Sidetrack

Ok get your sleuthing caps on.

This old geezer turned up last week (the bike not the fella who brought it) and we’re having trouble identifying it in detail.

Click on the pic for some more.

We know it dates from 1940’s France when there were numerous small frame builders for the 1000’s of touriste riders in the country. The lugs in this picture have ‘Nervex 73′ cut into the top and bottom which denotes the angle in degrees of the head tube. It has Le Cyclo cranks, an Atax stem and a Radios front lamp. It’s had a makeover since new, probably two because the wheels are only a few years old, the front and rear callipers are different and the saddle is new.

Any information about this vintage bicycle would be greatly received.

Firth Cycles in France…well not quite. The limited edition (very limited) chainstay protector made it to France on the bike of Julie Jagger; a good friend of the shoppe and quality mountain biker.

Julie stayed in Chatel right near the France/Switzerland border. There were 7 of them in total all hailing from the excellent Rough Riders Mountain Bike Club and were guided by the good folks at www.holygrailmtb.com & went to take part in the event Passportes du Soleil.

Greetings all.

Check out this ultra rare Momo Dart we had in last summer. Yeah I know it takes me ages to get this stuff online but this one is about to come up for sale so watch this space for details.

I know what you’re thinking “Momo make steering wheels for racing cars don’t they?” Yes they do but this bicycle comes from MomoDesign the Italian design house set up after the steering wheel business was sold to the Americans a few years back (more on that story here).

I’ve tried to find more information on this bicycle but it’s not been easy. Luckily for us this Dart has a Sturmey Archer three speed hub which as you know has a date of manufacture on it (yeah you knew that right??). This one says 1995 on the shell.

The frame is steel with custom made swept back bars also in steel. You’ll notice the saddle, grips and seat clamp lever are a light beech colour and there’s a very good reason for that…

…the rims you’re looking at here are wooden.

Made by Cerchi Ghisallo in Italy they are beautifully made and you can really see the craftsmanship that goes into every pair. Getting the Schwalbe Delta Cruisers on them was a bugger though.

If you’ve got any more information on this bike or are interested in buying it please get in touch.

Happy days.

How nice is this?

click on the photo for more images

Mate of mine Mark Thurston (and custom tool maker for the shoppe) has built this beautiful cruiser for his missis to pootle around the VW shows they frequent. Parts have been sourced from a variety of places like Ridelow in Manchester, the internet and crucially some retired old 20″ wheeled shoppers from the 70’s – doing his bit for the environment there!

The wheels are a 72 hole radial spoke pattern, they were a 36 hole rim and hub but Mark being Mark he made himself a jig and drilled a few extra holes. Also on the back wheel you can see a retro fit cable disc brake with the cable housing running through the frame – this means no lugs anywhere on the frame – a nice touch.

Check out the pin striping on the mudguards with the chrome centre. All the cream pinstripes were done by hand!

The good news is that he’s got another one called the ‘Shopper Chopper’ and hopefully I’ll have some photo’s of that soon.

Hello.

It’s been a long time hasn’t it?

You well?

It was way back on the 31st May 2009 when the last post from me appeared and what a year it’s been since then. No excuses for not keeping up the blog I’m just busy and lazy – not a great combo for a blog as it turns out.

So what’s been going on?

First some sad news. A great friend of mine and the shop, Terry Stokes, sadly died last September at the Holme Valley Mountain Bike Challenge. The exact details are unclear but it appears that Terry came off his bike and hit the gable end of a house fracturing his skull causing internal bleeding. He died a week later at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary with his family by his side. He was 55. Terry loved his bikes and his biking. He had been riding since he was a young man from road racing to touring to the early days of MTB. He will be best remembered by me as the guy who could fix anything; whenever we had a stuck seatpost or a tricky job that needed some patience he would step in, take control and sort it out. Here’s a photo I found of him after he slid down a slippery track near Bolton Abbey – covered in mud but still smiling.

RIP Terry.

On to better news now and the birth of our son Alexander Michael Hanney Firth, born in the early hours on the 26th January 2010. Here’s a recent pic of him with his dad on his first holiday in Scotland. Not ready for his first bike yet but believe me when I say it’s in the pipeline – watch this space!

The shop is going well, getting busier every year and still getting some interesting bikes in for servicing. We have new signage, new windows upstairs and a new raised window display on the inside giving the shop a new look.

Hopefully another post soon, certainly not in 16 months time.

A new 4 legged addition to the team has arrived, our first shop dog.

Name: Meg
Age: 18 months
Star Sign: Sagittarius
Likes: Cheese, tennis balls, socks, leaping in the pond & chasing the cat
Dislikes: Lemons, bath time & Yorkshire Terriers

Ahhh what a cutie…but looks can deceptive! Pop and say hello next time you’re about and maybe if you’re lucky she’ll chew your invoices and/or eat your Pyrex bowls too.

I promised Baz I’d do a blog post about the singlespeed we put together.

What’s It For?

Mrs Walker and I moved out of town last year. We live about a mile from the nearest village. My vintage Bontrager Race-Lite cross-country bike is obviously entirely unsuitable for cycling into the village for milk, bread, sausages & beer. I needed to find another one.

I wanted something I could skip down the farm track on without much care, so a delicate road bike was out of the question. I’ve got one of those too now, but that’s another story. I wanted to try this new-fangled single speed thing I’ve been hearing so much about. I love steel bikes, so anything aluminium was right out. I wanted road bars but cantilever / V-brakes in case it gets muddy or gravity & me get carried away.

The market for steel single speed cyclo-cross bikes is pretty small (but getting bigger!). There weren’t many pre-built options available. With Baz’s help & advice I started collecting parts.

Frame & Forks

For the frame & forks I settled on an On-One Il Pompino. I didn’t like the only colour option or branding so I sent it off to be bead-blasted & re-painted. I choose BS 14-C-35, intended to match Brooks ‘honey’ leather.

Wheels

Baz built up the wheels, joining track hubs to DT rims using a kooky modified crows foot lacing. This combines radial spokes with a 2-cross pattern. Difficult to tell the difference if you’re not looking for it, but I know.

Despite carrying my weight over rocky ground for a few hundred miles, the wheels have stayed tight & true. Tyres are Continental Travel Contact – a quality hybrid favourite.

Gearing

When you’ve only got one gear, it’d better be the right one. After trying various different cranks I installed the Truvativ ones from Baz’s Pista, which seems to be a special one made for that bike. The rear hub has both a fixed (16T) side and a freewheel (18T) side.

The crank came with a 48T chain ring. I tried this out with the fixed gear before the brakes had arrived. At 48/16 I found it hopelessly over geared for anything but gentle gradients. The smallest chain ring I could find to fit the roadie bolt circle was 38T Surly one, but thought 39T sounded better so I went with that. For the most part 39/18 seems to work well, but I can’t help wondering about 39/19 on the steeper bits.

Since the brakes arrived I’d been running the bike with a freewheel. Now I’m finding I ride over fields, paths and on farm tracks more than tarmac, I’ve switched back to fixed. This means I can control my speed without covering the brakes.

Leather Bits

I wanted leather bits. A Brooks Swift saddle & matching bar tape. These are both expensive options but make the bike look great and satisfy my tan leather fetish. I also managed to find some tan-coloured brake cable outer from A-Bike, who make bits for colour-concious BMX pilots.

Brakes

I got really excited when Baz found the Cane Creek brake levers with natural gum hoods. Goes really well with the leather. Unfortunately they don’t work with V-brakes without adapters so I had to go with cantilevers instead. In retrospect some of those wide-angle cyclo-cross ones might be better than the Shimano ones.

Interesting fact: It’s impossible to source a silver coloured front brake hanger these days.

Other Bits

The seat post, headset & stem are all parts bin pieces, chosen mainly for colour. I’m about to replace the stem with a longer, lower one. Pedals are Crank Brothers Egg Beaters to match my other bikes & shoes.

So How’s the Ride?

I’ve done loads of miles on this bike in the last six months, shop runs, lunchtime runs with the dog through the woods & a good couple of hours in the hills. A combination of the steel frame & leather contact bits makes it a really comfortable bike. There are lighter bikes out there, but those are for lighter riders with different aesthetic sensibilities. It’s very quiet on and off the road, and there’s not a lot to go wrong. What’s not to like?

If you’re looking for your own bespoke bike (pun intended), I highly advise getting in touch with Barry at Firth Cycles. He really knows & cares about his stuff and will be happy to help. Caveat: You might have to write a blog post upon delivery.

Two good friends of the shoppe and Team Bad members have gone to Africa to cycle 5500 miles across it.

Pete & Dave set off on Saturday 10th January to Addis Abeba in Ethipoia to begin their 3 month adventure but it didn’t start well! You can learn about that and other stories from their adventure here a the Team Bad website (click on the link):

You can sponsor Pete & Dave who are raising money for the Overgate Hospice in Halifax by visiting Justgiving.com/5000miles or by clicking on this link below:

Just Giving – MAKE A DONATION

Cheers.

Happy New Year all.

We get loads of broken bikes through the workshop and sometimes they look like this poor thing:

Whether mangled by the elements or chewed up by the owner there’s something about the destruction that fascinates us, it’s like rubbernecking (Generally, any act of observation in a manner considered unduly overt or otherwise unseemly) for bike enthusiasts!

So based on this fascination of the broken we’ve started a collection of pictures on this theme and would welcome any pictures you might have, please email them in the usual way and we add them here:

CRUNCH Pictures

Wear your helmet but try not to use it.

At last, the waiting is over.

Firth Cycles now has an online store where you (yes you!) can buy lovely things for your bike. Click on the screen shot below to take you there.

Johnnie Walker and I hope you like it. Its simple clean layout means it’s all about the products and not about the interest free credit, special offers or adverts for mobile phones flashing up all over the place.

Firth Cycles is a real shop run by real people and we wanted the online store to reflect that a bit. One of the first simple things we did was to put the address and phone number on the bottom of every page so you can contact us easily should you need to.

We are listing more of our products every day (except on Sunday’s when we ride our bikes) so please keep checking the home page or alternatively let us know what you’re after and we’ll do our best to sort it out for you. All the prices on the site are the same as those in the store so no surprises if you want to come and collect in person.

Enjoy.