London Fixed-gear and Single-speed SJS Cycles

Who's slagging the bike shop off?

well if funny is meant as a term of endearment i'm happy ;]

probably no speaking of the same place, this is a well know spot for selling all kind of bike, stolens are not.
is the main man a black guy in his 40-45? is yes doggy

I wasn't slagging the place off, I was just making an observation and a quite fair one too. It is a bike shop, it is small and it is a somewhat unusual (or "funny").

However, if the guy there is fencing stolen goods I'm downgrading my rating of "funny little bike shop" to "bag of cunts".

How long ago was this unicycle thing? the shop change owner around two years ago

polo boy from dublin hear.
just reading some of your emails hear is a few answers for i hope.
the mallets you need galaxco mallet is too wide and will have too be shortend and then sanded down. the angle of the mallet head is different on a bike than a horse but they are a good starting mallet to use.
the lie back saddle piller is very inportant as iy will allow the rider to play the ball around his back wheel and pass the ball on forward on his left side of the bike to his frount wheel.
it also puts all the rides weight over the back wheel so it does not slide from under him as he turns and while playing the ball.
if you can get speed way tyres they are the best to use on grass and tar.
good luck for now
polo boy

Thanks polo boy...all but one of the bike have the lie back seat pillar....and I've got a contact for a mallett maker in the UK.

think we may be using Archie Wilkinson for quite a few speedway parts.

Do you know where to get short cranks with small chainrings? (kiddie cranks maybe?)

remind me i've got 2 black plastic saddles 4 u.

Where can I donate the tyres - hide them at HH somewhere?
Could do it on Saturday night..

yes, we are now based at HH...have to think about a good drop off point...if you're there anyway, look for me, Caspar, Al and Jason (JC) all forum members who will be able to stash the stuff...failing that Peter would probably stash stuff for us.....

unfortunately we'll be on or way to Revoultion this Saturday evening....but I'll keep this thread updated of when either Caspar or I will be down there..

I can do some shuttling and temporary storage, but don't really fancy doing bridges with 'em! Monday? I won't make West on Thursday as I'm away.

I should be making a return visit to south drinks on Monday if anyone wants to give me smaller bits to stash at the track.

I'm there a few days a week too during the day if anyone wants to PM me and check beforehand.

I wanna see these pledges come to fruition!

Can I chuck the tyres over the gate on Saturday evening?
EDIT- wrapped in a plastic bag and labelled, of course.

about a year ago

oops I'll try to get this message in somewhere that it makes sense ... yeah, it was about a year ago and there was no sign of the black guy it was a younger white guy running the place and another young white guy helping him ... hopefully that means the stolen bike trade there is all in the past now???

Ok so it seems I misinterpreted "funny" in your description but I did immediately know what shop you meant! And yes it is indeed "somewhat unusual" and personally i'd be happy to call it a "quirky little bike shop" ;]

But if they're fencing stolen bikes feel free to call them what you like - with my blessing! ...but they seemed like decent guys with a real love of bicyles and respect for anyone else with same I just can't see them doing that ... maybe I'm too trusting when it comes to people who really love bicycles ... and back to harsh reality for a moment if I ever catch the c*nt who stole mine and he's not carry his crowbar "why I oughta ...."

Managed to get the knobbly tyres to JC on Monday...

What stuff do you need donating still? (bump)

We haven't been able to get to the bikes for the last couple of weeks. There will be an update on progress soon.

peddle cranks!!! were to get them
you should get these off kids bikes for the low gears easy to peddle so do go-carts have them as well look out for them in skips or bike shops should just give you one to try them out.
we just then weld them on to the peddle crank make sure its true or you will break the chain.
archy is the man for the tyres we buy all our tyres of him as well.
as for the mallets we are getting new one sent to us this week i fill you in on what there like from down under.

What about BMX 1 piece cranks? The come in small sizes, do they fit into the BB shell?

They're terrible quality though.
You can however get old GT BMX race cranks in tiny sizes for not too much money.

think they may be too short...

@ object....quality's not really that much of an issue, we expect these things to get beaten up so disposability may be a good thing...plus isn't a single forged one piece thingamajig stronger?....engineers please correct me.

the whole single forged one peice thing is good for strength in comparison to something thats machined but 1 peice cranks are not strong at all and generally bend so the cranks aren't in line. I used to regularly bend them on my BMX when I was about 12 and I wasn't that fat! I suppose though if your going for shorter junoir cranks these will be alot stronger than standard length BMX cranks if they are made with the same diameters and stuff.

Likewise, used them for years on BMX and they always broke. You need to consider that there's no chainring bolt either, just a forged peg coming out from the crank which fits (loosely) into the chainring. Lot's of rocking so if you're running these bikes fixed it'll be a pain in the ass.

sage advice chaps, but in the traditions of this forum I'll have to ignore you and do what I was gonna do anyway!

just kidding, might buy one and try it out....beyond that we're looking for a cheap kiddie crank (145mm...ish) that will take small chainrings, as we've got 11 bikes, they need to be CHEAP.

I think the one-piece old-school-stylee cranks you are on about need an ashtabula / American BB shell? ...you know, the massive ones you see on BMXs.

winston im very interested in giving this a go... what you thinking in terms of days/times etc next year i presume?
polo week time table kinda goes like this at the moment:

monday - free
tuesday - mitchitson
wednesday - south polo
thursday - mitchitson
friday - is friday
saturday - mitchitson
sunday - brick lane

Shins

Thanks Ray....anyone would think polo is getting popular or something!..

Saturday after track training was always trditional and prob best opportunity to get new people involved....

Surely if the bikes are running a near 1x1 gearing, on grass too, there is not going to be anywhere near the same amount of pressure exerted through the cranks.

If this is the case I think the cheap one piece cranks would be worth a shot. Welding the chain ring to the crank arm is a 2 min job.

What are the bottom bracket's like on the polo bikes?
I've never seen 1 piece cast cranks which didn't require a US BMX BB.

can't we just hammer them in?

The BB is about twice the diameter of a normal BB shell.

Sheldon knows.

You should also pay attention to the pedal axles as one piece cranks are 1/2" not 9/16

thanks for this Obj....we're were just thinking out loud about ways of getting strong, cheap, short cranks....you convinced us some time ago.....

Anyone out there got a cheap solution for this, we're aiming at 145-155mm cranks, this is based on the crank length of my circus bike and the lengths of "some" of the bikes at HH....note: if you've seen the curvy cranks on the HH bikes, we've learnt that they weren't originally like this, they were deliberately bent to shorten them.

there are 11 bikes, nearly all could do with new BB's and cranks, if we save a tenner per bike it's quite a chunk...so we reallly are looking for budget options.

I'll keep trawling for ideas too.
I still need to come to check these out sometime too as I'd love a play on one.

you should....although progress is slow, I'm sure a lot of the design features of these polo specific bikes would convert well to hard court....polo boy recently pointed out the benefit of the special seatposts for example..

I know that these guys are the enemy (unipak)
But they sell cranks for £5-6 including P+P.
I found this bike that uses 3-piece cranks and is 20" wheel (so they should be short ones..)

woh! cheap.

I am a cheapskate..
enjoy!

Winston
start of the new sesion over here and a few bike were set to the bike shop for new bottom brakets with cotter pins and peddle stems where you looking to get some as i can get the bike shops number for you or i can get them and i could send them over to you for trad bikes.
i seen a few lads need lie back saddle pillers.
you need to welled two bars to getter because if you bend the saddle piller that goes down the seat tube you will do one of two things and damage will be done which will cost you more money to fix.
1 saddle piller down tube will crack
2 lie back saddle piller will fold

you need the same die as the saddle down tube. Dont use a sleve when tighting you damage the bike saddle down tube.
two pipes welled them to getter make sure the die is same as some bike saddle down tube differs be a were.
contact me on
bicyclepoloireland@gmail.com

there is a polo competition in april in dublin if you fancy bring the bike run out cheak out our web site
bicyclepoloireland.com
yours in polo
polo boy