Recent content by ultrazenith

I don't know if it qualifies as a gravel bike per se, but one of my Raleigh Dynatechs is currently set up for what they call gravel round my way (Northern Portugal): a mix of cobbled back roads, pot-holed minor roads, dirt roads littered with stones, and the odd bit of actual gravel...

It's a Raleigh M Trax Duo Tech from 1995, with the bonded steel and Ti frame. What's a bit odd is these frames (I'm a bit of a collector of them) universally have 27.0 seat posts, and this is the first and only one I have ever heard about with a different diameter. I started to wonder whether it...

Has anyone here ever shimmed a frame / seat post to make up a difference of less than 0.2 mm? I've got a bit of a weird case, which I suspect is a frame that was not reamed properly and the main seat tube is 26.8, but the upper 25 cm is about 26.9. When fully tightened, the seat clamp tabs touch...

I just found these photos of a shoot from the early 90s by Geoff Waugh, of a Dynatech Endeavour being tested for one of the mags (MBUK). https://waughphotos.photoshelter.com/im ... kAoU4gCw--

I really enjoyed reading this build thread, what an incredible end result! Do you know which steel was used in the main tubes and rear triangle of the Endeavour?

2020 hasn't been great for us but there are many people who've got it worse, and I am thankful my wife and I still have our jobs and health. The pandemic hasn't been all that bad here in Portugal, and I must admit I did enjoy the lockdowns and home working for while, if only for the empty...

I use high profile cyclocross brake cantilevers, they're almost as good as v-brakes and they look a bit retro.

I'm very interested if the sale falls through.

Re: Bike pricing rant. This seems to have happened everywhere, and I figured it was because the industry fully changed over to alu frames and stopped offering steel frames in their mass produced ranges, leaving quality steel frames as something just for connoisseurs who'll pay extra for...

Re: Re: Steel is real, all the way.

The thing with bitcoin is there was a period when it was new and very few people knew about it, like most "investment" vehicles, that was the time to get in and take a risk. Basically, you have to get in before everybody catches on to it. Now that there are so many cryptocurrencies to choose...

After months of putting it off because cantis are usually a pain to set up, I finally got round to fitting my Tektro CX brakes on the rear of my MT4. Surprisingly easy to install and set up, I got everything positioned just right on the first try. That's a first for me! And I'm impressed...

I'm in the market for a brake booster to beef up my cantilevers on a flexy frame. The only catch is the bosses are 100 mm apart, instead of the more standard 80mm. Most boosters do seem to allow for a range of boss distances, though. What you got? preferred colour: purple or titanium.

That's an epic bike. Basically you're a gravel pioneer. But whatever you do, don't walk into my LBS and announce you made a gravel bike using a 90s MTB. And definitely don't say your 90s MTB frame has virtually the same angles as the plastic fire-road bikes they're hawking to roadies who want...

One extra benefit of drop bars is that the hunched forward position might increase your power output because it allows your bum and lower back muscles to contribute to the pedalling more efficiently. It probably won't work for everybody, especially on retrobike where many of us have dodgy backs...