wobble. I shortened the forks by replacing the Tange dropouts with Campagnolo ones I had lying around, and reduced the fork rake from 45mm to 35mm. The handling improved a bit.

In 2001 (I think..) I removed the head tube and top tube, and replaced them to slacken the head angle to 73 degrees. I didn't write any of this down, so that's why I'm a little hazy here. I do know the frame and fork still had a 1" head tube at this time. They got repainted, this time slate grey metallic... a beautiful, subtle Imron color. I went for a ride, and wished I had slackened the head tube just a little more...

Ten years later, February 2011, I decided to modify it again. That's the beauty of steel; you can. I put the frame back into the jig and discovered that the head angle was actually 73.5 degrees, not 73... I probably hadn't taken the modified fork dimensions into account (in 2001). This time I cut off the head tube and the down tube. An 1 1/8" head tube was installed, along with a tapered Tange downtube slightly ovalized at the head tube. Frame jig head angle was set to 72.5 degrees. Changing the head angle one degree increased the trail from 68mm to 73mm, just so you know...

That just left the fork. It still had the old 1" steerer, so I cut it out, and fillet brazed in a larger steerer tube. Color was changed again to persimmon metallic, another wonderful color from the (sadly..) discontinued Imron.

How does it handle now? It's not a crit bike, but I still consider it to be agile and responsive. I can now let it go on the downhills with confidence. Happy!

Paul Brodie

Pretty much my ideal road bike right there.

Interesting to hear about the swap out of the old 1" steerer tube too, as im contemplating the same on my 98 Kapu.

Very cool---and the write up was neat.

Although I'm not into road bikes (only probably because I've never ridden one) I can never get enough of reading stuff like this, especially when it's written by someone that I hold in such high esteem.
I've always had a special interest in frame and fork geometry and how it affects ride quality, so this was a rare treat.

Many thanks to Paul for taking the time to do the write-up and thanks to you, John, for posting it.

Yeah, thanks John for posting that up, and obviously thanks to Paul for the story and pics.

Very interesting to see/read about the evolution of the bike. It looks very clean. Something about the look of it makes it appear just 'right' to my eye.

Thanks again.

Not normally a fan of sloped top tubes (I'd go as far as saying I hate them) but this build is simplistic beauty, does it ride as well as it looks?

Interesting story. Neverless very strange handlebar angle. Not in favour of upright stem though.

Tange Prestige MTB tubing and a Flite Ti, nice touches on a very pretty road bike

The tale of evolution was very interesting and cool

"Brodie Roadie" very catchy, where can I get one?

A very pragmatic looking bike, very to the point.

Cool story. I just saw that Brodie is offering build your own frame workshops at one of the local Unis. Man, if I had 5K to drop I'd register in a flash - imagine having Paul help you and 3 other guys build their own steel frame.