A colleague of mine who ordinarily rides fixed gear finally relented and agreed to let me build him up a geared bike. Something simple, classic looking and “no fenders, porteur rack, no vintage french gears or other wacky beardo shit”. Just some gears, upright bars for around town to commute on and nothing too fussy or prissy. Oh … and he’s tall !!
Lucky to locate a suitable sized Rossin frameset from SanEsteban. The rest was easy … indexed thumb shifter from the good peep’s at Micro-Shift, Nitto stem and seatpost, no-name risers, DiPell leather bar wrap, for the cockpit. Gilles Berthoud saddle. Grand Bois Papillion rims, C Record front hub, Ultegra rear hub and mech + brakes.
Very pretty Sugino Super 75 track cranks in a black chrome finish (they go from glassy bronze to black depending on the light) paired with a Campy 111mm Centaur BB gave it a good chainline for the 130mm rear. NOS Sugino 42t 3/32" chainring gives a useful spread of gears (49" - 93.7"). Importantly, the good chainline and chain length/pulley cage tension meant there was no chain drop on the 1 x 9 set up but we fitted a Paul chain keeper just in case.
Early-mid 90’s Campy headset just for looks, White Indo pedals for kicks, and a sweet looking nitto R80 cage just to finish it off right. Low key looking bike until you take a second glance. Rides nice, fits well for the new owner. Sorry I don’t have any better overall pics (just the 2 iphone pics) but I’ll post them when/if I see it again. The 1 x 9 set-up with a thumby and upright bars make for pretty comfy towny. In fact, I vowed to build up something for myself with modern parts very soon. Have cake and eat it.
Question: Those are the caliper/canti pull (FL750) levers right? My LBS believes that the Oz importer is only bringing in the linear pull (CL740) version, but I had seen them on Oz ebay. The all silver version for VO are nice too, but not for this build.
p.s. It might look a bit (a lot !!) different to the one above, and I’ll make some fenders out of kitchen foil for you, with a helmet to match that’s fashioned to look like Warren Beaty’s hair from the movie Shampoo
Appropriately, this is a track crank that we opted to fit with a 3/32" chainring so to make it capable of working with a 9 speed chain. Maybe all those road frames and parts that were appropriated for use on fixies has seen the tide turn. Track parts for roadies is the new fixed?
Titanium rails, plastic cradle and nose piece, and still only 425g even with a genuine thick traditional leather top.
That’s weight weenie beardo … also known as Weirdo™
Beautiful build. Geared w/ risers is the new fixed/cx/porteur/black.
Guess he couldnt have his arm twisted into a wald 137 on the front?
As an extra question - I always through V-Brake levers pulled too little cable to make them work well with normal calipers? Unless the ones in the pic isnt V specific?
Nice bicycle, thought it was gonna have a king headset by the thread titile, but very nice all the same.
Pretty swish commuter/cruiser, be great for sunday rambles.
Also, MC5 - Kick out the Jams, great song/album.
My LP is one of the censored versions, “Kick out the the Jams brothers and sisters”, poor overdub.
That is hilarious, especially as “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers” became such a famous catchcry and a part of why the band was considered seminal in the world of Punk, Metal, Idie, Garage etc etc
