Titanium Russian Rapid revamped. not for purists !

Why make it simple when you can meke it complicated - a tribute to my wife ! :facepalm:

I had this titanium frame from the 90's

A russian Rapid

As its my only titanium frame and I wanted to do a light citybike, I embarked on modifying the build for it to accept some 700c wheels.
The issue were the brakes. As the Pauls BMX motolites are much too expensive, I embarked on having a friend lathe me some V brakes arms to accept Onza HO cantilevers brake shoes ! :mrgreen:

Found a "Skyde" titanium rigid fork in my spare parts "shop" , some machine tech levers nice levers , a ritchey steel stem and a no name titanium bar , suntour XC thumshifters and finally a pair of Mavic 501 and Mavic rims which had already been modified to take a 8 speed freewheel, left the previous Raceface crankset and TA rings ( took out the granny) and left as well the XTR mechs and seatpost
and here it the result

I am happy in Paris with these 32 tyres ( I am too old now for 23 tyres on the "shitty" Paris ground ( still some pavement and a lot of poor tarmac ) and this pretty nimble bike

Re:

That looks fantastic. And there's plenty of room to add some beefy cross tires if you want to do a bit of light trail riding as well.

How do the brakes feel in use? Do you still have decent stopping power?

Cheers, Ted

Great build, very tasteful.

Re:

Looks good.
any additional info on the ti fork would be appreciated.
are they available etc.

Re: Re:

ted andkilde":26ll6cu1 said:

That looks fantastic. And there's plenty of room to add some beefy cross tires if you want to do a bit of light trail riding as well.

How do the brakes feel in use? Do you still have decent stopping power?

Cheers, Ted

Click to expand...

its OK - I would not go down a "alp mountain " with it but its perfectly OK for Paris
its true that the caliper "leverage " is reduced but it works

Retro_Roy":26ll6cu1 said:

Looks good.
any additional info on the ti fork would be appreciated.
are they available etc.

Click to expand...

skyde is a smal french outfit that designs mostly titanium bikes and has them manufactured in China
grabbed this fork second hand years ago
dunno if they still have some manufactured I confess

http://www.skydecomp.fr/