Bikes

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.

Yeah I know it’s been a long time since my last post but I’ve been a bit busy what with getting married, going on honeymoon, having a hectic summer of repairs and …err…oh, only three things then. Well maybe it’s true, I have been neglecting the blog but I’m back now and there’ll be more to come. Spent some of my summer helping Johnnie Walker build up his new bike (can I blame him for lack of posts?) and here is a picture of the hub/lacing pattern he went for:

Click the pic for more.

An interesting pair of wheels with 32 hole crow’s foot lacing (interesting in that crow’s foot is usually seen on 36 hole wheels), System EX sealed bearing track hubs, DT Swiss TK 7.1 touring rims and DT Swiss Champion double butted spokes. I’m hoping to convince to John to do a post so you can see what the rest of the bike looks like.
Watch this space.
B.

Close friend, former colleague, all round nice guy and fellow mountain biker Dave ‘Dangerous’ Mitchell is giving up his time to cycle from Riga in Latvia to Tallinn in Estonia in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care. He’s doing it at the end of August and needs your help to raise some vital funds. The route, covering 530 challenging kilometres, links two beautiful capital cities in Eastern Europe following the Baltic coastline. More information on the ride can be found here:

Marie Curie Charity Ride – Riga to Tallinn

More importantly you can give a little here to help him on his way:

>>>>>>>>>>>PLEASE MAKE A DONATION HERE>>>>>>>>>>>

Alternatively you can donate to Dave’s charity ride at the shop or just send him a good luck message via this blog. Thanks for taking the time to read this; I know Dave will appreciate it too. Good luck buddy.

Click on the pic for more…

Despit the snowy and frosty conditions, a few Firth Cycle’s regulars joined Jim and I for a jaunt around Calder Valley on Sunday morning. The route was led by Terry (his first and last – thanks for the tarmac memeories Terry) and went like this: started at the shop in Queensbury, then Ogden Water, Oxenhope, Leeshaw Reservoir, Bodkin Lane, Stairs Lane, down the side of Crimsworth Dean, Hardcastle Crags/New Bridge, up to Pecket Well then a monster road climb up Bedlam Hill on the Hebden Bridge road and finally a sneaky right onto the drainage channel back to Ogden and then back to Queensbury. 25 miles in total. A great trip out as you can see from the pics but the best news had to be that the Withens Pub is set to re-open in the near future and is currently doing tea and cakes which makes a nice stopping point.

We are planning to collate a mailing list of other like minded riders so if you would like notice of other rides please send me your email and i’ll add you to that list.

Click on the photograph for more…

A sad set of photographs of a beautiful Bianchi 928 CARBON L that kissed the front of a car at about 30mph. The rider (and still riding) suffered a broken back, several weeks in hospital and some metal pins to add to his biological mix. He avoided being speared by the broken ends of the tubing by going over the car but used the well known ‘tarmac/skin’ method to slow himself down – ouch. If you ever wondered why you should wear a helmet, have a chat with this guy and his family who are all glad he’s here to tell the tale.

The BBC news said (amongst other things) that the budget would prove expensive for smokers, drinker and motorists. The best solution? Get a bike! (you knew that was coming right?). Give up the fags, drink less booze, buy less fuel and get out on your bike. Yeah drive a 3.5L V8 gas guzzling Landy if that’s your bag but commute on your bike when you can – balance it out. I get fed up feeling like I must ‘go green’ overnight but it isn’t practical for everyone to give up their cars tomorrow, if you ride your bike to work or to the shops once a week then it’s a start – and you’ll feel better physically and financially. Rant over.

Click on the picture for a few more shots…

We were so impressed with the recon job done on these PACE Air Force forks that we thought we should tell you all about it.

These beauties belong to Mr John Walker and are usually attached to his 1996 Bontrager Race Light which is currently in the workshop for some TLC (thats Tighten, Lube & Clean!). Since Pace forks were bought by DT Swiss they no longer service any models older than 2003 – a shame I know especially since (in my opinion) they are one of the limited brands that has a heritage that should be shouted about. Anyway, one man’s loss is another’s gain and that man is Tim Price who is now servicing the older stuff. He is based in Pickering, North Yorkshire, and be contacted on 01751 476815. Thanks Tim.