1990 Harry Hall in Columbus SLX

BenR

Dirt Disciple
Picked this up for £150 in a neglected state. Spent some more cash on new tyres, cables, flatter bars from http://www.freshtripe.co.uk/ and bar tape, fitted some super-stiff Shimano Hollowtech cranks off another bike, as well as some Sora shifters given to me by another cyclist and here's the result. It still has shifting problems so I plan to replace the screw-in Campy block with a Shimano in 12-28, which should sort the spacing and give me a good wide range of gears for our Lancashire hills. Being mostly an MTBer I like to sit and spin!

Sorry about the wide pic. The bike rides really nicely, fresh and lively. It was the second in a series of frames built in Birmingham in April 1990 for shop stock for Harry Hall's in Manchester, it would have sold for around £300 at that time.

1990HarryHall002.jpg
 
That is a Shimano Hollowtech compact crankset. The rings are something like a 34 and a 50, IIRC. I have always been reluctant to go for new technology but having used this and removed it from another bike then re-installed it, I am absolutely convinced. The axle is a fat hollow tube attached to the RH crank, the LH crank bolts onto splines and the whole thing sits in some massive wide bearings, which are outboard of the frame. The bearings weigh almost nothing. In use it is super-stiff, you just pedal up hills and the bike seems to go straight up with little effort. Installation needs a couple of special tools, see here: http://www.parktool.com/products/detail ... em=BBT%2D9 as well as a torque wrench for the pinch bolts. I am so impressed with this crankset that I am going to fit a triple version to my Global TH1.5 Ti MTB frame.
 
Yes I suppose I could have gone with a triple but too late now - this afternoon I fitted a Shimano 7 speed 14-28 screw-in block and now the shifting is perfect, as well as giving me a good wide range.
 
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