agmetal

Now, the question is how to build it up?





Look how clean those welds are!



A local BBQ restaurant has an annual bike party with a raffle, and for several years, Mike Flanigan provided the grand prize. Two years ago, the winner was a guy who's very active in the bike community, but much too tall to reasonably ride the bike he'd won, so he took it to a local shop to sell. It ended up sitting there for quite some time, until the shop owner finally made the decision recently to part out the bike. I popped in there last week for an emergency quick fix when a fender screw on my old Raleigh rattled loose and fell off when I was in the area, and one of the mechanics pointed out the frame to me. I initially didn't feel like I could justify it, but when I told a coworker of mine their asking price for it, he told me I'd be an idiot to pass it up, so I contacted the shop owner and had her hold it for me until I could take another look at it today.

Now the question is, how to build it up? I've been wanting to do an upright build with some Tricolor 600 components, but unfortunately this frame is only spaced to 120mm and has no derailleur hanger or way to mount a rim brake. I think I'll probably end up going with a 3-speed drum brake hub, and potentially also a front drum brake. The frame angles are almost as shallow as my '37 Raleigh Tourist, at 68º, so I'll probably set it up for a similar fit...too bad the fork doesn't have as much rake as the Raleigh's!

I've also got the wide front rack that was part of the original build.

Chris W.

Good for you!!! If it were mine, I'd give it the full upright, fendered, IGH treatment! Please post pictures when you're done

Cheers,
Chris

agmetal

This is the most likely scenario, although I've thought for a while that it would be fun to do a Guv'nor-esque build with road drop bars and levers...

blakcloud

Very nice.

On ANT's Facebook page there is a photo on January 26, 2015 of the bike I would copy.

IGH, aluminum fenders, front rack, dynamo lighting system, chain guard.

ANT cycles has a philosophy that I can truly appreciate.

Congrats on your new bike.

blakcloud

Sorry, one question. Is that frame designed for a coaster brake option only? The rear looks like a fender mount only and I can't see a way to put an a caliper brake.

himespau 

Cool bike. I'm sort of surprised that it seems more set up for front rather than rear hauling with a fork that has so little rake (or do I have the rake/trail thing backwards again?).

RFC

The Ant frames were designed for fixed gear.

himespau 

Oh, is it more common to put a rack/basket on the front of a fixie than the back? I obviously know nothing about them, but saw that there are two braze ons on the fork dropout but only one for the fender at the rear dropout.

agmetal

Not all of them...there are some out there with derailleurs, and this one was originally built with a coaster brake before it was parted out.

blakcloud

I think the number of braze ons in the back was a just a quirk of that particular dropout and nothing more than that. That is just a guess on my part. If you look at every other Alternative Needs Bicycle (ANT) they all have duo eyelets if they have forward facing drop outs.

According to his website he is still making 1 bike a month, a geared touring bike with a high trail fork.

As I posted above this is the bike I would love to own. I think the silver parts really make this bike stand out.

agmetal

Currently leaning toward drum brakes front and rear, with a 3-speed hub, and Rhyno Lite rims with the Schwalbe "Century" tires (hmm...maybe the British Racing Green and white one?). I did find some 700C Westwood rims online (a store in Finland), and those would look really cool, but it looks like they might be a tiny bit too wide to use the tires I want.

Considering chainguard options, and trying to decide what crank to use. Debating between an upright build with the VO Montmartre handlebar, or maybe going with the drop bar roadster build I've been wanting to do. Most likely will have the Soma porteur rack in the front, along with my usual Topeak rear rack.

Also undecided on fenders...I really like the PDW Full Metal Fenders, but the Handsome Mud Butler is interesting, especially in the new copper color. Saddle will likely depend heavily on whether I go with the upright or drop bar build.

1987

Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle

agmetal

So I ordered a pair of the 700C Westwood rims, they're expected to arrive from England in another week or so. Thinking about some other details...

Drum brakes: I have the 90mm Sturmey Archer XL-FD on another bike, but I'm considering the 70mm X-FD for this one. I don't know how it compares, and I've been concerned about whether it would be sufficient - but considering how much I ride a Raleigh Tourist with rod brakes, I'd imagine it would seem more than sufficient with a similar-ish build on this frame.

Fenders: PDW Full Metal? Handsome Mud Butler, maybe in copper (would be cool with the headbadge, although the fenders are clearcoated so they don't oxidize, and the headbadge is intentionally oxidized)? Something else?

Handlebar: VO Montmartre is the top contender right now, but part of me still wants to do more of a Guvnor-inspired build, and I'm slightly concerned about having enough space for grips and brake levers. I know there's the option of the inverse levers, but I don't really like how they look and I feel like they'd seem too "backwards" to me.

Chaincase: It would be really cool to have a full chaincase on this bike, if I build it up to be like a modernized version of my old Raleigh, but how doable is that with forward-facing dropouts? I know about the Hebie Chainglider, but I'm curious if any of the other options out there would be compatible with this frame.

Crankset: I have a couple road cranks that could be interesting to use...an old Campagnolo Strada crank, and a Shimano 600 "Tricolor" crank. Both of these are a bit shorter than I'd really like, though. My old Raleigh has really long crank arms (7" or longer), and I feel like that's a big part of what makes that bike ride the way it does. Are there any good, and good-looking, but not super-expensive cranks out there, that are available in 175mm or longer lengths? The SunXCD ones are interesting, but more than I'd really like to spend.

agmetal

I've made a tiny bit of progress...I picked up a Sturmey Archer quadrant shifter on eBay for a good price, and I got one of the VO Model 8 saddles and have it loosely installed with my grandfather's old Campagnolo seatpost. Annoyingly, the seat tube is about an inch longer than on my old Raleigh, so the seatpost has to go pretty much as low as it can to accomodate the height of the saddle and fit me. I'm told that the Hesling Original chaincase (which is the same one Pashley uses with their bikes) should be compatible with this frame, so I'm probably gonna order that later this week, along with a crank very similar to the one Pashley uses.

agmetal

Finally, another update! I finally decided to go with the 70mm drum brake hub, with a generator. The rims took over a month to arrive from when I placed the order, and I just placed an order for spokes yesterday, so I should be building up the wheels within the week or so.
I also bought a Virtue handlebar that's very similar to the VO Left Bank handlebar - would have been nice to go with the Montmartre, but there wasn't quite enough space to fit both the brake lever and grip I wanted to use. Most of the rest of the bits will be coming from Europe - planning to order some Dutch fenders (a good bit less expensive than the other options I was looking at, especially when the shipping gets combined with that for a cottered-looking cotterless crank and a full chaincase, both of which are pretty much the same as what Pashley uses on their Roadsters.

I also found some "coke bottle" grips that are pretty much identical to the ones Mike used on the original build (pictured in an earlier post), so I'll be using those.

Here's the current state of the bike:



And here it is mocked up with some other wheels I borrowed from another bike, and the Westwood rims and Schwalbe Century tires leaned against it:

bikemig 

This bike is just hot. I'd lose that seatpost though; it looks goofy. Why not use a straight aluminum seatpost?

agmetal

What looks "goofy" about it? It's the right diameter, gives me the setback I need (with essentially infinite angle adjustment), and it was taken from one of my grandfather's old bikes so it didn't cost me anything.

bikemig 

Then go for it. There's a lot to be said for free and for a campy NR seatpost.

That said, the seatpost doesn't look right on the bike, IMHO. That's a really great old school racing seatpost and this bike is not a racing bike.

agmetal

I'm also not a racer by any stretch....although I do have another one of these seatposts on my "fast" road bike

rhm

Hey, we all see this stuff differently, and that's all good, right? To my eye the build is discordant; I like the seat post, I like the quadrant shifter, I like the black stem, and so on; but I can't see them all as part of the same bike. So... it's an eye opener.

agmetal

Black stem? Only on Mike's original build. Mine is silver...

rhm

Doh Maybe I was thinking of the headset.

Whatever, the aesthetics of old bikes, what looks good to one person and not to another, is always interesting. You've got a pre-war shifter, which is cool; and at the time that shifter was new, a lot of bike components were black: black bonderized steel, black painted steel, or steel wrapped in black celluloid, and of course black tires, grips, cables, etc. So really I shouldn't have any problem with the black components, right? But... I do.

agmetal

Could be. This build will be getting black Westwood rims and black tires with reflective sidewalls (I'd hoped that this model of tire was available without the reflective sidewall, but no such luck), black fenders, black chaincase, silver steel crank w/ black pedals (modern pinned BMX platforms). I considered black spokes, too, but ultimately decided that silver stainless would be better.

agmetal

Built up the wheels a couple nights ago. I really love the look of the Westwood rims...








Also put in my parts orders from Europe, should have that stuff in the next few weeks

agmetal

I finally got it built up and rideable! Still needs a couple little details dealt with, but it rides really nicely. Here are some pictures I took of it on a quick test ride this afternoon: