sjcprojects
Orange 🍊 Fan
Actually the brake set up also makes me wonder about when centre pull brakes fell out of fashion on road bikes. Early 70s?
1960s 'Martyn Young' 531 build
- Thread starter sjcprojects
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sjcprojects
Orange 🍊 Fan
Here’s Bernard Thévenet still using centre-pulls in 1978, but then he is French, and riding a French bike…
Guinessisgoodforyou
Retro Wizard
My Eclipse Countryman had centre pulls in 1980/1
chickendrumsticks
Senior Retro Guru
Could this be the man? Emigrated from Ayrshire, I think. EDIT reading further I think he may be too young to be the man. It's just I can't accept "no results" fron that upstart Google!
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sjcprojects
Orange 🍊 Fan
Good effort, but also the wrong spelling of Martyn. It is frustrating getting no results, yes
. It does seem most likely the Martyn in question was the rider, not the builder, though? Unless they built and rode their own bike, but then why have any serial number at all? It’s all a mystery.Maybe built by an apprentice or something, is my only other guess.
sjcprojects
Orange 🍊 Fan
I've got nearly all the bits out of storage. The only parts here to make it over from the previous build are the brake levers which are the engraved version of the Dia Compe Gran Compe levers (plus the Wright saddle not pictured here). I've ordered a matching skewer end for the front wheel as I realise these don't match at the moment.
The bars are NOS Ambrosio Campione del Mondo.
The bars are NOS Ambrosio Campione del Mondo.
sjcprojects
Orange 🍊 Fan
Looking at the BB shell threads again, they are not looking too great despite being re-tapped, and in fact there's pretty much no thread at the edge on the drive-side.
The BB shell has presumably also been re-faced a few times as it's more like 66.5mm rather than the usual 68mm. Anyway, I've tried the BB I was planning to use, and that is not screwing in at all so it looks like I'll have to use one of those threadless 'frame saver' ones. A bit of shame seeing as I was hoping this build would be fairly period-correct, but as long as it all fits together and looks the part in the end that's okay. Fingers crossed.
I'm also not at all sure about the headset stack-height, so that could be another spanner in the works. We'll see...
The BB shell has presumably also been re-faced a few times as it's more like 66.5mm rather than the usual 68mm. Anyway, I've tried the BB I was planning to use, and that is not screwing in at all so it looks like I'll have to use one of those threadless 'frame saver' ones. A bit of shame seeing as I was hoping this build would be fairly period-correct, but as long as it all fits together and looks the part in the end that's okay. Fingers crossed.
I'm also not at all sure about the headset stack-height, so that could be another spanner in the works. We'll see...
sjcprojects
Orange 🍊 Fan
The lug-lining and decals are now done. Good God, I hate doing large decals, but I just about managed to get these down-tube ones on okay. Neither those or the lug lining are perfect by any means, but I think they're decent enough. Of course they never look straight in any photos, but actually they are reasonably straight in real life, honest...
I feel like I've put the 531 decal a bit too low which is annoying me every time I look at it but I'll come to terms with that eventually. Placement does vary in general with those, so it's not too egregious.
The headset stack height looks to be okay for the steerer if I've measured correctly, so I'll be installing that next.
I feel like I've put the 531 decal a bit too low which is annoying me every time I look at it but I'll come to terms with that eventually. Placement does vary in general with those, so it's not too egregious.
The headset stack height looks to be okay for the steerer if I've measured correctly, so I'll be installing that next.
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sjcprojects
Orange 🍊 Fan
Well, this build continues to be not entirely straightforward. I had measured the stack height for the headset correctly, but I’d forgotten to account for the brake cable hanger, and there is no room for it on the steerer. So, I either have to use a lower stack height headset, or ditch the idea of centre pull brakes.
Given how much I like the headset, and that I’m not really a fan of centre pulls anyway, I’m going to go back to side-pulls. Unfortunately this does mean that, as before, there will be an unused rear cable hanger on the frame, which is not ideal and slightly annoying- but I’m going to justify this by saying I’m keeping true to the history of the bike. Or something. The frame has also been drilled for recessed nut brakes, so it’s obviously been changed over time (perhaps this was done at the same time as adding the shifter bosses?).
On the plus side it seems like the Campagnolo bottom bracket will fit after all, although I’m by no means confident about how well the chainset will fit on it. Another potential sticking point.
It’s looking nice partly built up, anyway. And I managed to move the 531 decal up, so that is no longer nagging me.
Given how much I like the headset, and that I’m not really a fan of centre pulls anyway, I’m going to go back to side-pulls. Unfortunately this does mean that, as before, there will be an unused rear cable hanger on the frame, which is not ideal and slightly annoying- but I’m going to justify this by saying I’m keeping true to the history of the bike. Or something. The frame has also been drilled for recessed nut brakes, so it’s obviously been changed over time (perhaps this was done at the same time as adding the shifter bosses?).
On the plus side it seems like the Campagnolo bottom bracket will fit after all, although I’m by no means confident about how well the chainset will fit on it. Another potential sticking point.
It’s looking nice partly built up, anyway. And I managed to move the 531 decal up, so that is no longer nagging me.
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