Yes the headset with postage and now custom charges came to more than I wanted, but the most annoying thing? A guy I know emails me today and tells me he has found in his personal stash a box of 12 french threaded headsets and will email me a photo soon…nooooooo! Apart from it could be cheaper, he will now tempt me to buy some as “just in case” spares…want me to message you if does? Hang on is this even legal, “pushing” bike parts? Lol.

Yes I agree, it does look like something to hang a chain on, I have never had a frame with it myself. Was it an add on or standard?

Come on, some more photos of the bikes!

The plan is to run into debt collecting parts, build it up as a dry build, round the block to test frame straightness (I have used string to check frame but you never know. I had an old Honda 750 I build up once from bits, went down the road and you required two hands on the left bar to hold it in a straight line, strip down again and replaced frame!) frame repairs if required then yes, I will re-paint, which is a shame as the quality of the paint that is left is amazing.

I do my own wheels as well, I have just built a pair of campy c/w Ambrosio Montreal tubular rims with butted stainless spokes which fit the time era. I have some Gipiemme hubs that I want to build onto clinchers because I have these hubs on my Gitane, but thought they could play nice and share them if I wanted to be able to fix a puncture.

I used to build a lot of classic motorbikes when I was younger (cue hovis add music) so got into building my own wheels then, in fact I am going on a Cyctech wheel building course the end of the month, I like learning and want to see if there is a better way than I do it! When I eventually retire (if they stop moving retirement age up) I will build wheels, I get great pleasure from it, everyone is on the spectrum…..