I’ve been waiting for what seems like forever to get my wheel set from Mello Velo (the local bike shop). I’ve had pretty much all of the other parts together for a week now, but a bike isn’t a bike without two wheels. Yesterday they finally came in.
You’d think that would be all good news but not everything is right with the world. Lets start with the good news though: I’ve got most of the parts that I need to build this thing now.
The cranks are Sugino and they were recommended by the bike shop. The tools required to install the bottom bracket and cranks on this thing are completely different from a BMX so the bike shop did the install. The accessories include a pair of Shadow Conspiracy BMX platform pedals (cheap plastic ones), origin 8 seat, chain and bull horn bars.
Now the bad news: the rear wheel (that big beautiful B43) got scratched up when an unnamed person at the bike shop was building them. And it isn’t just a scratch or two, they’re marked up in a huge way. I’ve got no experience building wheels but it must have taken some serious effort to do this type of damage:
I’m getting a replacement and I’m tempted to try building it myself but without a truing stand there isn’t much I can do. Either way this may work out to my benefit and here’s why. I purchased the front rim with a breaking surface. The intent was to mirror the other fixie setups I’ve seen with a break on the front wheel. The Volume Fu-Manchu forks aren’t drilled for a break but putting a hole in them isn’t a big deal. The problem is this:
The distance between the breaking surface on the rim and the location where the break mount belongs is huge on this fork. Comparing it to the fork on my Raleigh it’s nearly an inch and a half taller. I’ve heard of “long reach” breaks but that’s a really long way. The frame does have a hole to mount a break in the rear however but since I’ve had the B43 laced to the rear wheel I can’t (no breaking surface).
So when my replacement B43 comes in I’m going to have it laced to the front rim and for now I’ll keep the damaged B43 on my rear wheel. After riding around for a bit on it today without any breaks I really want to try going breakless for a while. If I decide it’s just too hairy to ride around without any breaks I’ll lace the deep v to the rear wheel and put a break back there. Here’s how it looks now:
The handle bars in the picture aren’t the bull horns from the picture above. I have a Fly BMX stem on there now and the size difference between road bike handlebars and BMX bars is about 1/8″. The bull horn bars won’t fit in this stem so I grabbed some FBM handlebars from my box of old parts.
The bars are way too high, the riding position is straight up beach cruiser with these bars. It’s kinda funny but not something that’s gonna last. I’ve got my eye on an Origin 8 Classic Pro Stem that’ll solve this problem. When I get the bars sorted and the toe-straps I ordered come in I’ll put up some final pictures. Oh yeah and the top of the fork still needs to be trimmed and I need to set a star nut in the fork too. Always more work to be done.
technomasochism 