My reflections after 5 years and 21,900km of riding this thing...
I love this bike, the frame is superb and has put up with a lot of abuse. I ride this bike all year round on my daily 25-30km round commute, through the British winter and it copes with it all so well.
If I were to build it again...
10+ years ago I was living my best London hipster life, using a longboard to cruise around in achingly cool fashion (or so I thought). 😀 I even rode Critical Mass a few times on them!
My right thigh muscle is still slightly larger than the left from all those miles. :p
I know these aren't...
I would try this... and 'monitor closely' as bikeworkshop says... very closely! Ensure you pick a suitable epoxy that will cope with the high temperatures this area will see. The brake track and internal face of the rim is taking a lot of force when you consider the pressure of the tyre bead...
Good work. Great to see it cleaned up and the sprayed crank looks very smart.
I also quite like the red, but there is something not quite right about them -maybe it's that the font is a bit fine/fussy. Would probably have a bit more impact in a chunkier font. White text with a black border...
Rubbed off the rust spots on the fork chrome and gave them a light polish before doing the black transition bands. For these I like to cut a strip of electrical tape to about 5-6mm, then tightly wrap over the paint/chrome transition. I usually drop a dot of superglue on the very end to prevent...
I have red cables so red straps to match them and yes, chrome clips in L. My next job is actually to strip the (rather crunchy) pedals down and see if they can be revived. Otherwise I might need to snag a complete set to replace them.
I finally found some time to push this one on a bit.
I pressed in the headset cups and then got the BB sorted too. This is a bit of pain without a bearing press; I drifted in one side and then pressed the other cartridge bearing onto the axle with a suitable dia bit of tubing. Then I froze this...