British Eagle K4 - low budget cruisy build

[sparkybhp]

Well after my last cheap/free bike project ended in tears (stuck seatpost/split seat tube..) this bike cropped up locally for £10.
It needs a damn good clean and strip/service but there’s potential there.. Nice large Reynolds frame and exage parts are there, gonna throw some parts bin bits at it and make a sweet dad cruiser for spring.
Any love for BE on here?

 

[retrobikeguy]

Re:

Proper man size that

 

[sparkybhp]

Re:

21 1/2”!

 

[retrobikeguy]

Re:

Is that all ...... looks larger, bang a couple of mudguards and a set of lights on it and you have a great little pub bike.

 

[sparkybhp]

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That’s the plan! Something solid and not too precious which I can lock in town and not worry about too much.
She stripped down alright, paint needs a little touch up here and there and then I’ll stick some of the parts I have lying about on it and enjoy it.
I noticed it has almost horizontal dropouts so there’s potential to go s/s possibly too.. we’ll see.

 

[MT62]

Already loving this.
Used to have a British Eagle, low end, about 1990/1, with originally 200GS and Reynolds 500 tubing, as a commuter for over a year. Had it set up with remains of my previous commuter, so mostly M550 LX and later 3x8 drop bars. Gave the frame away in the end (got repainted and looks really nice in the new look!) and still regretting time to time, this looks exactly the same frame! Except for the colour.
Looking forward to updates, it is a reasonable "relaxed" ride. Mine was way bigger than I would enjoy most frames to be, like 55cm ctt against my usual mtb 48-50cm, it was still lovely.

 

[mtbdave]

I remember these, I had a British eagle shadow 531 frame and fork, and the new 93 Lx on it.
I swapped the forks out for some shock tech forks (manitou 1 copy’s they were)

Frame was a 21”

And a few weeks ago I bought another off eBay £75 not my bike from bitd but still great memories

 

[sparkybhp]

Re:

Cheers for the positive comments people, keeping this updated:
Got the worst of the flaky paint stripped off and treated with Kurust, good time to whip the bottom bracket out and give it a long overdue service!

 

[Alu Baba]

great build!

 

[sparkybhp]

Re:

Pretty much there now, got to say it turned out looking just like I was hoping - sort of a cruiser/beach bomber look. It rides smooth as you like and the groupset is full Altus C10 which, while low end, performs pretty good on this frame.
Wheels are Exage f/r with semi-slick Vredestein tyres, profile ally riser bars, shorter+higher Sakae stem and a fizik saddle.
Best of all is it literally owes me beer money, it was built using bits I had lying about, chuffed with this..