non-fixie 

Well, I felt it needed the alliteration.

Anyway, yesterday evening our PM announced a new, more or less total, lock-down. Until January 19th. I knew it was coming, but felt depressed anyway. So, what does a BF member do when they feel depressed? They go build a bike!

I have a bike for pretty much any conceivable occasion, but I did not have one yet specifically for this one: a dreary, salty, wet and cold Christmas without friends or relatives, which is exactly what I'll be having this year.

Most shops are closed as of today, so I will have to make do with what I have in my bins and hanging in the rafters. My plan is to build something akin to a gravel bike, but much cheaper and already rusty so I won't have to worry about that.

I took the afternoon off today and went "shopping" in the attic, the garage, and a few other hidden places where I keep my stash. This is what I came up with so far:

• a Vista Islena frame (bought the bike cheaply many years ago as a parts donor, but kept the rusty frame as it's a nice size, and has vertical dropouts)
• a set of warped 7-speed Mavic/Exage touring wheels (from an old Koga-Miyata) I hope I'll be able to true into a rideable shape
• a set of Sora 7-speed brifters (should work well with mittens)
• a set of used Kenda 700 x 40C tires
• Philippe Professional bars (fairly shallow, and with a bit of a flare)
• a Brooks C-17 (to save the nicer leather saddles from the expected weather and road conditions)

Just before dark I made a rough mock-up to see if it all fits, and it looks promising:



Tires clear the frame nicely. I might try to squeeze in a pair of mudguards, but it will be a really tight fit:





The cockpit:



Tonight I'll be looking to put together a compact crankset and see if I have a long cage SIS derailleur.

So, what color bar tape?

Narhay

I used to be a black or white bar tape guy. Then I did red on 2 bikes and that was nice. For this one, black.

Wildwood

The paint looks good, rust appears limited to fork chrome.
Narrower tires for the mudguards, nothing worse than a stuck rock in narrower clearances, or rubbing noise/wear.
Not a true beater, fwiw. Not with a carbon saddle. But you know that.
Have fun!
Happy Christmas.

Our bubble of 6 family (2 households) will make for a much smaller set of Holiday celebrants than usual.
But it has been getting smaller for quite a number of years since retiring. That's Life with aging + pandemic.

edit: bar tape = depends. Ridden a lot in Winter = black. Ridden only periodically, then a different (not light colored) wrap. My wet, fendered bike runs brown Newbaum's.

Rolling 22mm Conti Sprinters to get under the Handsome fenders. Not a good fender line on rear. Time to file the hole on brake bridge attachment bracket.

tyler_fred

It would look good with a Bright Brisk Blizzard Blue Bar tape..

3speedslow

Just be sure to tell Mrs. non-fixie that because you have her, you are still the luckiest man around!

Nice lockdown build. I am going through my second Covid test self isolation period.

uncle uncle

So what kinda pipes does a Vista Islena have? I'm not familiar with the model. For my very similar build/usage (mostly gravel riding, until I blew my cheap gravel tire, and couldn't get a replacement) I used some sort of carpet or drapery edging material. It was a dusty light green way too wide tape on a red bicycle... that's something you can get away with in an era when one cares more about riding than about showing.

artistic tilt or accidental snapshot... you decide.

veganbikes

Ahh, alliteration, almost always awesome and at ages awkwardly average. Also alliteration as an article alleviates anguish and agony. Another apparatus as awesome as alliteration also amplify's affluent alien abilities accordingly although analyzing all abbreviations advertises an abject abyss.

juvela

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most handy to have those voyts; no need to unpressurize the '40's to get them in n' oot...


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79pmooney

BOVID-19. The curse of the dairy industry. Where COVIC-19 meets the bovine.

On a (hopefully much more) serious note - fenders. Consider the River City mods. https://www.rivercitybicycles.com/pr...ckets-4486.htm

I don't have them but I came up with my own nearly identical one for the rear fender of the bike in my logo photo 7 years ago and use it every winter.

Just saw you are in the Netherlands. A Portland, OR, USA bike shop isn't all that convenient. But the photos on the web page are good. Making your own from old fender and bike rack parts isn't hard. (I used a bike rack tang with a slot for one and a piece of 1" X 1/8" flat bar for the other. (I wanted super stiff for the rearmost bracket as that portion of the fender is cut again to elongate it for my very long horizontal dropout that I use all of. A fix gear issue your bike will never see.)

non-fixie 

... which she keeps reminding me of. You're right, I am very lucky in that respect.

Thanks. In March, when everything ground to a halt, I found it rather refreshing: no planes overhead, no cars in the streets. Only silence and fresh air. Like how the world must have felt a couple of centuries ago. But after nine months the skies and the streets are not as quiet anymore, and economy-related worries are getting bigger. I feel I need the diversion this time.

non-fixie 

Finished the bike for now, and took it on a couple of test rides today.

The wheels pictured above didn't survive my truing efforts, and I ditched the Kenda tires in favor of a set of Conti's. Also got a little carried away with the black theme I'm afraid:

non-fixie 

Thanks for the tip! I might need it, as these 37mm Conti's are even wider than the 40mm Kenda's:

3speedslow

Nice work! The black bits stand in well.