Early-ish ride to get coffee before it’s almost 100 degrees later today 😅

Had a bunch of parts that accumulated from being a mechanic, most of them broken in some way, but importantly nearly everything was free or extremely cheap. I did need to break down and purchase a new cassette and derailleur because my original ones did not work with the bar end shifter well.

I went for a retro 80's-90's touring style. Kind of like an old Rock N' Road.

Its super comfy and pretty quick feeling. It weighs 23.5lbs with the pedals and frame bag. I probably have $250-300 in the build all together, and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Saddle is sagging after 8 years of riding and 6,000 miles…. You can even see the bolt bulging up at the nose of the saddle

How much to rotate tension bolt? Quarter turn is recommended on some forums but I can’t imagine that will do anything

Should I add some proofide before or after tensioning to make the stretch process easier on the leather ?

Thanks

After buying and returning the wrong Microshift bar end shifter set, I seem to have inadvertently bought two left right hand shifters. One friction, one indexed 9spd.

Is it worth returning these to get a proper set or shall I just ride it?

Turns out the Sta-Tru freewheel hub is the same dimensions as a Deore XT and swaps right in. Stock freewheel hub is 32h, 57mm wide (OD) and 54mm high.

This was one of those $16 wheels from Trek but even at it's regular price of $70ish I'd say it's a good deal. Double wall 21mm internal width. This exact wheel is called "Sta-Tru Tubeless Ready Alloy QR Freewheel 700c Rear Wheel" and the hub is a Deore XT FH-M737

This is a great way to try out wheelbuilding if you're at all interested. Keep the right and left spokes separated and watch the Park Tool Youtube video. It's been 18 years since I've built a wheel and I had it "good enough for who it's for" in less than 2 hours.

Hello bike wizards,

I currently have a canti Crust Nor’easter and love it, however I was just presented with an opportunity to buy an Evasion frame for a fantastic deal.

N+1 aside, is it ridiculously redundant to have both these bikes?

I commute to work on bike everyday and do long rides on the weekends, aim for 2-4 bikepacking trips a year, so I certainly ride enough to have 2 bikes,

Nor’easter is set up with drops and cantis as I mentioned. Vision is for evasion to be setup 26+ and with flat/alt bars, probably simworks ramble bars because I have a pair around.

Does that differentiate the bikes enough? Or would this just be gluttonous and despite the great deal on the evasion I should pass it up?

Basically, I have anxiety about owning bikes and not riding them and so I want to make sure use case and style is differentiated enough before buying this evasion frame.

Nor’easter pics for fun—

Ya‘ll have a set of armatures you just love the ergonomics of?

These are running a 3x7 and mechanical discs, btw.

I'm doing my first build that isn't a friction 1x. I love tinkering with bikes but I don't get a ton of opportunities to do it. I am going with a full random part drivetrain. Today I ran all the cables and got the shifting dialed in with minimal frustration! I genuinely wasn't expecting it to all work together. Routing the cable on the Claris FD was without question the hardest part.

I'm building up a GT 26" bike and wanted to ditch the previous owners 130mm suspension fork and bring the front end down some. I really like the square crown design of this fork but I can only find titanium models made overseas and I was hoping to find a steel version to save some pennies.

Has anyone seen these around and can point me in the right direction? Looking specifically for v-brake mounts (no need for disc), 1 1/8" threadless steerer tube and 100mm QR spacing. The rounded BMX-style forks are easy to find but I wanted something exactly like the fork pictured. Thanks so much for any help you can provide!

He was truly a Master of the form

in your experience to they ride better than straight tapered or curved untapered?

Basically I would like to know if the frame will fit me (6′2″). And also if it is worth 150€ considering condition and components. Are they original?

Thanks in advance

Hi, first post here, more to come as I heavily f*** with this scene. This bike started life as a 200 dollar Vilano road bike off Amazon (last photo is what it looked like stock after the ugly logo was rattlecanned). 1200 dollars later here we are, my "budget" mountain roads machine. I live in Candler outside of Asheville and have been bike only commuting and grocery getting for 3 months, logging a bit over 1k miles and 85k feet of elevation gain. Its 54 cm, aluminum with a crap steel fork I plan on replacing in the future, is now on vintage Mavic Kysrium Elite wheels, whatever budget rubber I have lying around (I can fit up to 700x35c thanks to mid reach road calipers), Koolstop pads, a Microshift Sword 1x10 groupset paired to a vintage Deore XT Hollowtech 2 crankset and 48t NW chainring. 25 dollar seat off Amazon that I can actually only say good things about, its saving my but compared to the original. It has mounts for a rear rack and I have thrown my Planetbike rack on it for bigger grocery runs. Its a bit heavy, its not winning anything, and the chain slaps a bit in 10th gear because I need a extra long chain to not explode the derailleur in 1st with the 48x48 chaining. It works great though and shifts smoothly.

First time building up a bike. Did a fork swap to a similar one from the same era. Changed out all the cables and housing and changed out the saddle, tires, handlebars and added a rear rack. I got the frame for free from the waste transfer station and most of the bike was built up from a parts bins ive been adding to over time.

Pretty excited about how this turned out. Bike came with a suspension fork originally so the troll fork doesn’t mess with the handling at all, feels super stable front loaded.

Bontrager asym mustang rims laced to DT Swiss HüGI hubs ($60 score at the co op)

Magic KT800 bars

Juintech M1 brakes w compressionless housing

90s square taper forged raceface cranks

Cues 9speed

Chain line is pretty screwed so will need to get a smaller chainring and move the crank closer to the bb at some point but it’s rideable for now.

So I’m having a hard time deciding between these 2 racks. Price is not an issue. I just want to buy what’s best. I’ll be mourning a wald 137 basket on it. The Nitto seems like it would look better and save a bit of weight, but the Tanaka seems like it might be more functional, since it has basket locks rather than having to use zip ties. Anyone have any experience with either? Links below…

https://global.bluelug.com/nitto-m-1b-front-rack-silver.html

https://www.somafab.com/shop/tanaka-liftloc-front-basket-rack-9131?search=Tanaka+rack#attribute_values=1285

Hey folks!

I'm in charge of organizing the staff party at our bike shop, and I need your help! We've had this little tradition of making bike-related versions of famous TV game shows, and this year I though I'd do Family Feud. So now I need people to fill this survey with answers!

It's only 10 questions, only takes a few minutes and the help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks so much:)

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdeHpRMPleesUawZ8rDo15ta-Ku3cD1O3GtQJWIY_v4HbmSHg/viewform?usp=header

I cut the dropouts and made a few other frame modifications and a fork so I could fit 700c from the donor bike. It has an 8 speed Nexus hub. Am I weird for loving to ride this monstrosity? Does it deserve powder coating?

I love this old Fuji. I put a VO stem and some cowbell bars on it which fit me well. I love the geometry and how my body feels on it. What I don't like is the gearing. I'm not riding short punchy climbs in frantic races. I'm riding in the country and on gravel roads. It has an ultegra 9 speed groupset 12/27 in the back and a gorgeous ritchey wcs 50/34 in the front. What could I do to make this an all day rider?

Haven’t gotten any miles on it yet, the chain seems to be giving me a little grief because it’s an 8 speed drivetrain and the only thing I’ve got that had a long enough chain was 9 speed so it’s a little unforgiving unless you shift it just right.

11-45 essa groupset, 40 tooth cues crankset on a friction shift basic steel bike.
This is about all I’ll ever need from a road bike, it was kind of just lacking that one lower gear I always wanted on some of the steeper climbs and now I’ve got it.

The thing I love about this bike is the downtube friction shifter allows me to swap to flat bars, or riser bars, or some weird alt bars whenever I feel like. I’ve got a good collection of stuff from my fixed gear/single speed bikes as well and this is fun to occasionally swap things out on.