Old barn find I breathed new life in because gravel bikes are too expensive so fuck it I’ll make my own.
Just waiting for the last parts since i lost some plastic thingamabobs I need for the STIs.
Sometimes I think I should keep my bike shop like surgically clean so I don’t lose the small, crucially important plastic bits in the mess of parts and old boxes but alas, if your personal shop doesn’t look like you could outfit a frame with parts you find on the ground, is it even a shop?
i got a new back rim toward the end of the season last year, and I never brought it back to the guy to ‘true it’ after some riding like he said.
went for my first ride of 2022 this past weekend and it seemed fine :shrug-outta-hecks:
It’s probably okay. Spokes settled after a couple rides and tensions may differ slightly. Good builds don’t move much. True isnt so much important as balanced. Even spoke tension is a strong wheel. Pluck your spokes originating from the same side hub flange and they should have a similar tone. Like a guitar string.
So your spokes are connected to the rim, which connect to the hub. Every spoke on the rim goes to every other side of the hub, traditionally called drive and non-drive (the side with gears and side without gears). So the first spoke after the valve might go to the drive, the next spoke goes to the non-drive, next spoke to the drive, so on and so forth. The spokes that come out of the same side of the hub should have the same tone as one another. So all the spokes on the drive side of the hub should sound the same, and all the spokes coming out of the non-drive side should sound the same.
It never occured to me that we can talk about bikes here without bougie assholes being like “If you don’t spend $10,000, that’s not a bike”
One time I asked a bike forum for suggestions for some inexpensive disc brakes for my Shimano frame. Nothing but dunks. Its all I could afford at the time, and that’s still true. It’s a decent 29er for what I paid, and it has spots to attach after market stuff. I even found a free $150 salsa rim sitting by a garbage can in a rich neighborhood, so I put it on. I’m not above a frankenbike, and nobody should talk down to anyone just because they can’t afford a $1,000 Specialized.
I’m not gonna post a picture of my frankenbike for doxxing reasons but I found a bunch of discarded bikes at the dump (friend works there and let me take them) and I cobbled together a hideous looking but reliable bike.
It’s got a road frame, mountain fork, hybrid tires, riser bars, none of the derailleurs were any good so I just shortened the chain to make it effectively single speed, v brake in the back and disc brake in the front, mirrors and lights for added safety, and a cargo rack.
Basically every part of it is from a different bike so it’s a technicolor monstrosity also.
But it’s mine!
I’ve been looking for a vintage BMX bike to fix up with my nephew. Like a real wreck we can bring back to life. Tried yard sales and swap meets but no luck so far. Any advice on where I can find one?
maybe 2 separate motorbike and cycling threads
a thread about bikes and bike maintenance as well as a thread about motorbikes and motorbike maintenance
