So, with the story of the Fire Mountain well and truly over, we move on to a new bike.
It's a 1989 Saracen Tufftrax.
Annoyingly I didn't take any photos of it as collected as well, I was expecting to just make it work, and leave it be.
It was just a standard fairly well used Tufftrax anyway, nothing special.
As bought, it had:
First, I looked to the bars - it had a flatbar on it, that came right off - unlike my Fire Mountain the stem would let me put whatever bar I wanted on - wahey, so on with one of my risers. Added some old XT canti levers, my MT62 thumbies, and some white lock on grips I had lying about. The white grips looked good
In any case I couldn't have used the old flatbar anyway as one of the lever/shifter units was broken, and the other one was stuck on the bar as the end had a nice lip on it :facepalm:
Next I got one of the cantis and the front mech working (the original intention with this bike was cabling practice), followed by some learning about rear mechs, alignment screws, and sticking a chain on (don't you just hate those Shimano links? SRAM chains are infinitely easier to put on).
I gave it a brief try with no rear gear cable and one poorly working canti, and well, I don't like Biopace rings :facepalm:
So, the bike sat for a bit. It needed cables, and tyres, and maybe cranks. The pads on the old Exage brakes were badly cracked (or was it the brake itself?), and I really didn't want canti brakes again after an unfortunate interface with a taxi last year, so I'd probably want new brakes and levers too. I had to wonder if anything at all on the bike had ever been replaced aside from the bar, stem and seat.
Now, as well as needing a new hack/bike I can just not care about and ride like crazy, I've been wanting a cruiser/klunker type bike for a while, but they're way out of my student budget and decent quality ones (Konas?) just don't come up that often. And besides if I did get something like a Humu I'd be too scared to ride it
I thought, seeing as I need to buy some tyres anyway, why not get some other stuff too, and make this into a 'fun bike' I dont have to worry too much about? Uni's over for summer and I've got a load of clothes and assorted tat I can eBay to raise the necessary funds, and nothing at all to do.
So why not see what we can do with the Tufftrax? I already had the idea of cruiser bars on an MTB in my head from my failed previous attempt, and the Tufftrax was a better bike for the job - sort of heavy, curved blade fork, and more traditional geometry than Kona's sloping top tubes.
So I headed to eBay and with the money I managed to raise I got myself some silver Deore V-brakes (M510, same as on my Cindy; I don't fancy cantis again), spacers, a cog, a blue chain tensioner, another
roll cruiser bar... and some 26" Schwalbe Crazy Bobs. Decided to use the LX M560 cranks I had lying about - good thing I forgot to get back to someone I was supposed to sell them to, I guess :facepalm: I'm not that well organised. I think the chainrings were done for anyway.
The seat can stay though
I started by putting on the bars, levers and grips, and roughly setting up the drivetrain. Here it is at that stage, as the Cindy looks on:
The chainline was way too close to the rear triangle as I was using the original chainrings on the cranks and I didn't have any singlespeed bolts. (I was using the big ring in its original position so I had the cog right out at the end of the hub - don't worry, I know that's a bad idea - just wanted to get a feel for it/mock it up). I've got a new ring and some bolts on the way now to remedy this - I'll be using one ring, in the cranks' centre position.
With the driveline pretty much sorted I went away on a last minute jaunt to London for a few days, I adore it there. When I got back I moved on to the tyres - and here comes another facepalm.
I used the original Alesa rimmed wheels at first - but I just couldn't get the tyres to sit properly. I just kept battling with the front one, trying every trick in the book.
Hm.
I got as far as having both wheels on the bike and basically the whole thing mocked up (sans brakes) for about five minutes, and it looked awesome, though I'd probably not have gone for black rims given the choice. However, no matter! This was when I worked out that the straight walled rims were a problem :facepalm: so it was back off again. I dug out the (conveniently all silver bar the rear hub) wheels I'd taken off my Cinder Cone when I put some nicer ones on it that suited it better.
Front one, nice recently built wheel (and the hub matches my brakes!), done in no time, no problems. Rear one, it's the original wheel from the Cindy, complete with original 8 speed cassette. Lockring's seized on. :facepalm:
So I did the front one, and stuck it on the bike, bolted on the v-brakes, and cabled up the front one.
That's better! The Crazy Bobs look a ton better with a contrasting rim to point out how silly big they are (and yes they clear everything - just).
Got the old man to heat gun the lockring off the rear wheel, no worries as I somehow have a few spare lockrings anyway :?: , and the cassette was scrap. Axle's out at the moment to repack the wheel bearings as it's way overdue, and the heat's going to have messed with the grease. The tyre is on properly after some wrestling, Crazy Bobs don't go on easy with the weird lip.
I'll get that back on and sorted when my new chainring comes (no point until I can set the chainline). But it's tantalisingly close to being out and about over summer - I think it's going to be a lot of fun. It's a bike to go out and have fun on, to ride, that's basic and easy to maintain, but looks cool and different too - I feel there's not that much love for lower-end bikes on here, and there's no fun in having one and keeping standard unless it's in A1 condition - so they're perfect for something like this.
It's a 1989 Saracen Tufftrax.
Annoyingly I didn't take any photos of it as collected as well, I was expecting to just make it work, and leave it be.
It was just a standard fairly well used Tufftrax anyway, nothing special.
As bought, it had:
- the original wheels and tyres
- a Bontrager threadless stem adapter, stem and bar
- Exage 500LX mechs
- 500LX crank arms with 28/38/48 Biopace rings
- Exage plastic cantis
- Shimano STI plastic trigger shifter/brake lever combos
- a funky blue snakeskin effect seat
First, I looked to the bars - it had a flatbar on it, that came right off - unlike my Fire Mountain the stem would let me put whatever bar I wanted on - wahey, so on with one of my risers. Added some old XT canti levers, my MT62 thumbies, and some white lock on grips I had lying about. The white grips looked good
In any case I couldn't have used the old flatbar anyway as one of the lever/shifter units was broken, and the other one was stuck on the bar as the end had a nice lip on it :facepalm:
Next I got one of the cantis and the front mech working (the original intention with this bike was cabling practice), followed by some learning about rear mechs, alignment screws, and sticking a chain on (don't you just hate those Shimano links? SRAM chains are infinitely easier to put on).
I gave it a brief try with no rear gear cable and one poorly working canti, and well, I don't like Biopace rings :facepalm:
So, the bike sat for a bit. It needed cables, and tyres, and maybe cranks. The pads on the old Exage brakes were badly cracked (or was it the brake itself?), and I really didn't want canti brakes again after an unfortunate interface with a taxi last year, so I'd probably want new brakes and levers too. I had to wonder if anything at all on the bike had ever been replaced aside from the bar, stem and seat.
Now, as well as needing a new hack/bike I can just not care about and ride like crazy, I've been wanting a cruiser/klunker type bike for a while, but they're way out of my student budget and decent quality ones (Konas?) just don't come up that often. And besides if I did get something like a Humu I'd be too scared to ride it
I thought, seeing as I need to buy some tyres anyway, why not get some other stuff too, and make this into a 'fun bike' I dont have to worry too much about? Uni's over for summer and I've got a load of clothes and assorted tat I can eBay to raise the necessary funds, and nothing at all to do.So why not see what we can do with the Tufftrax? I already had the idea of cruiser bars on an MTB in my head from my failed previous attempt, and the Tufftrax was a better bike for the job - sort of heavy, curved blade fork, and more traditional geometry than Kona's sloping top tubes.
So I headed to eBay and with the money I managed to raise I got myself some silver Deore V-brakes (M510, same as on my Cindy; I don't fancy cantis again), spacers, a cog, a blue chain tensioner, another
roll cruiser bar... and some 26" Schwalbe Crazy Bobs. Decided to use the LX M560 cranks I had lying about - good thing I forgot to get back to someone I was supposed to sell them to, I guess :facepalm: I'm not that well organised. I think the chainrings were done for anyway.The seat can stay though
I started by putting on the bars, levers and grips, and roughly setting up the drivetrain. Here it is at that stage, as the Cindy looks on:
The chainline was way too close to the rear triangle as I was using the original chainrings on the cranks and I didn't have any singlespeed bolts. (I was using the big ring in its original position so I had the cog right out at the end of the hub - don't worry, I know that's a bad idea - just wanted to get a feel for it/mock it up). I've got a new ring and some bolts on the way now to remedy this - I'll be using one ring, in the cranks' centre position.
With the driveline pretty much sorted I went away on a last minute jaunt to London for a few days, I adore it there. When I got back I moved on to the tyres - and here comes another facepalm.
I used the original Alesa rimmed wheels at first - but I just couldn't get the tyres to sit properly. I just kept battling with the front one, trying every trick in the book.
Hm.
I got as far as having both wheels on the bike and basically the whole thing mocked up (sans brakes) for about five minutes, and it looked awesome, though I'd probably not have gone for black rims given the choice. However, no matter! This was when I worked out that the straight walled rims were a problem :facepalm: so it was back off again. I dug out the (conveniently all silver bar the rear hub) wheels I'd taken off my Cinder Cone when I put some nicer ones on it that suited it better.
Front one, nice recently built wheel (and the hub matches my brakes!), done in no time, no problems. Rear one, it's the original wheel from the Cindy, complete with original 8 speed cassette. Lockring's seized on. :facepalm:
So I did the front one, and stuck it on the bike, bolted on the v-brakes, and cabled up the front one.
That's better! The Crazy Bobs look a ton better with a contrasting rim to point out how silly big they are (and yes they clear everything - just).
Got the old man to heat gun the lockring off the rear wheel, no worries as I somehow have a few spare lockrings anyway :?: , and the cassette was scrap. Axle's out at the moment to repack the wheel bearings as it's way overdue, and the heat's going to have messed with the grease. The tyre is on properly after some wrestling, Crazy Bobs don't go on easy with the weird lip.
I'll get that back on and sorted when my new chainring comes (no point until I can set the chainline). But it's tantalisingly close to being out and about over summer - I think it's going to be a lot of fun. It's a bike to go out and have fun on, to ride, that's basic and easy to maintain, but looks cool and different too - I feel there's not that much love for lower-end bikes on here, and there's no fun in having one and keeping standard unless it's in A1 condition - so they're perfect for something like this.
I just haven't done the brake cable yet, there aren't any issues - just decided to quit while I was ahead as I've got the drivetrain and chainline sorted, and the light was failing. I'll get it done over the weekend most likely 
