Mostly riding my geared bike over summer as back up north and its hilly countryside so been very slowly doing another fixed conversion;
a '76 Flying Scot road frame that I got only to discover a frozen seatpost and decayed plastic BB shell that made the whole thing a bit of a ball ache... Much dremelling and acid later the paint and love of the project had been severely worn away (it was a crap DIY enamel job done by the previous owner anyway) so I scrapped the powdercoat glory and went for rattlecan mediocracy... Was interested to see how a DIY job would look-pretty crap TBH but not the worst I've seen-no massive runs but would've been much better with some more wet n'dry and another 3 tins of lacquer.
The frame is nice Reynolds 531 but not really worthy of any special treatment-earlier Flying Scots can be lovely but the plain lugs and a few wee dents meant that I was happy to put some Victory cranks, athena seatpost, headset and lovely dura-ace hubbed track wheels running tubs for the mo on. I really like the geometric lines of the cranks-a bit like an iron cross or something-but a few trial rides and there seems to be a bit of flex in the crank arms so might be getting switched out... Clearances are quite massive and to be expected, but chainline was easy enough and I'm liking the riding position. I've not fitted the front brake yet but will be getting on it as moving back to the city soon. I do like the 52/19 ratio though-not too spinny and feels ok on my dodgy knees. Overall its made for quite a nice looking beater but without the need for a G4 van following me as all the parts were either bargain buys or surplus bits found in the garage.
Project no 2. was my lovely lady's birthday present as she's starting to get interested in longer rides and was wanting a decent bike, so duly obliged with an old Ciocc built Concorde frame and a Shimano 600/ultegra group, with some rather tatty but still funtional Dura Ace 8spd sti's no less.
Did the re-spray myself again, as the original paint had really bad veins of rust and was really tatty, but learned from the Scot and did a lot more sanding/lacquering and it turned out pretty nice-even did some silver lug lining and made a personalised headbadge so pretty happy with it as was she! Overall probably cost about 250ish quid-most expensive item being the wheels which I think are perfect for the build-nice ultegra hubs or CXP-13's too.
a '76 Flying Scot road frame that I got only to discover a frozen seatpost and decayed plastic BB shell that made the whole thing a bit of a ball ache... Much dremelling and acid later the paint and love of the project had been severely worn away (it was a crap DIY enamel job done by the previous owner anyway) so I scrapped the powdercoat glory and went for rattlecan mediocracy... Was interested to see how a DIY job would look-pretty crap TBH but not the worst I've seen-no massive runs but would've been much better with some more wet n'dry and another 3 tins of lacquer.
The frame is nice Reynolds 531 but not really worthy of any special treatment-earlier Flying Scots can be lovely but the plain lugs and a few wee dents meant that I was happy to put some Victory cranks, athena seatpost, headset and lovely dura-ace hubbed track wheels running tubs for the mo on. I really like the geometric lines of the cranks-a bit like an iron cross or something-but a few trial rides and there seems to be a bit of flex in the crank arms so might be getting switched out... Clearances are quite massive and to be expected, but chainline was easy enough and I'm liking the riding position. I've not fitted the front brake yet but will be getting on it as moving back to the city soon. I do like the 52/19 ratio though-not too spinny and feels ok on my dodgy knees. Overall its made for quite a nice looking beater but without the need for a G4 van following me as all the parts were either bargain buys or surplus bits found in the garage.
Project no 2. was my lovely lady's birthday present as she's starting to get interested in longer rides and was wanting a decent bike, so duly obliged with an old Ciocc built Concorde frame and a Shimano 600/ultegra group, with some rather tatty but still funtional Dura Ace 8spd sti's no less.
Did the re-spray myself again, as the original paint had really bad veins of rust and was really tatty, but learned from the Scot and did a lot more sanding/lacquering and it turned out pretty nice-even did some silver lug lining and made a personalised headbadge so pretty happy with it as was she! Overall probably cost about 250ish quid-most expensive item being the wheels which I think are perfect for the build-nice ultegra hubs or CXP-13's too.
