It’s alive…..

After a brief wait for delivery of the last bits, Frank is up and about and is pretty damn good so far.

The assembly was pretty smooth, just the short delay whilst Amazon’s partner stores got sorted out over the holiday weekend.  I managed to save the headset bearings with the addition of new ball races for £3.50 and the bottom bracket just got a good cleanup.

Frankenbike

I spent a while on Sheldon Brown’s site to get the gear ratio sorted – after a lot of experimeting on my commute bike I found a compromise gear, calculated the gain ratio, counted the teeth on the front chainring that I would keep (48) and converted that to a number of teeth on the drive sprocket (17).  The old back gearset got thrown aside and replaced with the single sprocket and spacers.  The front chainring was held together with rivets which were drilled out to lose the middle and granny gears.  The result feels a little flimsy and is well spaced out from the bottom bracket so may well be upgraded sometime soon.

A new saddle was fixed to the old seat post after the flaky chrome was wire brushed, sanded and painted black. It could all have got a bit dark and gloomy so I spent ages polishing up anything vaguely bright and got some brilliant handlebar grips from Halfords with shiny rings on them as highlights – gotta have a bit of bling on there somewhere.

So, it’s built, but how does it ride?  Straight up it’s interesting to be back on 26 inch rims again, I’m a bit more leaning forward on this frame and they look small compared to to the view from the Crosstrail and its 700c rims. The ride is really good – I took it down to Brentford for a tryout and all was fine, the gear ratio is about right and the best bit is how solid it feels.  Hit a bump and there is no rattles or clangs like I get on the other bike.  Some adjustment will be needed on the headset and maybe on the centrepull brakes as there is a bit of judder under front braking, but that can be sorted.  Above all, I could easily get hooked on the simple ruggedness of it.  A big smile is the net result.

Clean and very lean

Accounting for it so far and the only essential thing for the conversion was the rear sprocket – 13 quid from Amazon complete with spacers, an excellent deal.  Other stuff has been added as replacement or upgrade – tyres (Schawlbe City Jet puncture resistant at 8 quid each from Halfords under their amazing 3 for 2 online deal) and tubes, seat, bar grips and a BMX chain.  Total parts around £50.  Lastly there was the paint at about £30.  The condition of the source bike may make some of this unnecessary, but the whole thing came in under a hundred but with a lot of effort to add to the investment.

What’s next? Maybe replace the headset if this one can’t be made to work well enough, possibly swap out the bottom bracket, chainring and cranks for something more substantial and some pedals with straps to complete the look.  After that, well let Alex ride this one off to college and start the hunt for a vintage road bike with Reynolds 531 lightweight frame and a bag full of potential…..

Advertisement