Birthday Boy Dawes

allenh

rBoTM Triple Crown
rBotM Winner
It's winter so I'm not really building much, the odd bit of tinkering and fettling but painting, cleaning and building not really. So looking through some old pictures looking for something else I found a couple of pictures of a bike I built a couple of summers ago. Now it's not really mine as it was always going to be built it up for someone else but thought it might make an interesting threadette.

In the summer of 2017 my oldest friend was turning 50 and I thought I couldn't let it pass without marking the occasion, so after much deliberation I decided as he's a keen cyclist and I'm not averse to a bit of bike building I could build him a bike. The problem is the friend in question is more one for the newer end of the cycling spectrum and I'm a self confessed cycling dinosaur so instinct won over and I decided to build him something as old as him.

In the end the only suitably sized frame I had turned out to be a little older but hey ho it's the thought that counts.

So with the selected frame and unbeknown to said friend I set to work on making honey out of hen shite (as my Scottish friends would say). Unfortunately I didn't take any photo's of the frame before painting but suffice to say it was a scruffy bugger, a 531 Dawes from either the very late 50's or early 60's. Any way a couple of pics of the painted and decalled frame below.
 

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Now said friends Birthday is at the beginning of August and near the end of June he rings and says, I've been thinking I fancy a steel bike so would you build me one, now I couldn't help it and let slip, well actually you've got a big birthday coming up and I've been working on that sort of idea.

I know I know, should have kept my trap shut but at least he ended up getting what he wanted as I was going to build it as a 5 speed and he told me what he wanted was a single speed, he also then got involved in the build selecting bits he wanted like a Brooks saddle we found at a cycle Jumble.
 

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Next job was building a set of wheels for it. So I ordered a set of red anodized high flange jobbies and a pair of Planet X retro rims which I built into a suitably shiny pair of wheels.
 

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So by the middle of July I had a built bike, although I didn't like the tyres or the chainset so those were changed before handover to the birthday boy
 

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And finally with much nicer looking tyres and a modern repro drillium crank, a bit before his birthday said friend picked up his pressie to take home with strict instructions not to ride it before his actual birthday, which he ignored completely.
 

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allenh":3h3541vr said:
Nob":3h3541vr said:
Why not go with red tyres also :)
Not sure, I think I prefer the amber walls


DSC_4142-thumb-440x294-22888.jpg
 
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