noglider 

What does that hub weigh?

JaccoW

1389 grams (3 pounds and 0.99553 ounce) for the hub without any of the parts in the bag.

Which is honestly less that I expected. I mean, it's no SP dynamo but it also adds a 90mm drum brake.
They only thing I would have preferred is some cutous on the non-drum side. Just because I think it looks prettier.

Sturmey Archer XL-FDD

JaccoW

The weather was great this weekend so I took the bike outside and gave it a good wax!
It's amazing how easily the water runs off when it has a nice fresh coat. I even treated the new hub this way now that it is not yet built into a wheel.





The rim arrived today and I will probably take it out and measure everything just to be sure and order the spokes and other parts I need.

JaccoW

For some reason I was thinking about this today so I looked it up. Seems like Sturmey Archer actually still makes them. I think I am going to order a couple of them.

Which means that, together with all the parts I ordered this week, there is not much left except for a bicycle bell and a proper chain lock.
I'm even patient enough to wait for the proper gold-colored Jagwire brake+shifter cables.

I did run into a small issue where I ordered the same Schwalbe Delta Cruiser in cream but nobody seems to stock the cream-reflex version anymore so only my rear wheel will be visible at night. Aaargh!

cudak888 

That's a surprise - had no idea they offered those. It's easier (and arguably cheaper) at my end to get some 12" brass tube from the hobby store or Amazon and cut it to length as needed.

Incidentally, do you think the fork is strong enough to hold up to the forces of a 90mm drum brake? It's been a while since I've been in my own thread about the 1980 Sports build, but I know someone brought up concerns about drum brake use on these older forks (a suitably skewered Superbe fork from a blog was referenced).

-Kurt

JaccoW

That would probably be me.
I have linked on this forum a few times to this blog post by the Smut Pedaller where he mounted a 90mm drum to a Superbe. Though his guess is the fact that he used a drum brake on a fork not designed for it was one part of the problem, the other being using modern compressionless housing.

The Jagwire Sport housing (in Gold Medal) I ordered is "low compression" as they call it. But the fork on this bike was designed for drum brakes so I don't expect much problems.
It originally came with Shimano Roller Brakes and it has the brazed tab on the fork. I am curious to see how the dual 90mm drums perform with better housing though. I have cheap brake cables on there right now and while it stops pretty good already, it feels a little mushy.

I'll shoot some close up pictures here when the brass bits come in.

JaccoW

It is cold and sunny outside and I suddenly realized yesterday that I could use one of the old garden tools (a roller) as a basis to bend the front light bracket into shape.

Before:
Either too far outside, risking damage in the racks or too far inside, risking water spray from the fender.


After:
Clamped the bracket into a mini-vise and started bending.

Step 1



Step 2



Resulting in a light that is protected by the rack itself but not too far inward.
The only thing I have to figure out is if I'm going for a forward lean or an inward tuck. I'll figure that out when I build the wheel in the next few weeks and test all the cabling and tidy things up.




Forward lean:



Inward tuck:

cudak888 

Inward tuck. You'd be surprised how quickly that Forward Lean turns into the Everlasting Ding.

-Kurt

JaccoW

The webshop that I ordered some of the final parts from mailed me today that the gold braided shifter cable wouldn't be available till the end of this month so I cancelled that part and told them to ship the rest.

In the meantime I wanted to get a bit of work done on the wiring for the lights once the dynamo was in place. My idea was to run all of the cabling through the rack and connect them with quick-release connectors.
The first step towards that was making a guide to subtly guide the cable for the rear light into the rack.

This bracket has a lot of large holes. Perfect place to tap some threading and install hidden R-clips as cable guides!






Pretty much invisible.

JaccoW

Received a vinyl reproduction head badge from Wanit.co.uk today which looked pretty good.
The original headbadge is just completely worn out and even gold paint didn't improve things.
There was one thing I missed when ordering though... it's twice the size of the original badge.

Maybe gugie is willing to 3D print one?

non-fixie 

They scaled it to your size! How thoughtful of them.

cudak888 

Is that badge plastic or steel? It looks as if it'd come out pretty good if the gold were re-sprayed on it, and the excess wiped off the top with rubbing alcohol. That is assuming it's steel or aluminum, and not plastic.

Granted, it'd look really cool to have just a headbadge with the gear and the M.

-Kurt

alexnagui

Why won't you look just for a normal headbadge? They show up on MP from time to time.
Last year, I got one for a friend's mountain bike.

JaccoW

We're entering the final stretch of this build.

JaccoW

It's plastic unfortunately. I'm going to give it a try and see if I can clean it but it seems unlikely.


I would love to get my hands on one of those but I haven't been able to find any like that.
One issue is head tube sizing. Some of the more readily available ones are for the larger aluminum tubing.

seiben

What a fascinating thing! I know literally nothing about tourers, but I've just read this from start to finish and now I'm very much looking forward to updates

JaccoW

Sneak preview:

JaccoW

Wheel building time!

Built up the front wheel yesterday and tensioned everything this morning.
One thing I forgot to do was align the wheel.It's perfectly straight but probably off by 5 mm or so. D'oh!

She is a beauty though. <3

Tonight I will solder all the connectors for the lights as I have been having fun *cough* by drilling holes in the rack and pulling wires through it again.
Should make for very clean wiring where the cable can hardly snag on anything.





Outside shot:

noglider 

Every time you have an update to this thread, I get excited to read it.

JaccoW

Thanks Tom. It brings a smile to my face to hear others are enjoying this too.

Soldering is done for the night, I will probably quickly re-align the wheel and then call it a night.

What taking the bike inside does offer me an easy chance of is to measure its weight.

As shown here; (stand not included )


The entire bike weighs a fairly decent 18.4 kg (40.5 lbs). However, that's for a 63cm frame, including the front rack (1kg / 2.2lbs), frame lock (0.75kg / 1.6 lbs) and saddle bag (0.5kg / 1.1 lbs).
Meaning, this bike would be just over 16kg (35 lbs) for a fully loaded American style 3-speed 5-speed bike without all of these bells and whistles.

I could probably drop a bit more weight by changing the tyres from Schwalbe Delta Cruisers (695 gr. each / 1.5 lbs) to a supple tyre like Fairweather X Panaracer 'For Cruise' tyre (475 gr. / 1 lbs) but I digress.
Before riding it into the city I will grab a Dutch style chain lock and add another 2.6 kg (5.7lbs) to carry around. That still makes the bike lighter than my current bike though.

We're in the final stages of this build and hopefully its going to be ready by the time Covid-19 is done and we can all go out and enjoy the world again.
Tomorrow I will be doing some tidying up and posting some early beauty shots while I wait and order the final bits, such as the matching gold shifter cable and a Spurcycle bell.

noglider 

Funny, I was going to ask you about the weight, because I'm weight-obsessed. I'm surprised it weighs so little. For whatever it's worth, my method for weighing a bike is to leave the bolted-on things because they stay on but remove the strapped on things such as bags. So with that metric, you could lower the figure a bit if you want to compare with other bikes measured in the same way. But it won't change the reality.

Eventually, I'd like to see a picture of you on the bike to get an idea of the position it gives you. Will it be as upright as so many Dutch bikes or slightly leaning forward? I suspect the latter.

I'm eager to see the wiring, because clearly, you have some clever plans. It's taking me forever to reinstall my dynamo lights on my Raleigh International, and that's a shame, but it's hard to overcome my inertia. Now that project is on hold, so I will soon be getting back to my Raleigh Super Course which needs a lot of work, including adding dynamo lights and fenders.

JaccoW

That's probably a good idea. I think I will replace the stem with something with a bit more reach and the seatpost with a bit of setback.

And don't worry about the lighting, that's going to be a post all in itself.

For now, some beauty shots from the test drive.

Drive side:


Drum side:


Light detail:


Temporary head badge: (IMHO not bad but the original badge will be better)


Scenic shot:

noglider 

Whatever position you prefer is optimal for you. I wasn't suggesting that you lower the handlebars or move them forward. I can see the grips are slightly lower than the saddle which is approximately what I like, too, but my preference is irrelevant.

My approach to fit is:

1. saddle height
2. saddle fore-aft
3. handlebar height and reach
4. saddle nose tip angle
5. handlebar tip angle

Saddle fore-aft adjustment is independent of handlebar adjustments. And almost everyone prefers the tip of the saddle to be about 1 inch behind the center of the BB spindle. I think it's generally better to adjust reach (distance between saddle and handlebar) with the stem, not the saddle fore-aft adjustment, because if you need extra reach and do it with the saddle, you might be too far back in relation to the cranks. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time and some expense to change the stem unless you are using a modern threadless type fork with a removable face-plate.

It looks like you'll be done with the bike in less than a week, long before the quarantine and everything else is over. Do you have opportunities to ride? I'm extremely lucky that I do. I scarcely have anywhere to go, so my riding is for fitness, fun, and sanity, not to commute. Normally, most of my riding is commuting, and I like that, because I get a great sense of satisfaction when I do something that is both useful and fun.

JaccoW

Oh don't worry, I was already considering adding a bit more reach. That's a good list of points where to start, I will look them over on the bike this week.
The current stem is a Technomic 225 90mm and I believe they make them in a maximum of 130mm so that would add another 40mm of reach. They can be expensive but are cheaper in Japan.

I will be ordering a final set of parts (gold shifter line included) tonight and hopefully I will be able to wrap things up for when the quarantine will be loosened in a week or two.
Plenty of room to ride, even the cycle paths are fairly empty but I have mostly been enjoying the setting sun in the garden with a beer in hand these past few weeks.

JaccoW

Here you go, I always think I look like a giant on my bikes but then again, I am 1.95m (almost 6'5").



What's your first impression of the fit?
I have a stem on order that adds another 3cm in the front and a seatpost that should bring me a bit further back.

Went into the city for a bicycle bell, nobody has Spurcycle bells around here anymore, but a brass Crane E-ne bell is a good substitute and a little bit friendlier for use around the city.
I'm really happy with the way the brakes work on this bike, I have had to use their maximum braking power a few times today when I rode through the city as people are a bit blind for their surroundings after staying inside so long.

There are some minor scuffs on the top tube in the clearcoat, I was wondering if anybody had any suggestions how to make those disappear? Just a good clean and a clear coat on top?