Six jours

Well, all I can say is that I have extensive experience with Stronglight needle-bearing headsets on bikes from full-out track racers to exact copies of old French randos and have never noticed even the slightest difference in steering effort compared with standard ball-bearing headsets. I suppose it might be noticeable on a test stand or something, but in real life...

THEJAPINO

The do-it-all Schwinn is very capable of grinding. I'd like to fit some Hetres in there but that won't happen unless I get the chainstays dimpled.

Gravel grinding sounds like too much fun, I wish I knew where I can do that here in the Bay.

koolerb

Love it!

obrentharris 

The Marin Headlands and Tennessee Valley in Marin; Fort Hunter Liggett or Arroyo Seco South of Salinas are good places to start. The old Railroad Grade from Mill Valley up to Mt. Tamalpais is another good one.

Brent

THEJAPINO

Hmmmm, I see. I have a couple friends that I want to bring along with road gearing (tall). Which of those trails would be closer to the Golden Gate Bridge while being relatively flat? I'd like to ride out from the city and into a gravel road and back.

obrentharris 

"Relatively flat" is difficult to find in Southern Marin. Tennessee Valley might be your best bet.
Brent

simpleton.

Looks good RFC!I think the gold is money! Mine was repainted as well. I personally wouldn't have gone black but whatever it works good with silver components. I might have to give those Paselas try But right now I'm trying to build the bike fund back up so I can buy a Surly Straggler I'm nervous about taking this thing on longer gravel rides because the headset is giving me problems... I dont want to get stranded in BFE.

shoota 

Finally got it done.




- '84 Trek 610 frameset (Thanks #dvsjes28 and thanks #miamijim for the help!)
- 9s Ultegra brifters, derailluers
- FSA 50/34 crankset
- OEM Cannondale CaadX wheelset with 700x35c Conti CycloXKing tires
- Long reach 600 brakes with Kool-Stop Cross Pads

Can't wait to get outside!

azgreg

Looks great shoota.

Barrettscv 

Very nice. Converting from 27 to 700 wheel rims along with the longer chainstays of the 610 must create plenty of room for Cyclocross tires.

shoota 

Thanks!

Exactly. 38s fit up front with room to spare and fit the rear as long as the wheel is true. I played it safe and found these tires for cheap on ebay so I went with it.

WNG

Very nice work! Looks fantastic, I love the color!

shoota 

I do too! The whole build reminds me of the 2014 Surly Stragglers that are coming out soon. Minus the disc brakes

cyclotoine

Well it's keeper of the flame construction and I may eventually go to a square taper crank and older 9 speed derailleurs. Going to get some XTR 965 hubs (nice polished ones that are then anodized a greayish blue with center lock rotors) 32 hole to stan's ztr arch 29er times running tubeless, hopefull with the maxxis crossmarks if I can get them to seal up. I will likely switch out the moustache bars for salsa woodchipper IIs and some TRP levers and a nicer stem. I can't decide weather to go with silver stem, headset and post collar or get a red collar and keep the red headset.

Finally, the fork has to go back to the builder for modification as I find the blade deflection is a little much so hoping for a reinforcing tang going from the tab up the back of the fork leg.

Also I have decided I would rather the shift cable go on the under side of the top tube so I will remove the shift braze-ons and route them under the TT and add a pulley for the FD so I can still go back to a compact double with Dura-ace 7700 derailleur if I want. I will do those mods myself and add a bit more silver around the bottle bosses as there are some gaps I am not happy about. I built this at UBI in March. I also have a singular peregrine fork for it, but it does not have the good tire clearance.

miamijim

Shoota...it turned out nice. Let me know how it rides.

Italuminium

Nice Shoota! I know you thoroughly went over every little detail of this build here and it shows . I bet it rides great.

shoota 

Thanks guys. I plan on getting out to a singletrack either tomorrow morning or saturday morning. I'm sure it'll be a blast!

noglider 

shoota, you've built another fine machine.

gomango

+1

Way to go!

gomango

Count me in.

I love it.

Who's the builder?

cyclotoine

Ahearn built the fork. I went against the advice of the course instructor at UBI who said he wouldn't let us build disc forks in class because they didn't have the supplies for it. So I got one custom. I wish I had gone with a 5 piece fillet brazed segmented straight blade fork (like on old school Fat Chances), but I wanted to keep costs low and use the fork crown I got in class for free, this allowed Ahearn to give me a deal on a raw fork (i do the filing). He wanted to use a different crown because he said these ones flex too much. However, the crown isn't so much a problem as is the blades, way to small, but that is what I get for sticking with this crown. BTW, I believe this is the exact reason why rawland stopped using this crown for disc forks, it's not a good combo.. Oh well. On day when I have my own frame building gear I will build another fork for it.

gomango

Very distinctive frameset.

If I were to build one, I would likely go in a similar direction.

I hope I don't offend, but your beauty has a bit of an rSogn vibe.

I came close to buying one, but I couldn't quite get a fit.

FWIW The fork does look great.

Sixty Fiver

Sweet build.

You probably know that Chris Igleheart is back in Portland... he was the builder of those Fat Chance forks and still offers them.

cyclotoine

Thanks, I am pretty happy with it, but it is a first and there are definite mistakes. I will file the joints and get it powder coated, probably metallic silver. I have to move the braze-ons first though. The rear tire clearance on the chainstays is not as good as I would like and I dimpled them after the build to get the clearance which is a bit of a kludge. I wanted to be able to run a compact double. In retrospect I should have said "eff-it" and built it for triple only, when am I going to run a compact double on this? It is for seriously rugged mine roads where I will need the granny. I know it has the rawland vibe and I am cool with that. I like those bikes, but I wanted 29" wheels.

The things that make this bike special is the 74 degree seat tube. I run 180mm cranks and my femurs are a little abnormally short (long story) so I need the steep angle. The other thing is the head tube. It's big baby at 215mm. I hate lots of spacers, even though I have a bunch on there now. That is my big hang-up with surlys... give me slope and a big head tube. Spacers are ugly.

cyclotoine

I know, I was there in his shop and Joseph was like... "You could have chris make you a fork"... should have gone that route. I didn't know he was the maker for FC but it crossed my mind as a possibility. Makes sense now. Chris was riding a pretty bad ass monster cross too.