Bought a bike specultively off Ebay, I could see it had decent bits on it...

Seller thought it was a Cannondale. Which I knew it wasn't

Identification and research on RB, got some great info

Long story short: Britsh Eagle were independent from 85 to sometime in the '90s

had a factory in Powys Wales...

I peg this bike (by components) to early 90/91

Falcon took over BE later on closed the factory and use the BE brand for their super rubbish bikes!

Doesn't bear any of the hallmark characteristic traits of all the generic frames, they came later and if this were a Falcon product it would be Claude Butler branded

So I've decided based on this, and a few other bits and bobs that this is a 'proper' Bristish Eagle' like British and that, although 99% of the decals were gone so even the maker had to be researched

RB to the rescue!

Research thread:Over here!

So I shall be doing a build

Here's my start point:



Nice XT thumbies!

I'm gonna reuse as much as possible making it a 'pocket money' build

A bargain I think. Are you leaving it as polished ally? Lots of work but it'll look

You read my mind sir!

I put it together(ish) looked at it and thought shiny is the way to go!

It cost £100 with full XT, thumbies, hubs, the works

sadly I can't use the XT rear mech as it's short cage (I wanna run a 50t front ring), also one pair of XT cantis had been switched for LX, the XT pedals are pretty worn out too

Other than that XT is all good and will be good for another 20 years!

Started on the wheels

Galvanised spokes look really bad after 20 years

Gone 'school cleaner's mop bucket grey'

So they gotta go!



Good chance to polish that M730/M732 combo too



That'll do for tonight, I better tidy up!

Is that an equilibrium tyre on the front in the first pic it would look very nice polished up

Bang on! +1000 Retrobike geek points!

Today I started on the stoppers!

So one pair of cantis had been swapped for Deore LX, mid '90s Deore LX, black

Can't have that!

So I grabbed the Deore brakes off my poor old Carrera Krakatoa

Edit: FluffyChicken has pointed out that these cantis are Exage 500LX, they are BR-M502

- Which are mega powerful for cantis

Used the brakes that came with the BE and made a good set

Krakatoa brakes, looking every day of their age!:



Brakes off the BE

Note proper Deore XT pads with virtulally zero wear...



I'm sure you can guess where it's going from here:









And bonus geekery: Look at the difference between Deore and XT of similar vaintage

Probably explains why the Deores are so powerful:



Then finally, Tada!:

Great stuff, this is my sort of building style, a bit of elbow grease works wonders. Will keep an eye on this one.

looking good so far. be prepared for much aching of fingers as you Autosol that frame.

Ha ha cheers

I'm going Autosol crazy on this thing!

I've decided to reuse the rims that came with the bike:

- Black anodised Rigida Turbo 90s

I'm gonna strip the ano off then mirror polish those too

Probably lacquer them over after...

That's after I get the dents out!

i did a Zaskar frame with Autosol and wire wool. then used T-cut and a soft cloth for super shine. tip:-WEAR GLOVES! i did not and had black hands for days afterwards.

For tonight's instalment I decided to unbend the rims

I have cunning method for this, low tech and zero budget of course!

It involves bending them back again, but obviously this needs to be controlled and progressive

A picture tells 1000...

Undesirable curves:





Here's my cheapo method of pushing them out:

Done in stages, clamp up tight against a piece of hardwood, I used maple go and have cuppa, release, check, clamp some more as appropriate!



The results are spot on



Rims are gonna have a bath tomorrow in caustic soda! My research indicates this should eat away the ano but not the alu

I have an old seat clamp I will test first though!

MCsanandreas, Gloves will be worn!

weeman_mtb, thanks for the encouragement. This one is going to be a 'blinder' quite literally will be required for viewing

Good call on the elbow grease, set me to thinking I'm recording my £ spend, But I'm going to record my time spend too

As most of this build is making the best of what's there rather than replacing stuff, time will be the big factor - and a few tins of elbow grease

I think there is some kind of plumbers product you can get from B&Q that will strip ano. And probably a damn sight safer and more pleasant than caustic soda.

Good efforts so far, big fan of the hard work v nis bling builds. A step by step of the wheel rebuild will be ace.

There's no holding you back will have to start wearing my shades when I read this post soon