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Might be just what I'm looking for! PMing now

Looking for a set of double-sided SPD pedals, ideally like the Shimano EH500 or a similar style. Also potentially some MTB SPD shoes in size 8

Ta!

good point well made, although these woodchippers are 25.4mm clamp size and so are Nitto randonneurs (I think?), so I actually have plenty of nice quill stem options e.g. nitto dirt drop or similar. (also I'm undecided on these VO stems, first I thought they were cool but now I'm thinking the bolt situation is a bit fugly? that said they're nicest looking option I've seen for using 31.8 bars on a 1" threaded headset)

Thanks! Yeah I know what you mean, tbh the looks aren't really an issue for me, definitely not a good enough reason alone to change them. The shifters just feel reeeally far away, but then I used to ride a bike with down tube shifters so I'm sure I can get used to it. If it really bugs me then I'm thinking the nitto randonneur bars look like a good compromise

Ta very much! It was actually your Marin that inspired me to look for a 90s/00s steel hybrid for my budget gravel conversion, definitely a personal favourite forum bike :)

Talking of which, I finished cabling up the Multitrack last night. Did an absolutely terrible job, cut the shifter outers way too short and not really sure I've put the inline adjusters in the right place along the cable. But it was good enough for a test ride to the shops and I've got to say I am very excited about this bike. So light and nippy compared to the Courier!

I've now committed to a tour on the Caledonian way in June so I'm not going to be too precious about finishing this. High priority upgrades are a new cassette, possibly chainrings, tyres and clipless pedals + shoes. The handlebars/stem/saddle I can live with until I find something nice enough that it's worth recabling etc, although with those bar ends on the woodchippers it's got a bit of 'baby giraffe taking its first steps' gangly look...

Finally had a chance to ride the MF for fun rather than commuting this weekend - went to visit my parents in Cambridgeshire so took the opportunity to shred the gnar pootle around some Fenland bridleway with my dad and his very fancy bike.

Found the source of #UKGravel:

Rode some really fun #actualgravel:

Crossed some bridges with toight clearances:

And considered how, when you really think about it, modern gravel bikes are just retro MTBs with drop bars etc etc etc

Decided on impulse to get off the stressfully crowded train at Broxbourne on the way home and take the Lea river towpath back to Tottenham for a lovely golden hour ride. The bag on the front is a restrap duffel bag that they make for Wald baskets, but the side straps worked really well with this rack so I'm glad I'm able to keep using it without the basket. Still haven't sorted the dynamo cables but I refashioned the light bracket so it at least sits under the rack now, looks kind of meccano-ey which I'm into. At least the new cork ergo grips are enough of an update to justify spamming this thread?

AH that's a lovely build, the carradice + front rack combi is a real winner

Cheers for the info and nice words! My half-arsed googling suggested it was a singletrack from that era but it's good to have a specific year for it. Advice from various people is not to worry too much about the bendy fork, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a suitable replacement for peace of mind. The 'burner Trek' (name coined this weekend) is also in need of new chain, cassette and chainrings, so it's proving to be a bit more work than the tyres, tubes and cables job I was hoping for...

Great find. Looking forward to seeing how it scrubs up!

I'm not sure if they're original as the whole bike's been sprayed black. From a half-arsed google I think it's an early 90's trek singletrack.

Cheers that's really helpful. I think I'll probably replace them just to be on the safe side and it seems like there's plenty of 26" forks on ebay

cross-posting from my current projects thread a bit, but I'm assuming this might be a better place to ask this sort of question. My partner has recently got an early 90s steel MTB for commuting and touring. It's been pointed out to me that the forks are a bit weird and stick out too far forward, kind of like a beach cruiser. I agree they look a bit funny, but assumed it was a quirk of smaller framed MTBs of that era, or something like that.

So, my questions are:

Do these forks look weird/bent/damaged to you? Do people ever bend forks on purpose to change their handling? If they need replacing, what measurements/other considerations do I need to make in order to find some new ones?

Finished my partner's Trek yesterday. New tektro v brakes, grip-shifters from my Trek, old Pasela tyres from my muddy fox. She really likes it, being able to spin up hills in the granny ring and trundle along off road seems to be a revelation. Definitely a 'function over form' bike so not the most exciting build, but I'm very pleased that my bike tinkering obsession has finally proved useful for someone else.

Fitting the rear brakes made it very clear that the rear wheel was misaligned. It had a weird selection of spacers/washers which looked like an attempt at a ghetto 're-dishing'. Had a go at truing and dishing it properly which worked a treat, hoping the wheel doesn't explode while she's riding it though.

My brother also saw the above photo and pointed out the the forks look weird and sticky-outy (what's the technical term for that?). I hadn't noticed at first but since he said it I can't unsee it and now I'm pranging that these forks have had a bash in the past and will snap as soon as my partner goes over a speed bump. Any ideas?

Lovely bike, so much of this build is right up my street! Really like the brakes too. Having set up some V brakes on my partner's bike yesterday I think I'm actually on team canti despite them being a pain to set up without a third arm.

Not sure if this has already been mentioned but the colour scheme gives me frazzles vibes (and the fork gives me tripophobia)

Such a good bike and thread (and bike name)

Cheers @snottyotter and @Brommers. Good point about the one cog being a lot more worn than the others, hadn't considered that.

A friend of mine has asked me to help her reinstall the gears on her bike. Apparently she had a nice campagnolo RD stolen along with the downtube shifters. She took it to her lbs at the time (several years ago) and they gave the option of buying spenny new parts, or converting to a ghetto single speed, and she chose the latter. The mechanic apparently said that doing it this way would mean she can convert back to geared later without having to buy a new cassette.

I reckon I could do this for her but wanted to consult the wise people of this forum before I get started:

• Is it possible to reuse this cassette? If so, how do I reassemble it with the spacers in the correct place? Any pointers to some useful online literature would be most helpful.
  
• Given that she's happy staying with downtube friction shifters, am I right in thinking I could fit a shimano RD (given that they seem to be cheaper and more available) with no problems?
  
  

Cheers

Haven't really done much with the folder. I've had this suede saddle knocking around for ages, I really like it but haven't had anything to put it on so tried it out with this bike. Think I prefer the saddle it came with though, like sitting on a battered old chesterfield sofa. When I got it home I realised it has a 3-speed internal gear shimano hub, with the piano wire cable like they used with those weird old positron rear derailleurs. Now I'm not sure whether I can be bothered trying to sort the play in the hub, or just sack it off and go single speed with some BMX wheels. I also found out the frame seems to have once had internal cable routing which I thought was pretty funny, especially that whoever had it last clearly couldn't be bothered with keeping it that way.

Got started on the trek MTB as soon as we got it home. Seems like it was a lovely bike once, nice shimano mountain LX derailleurs, biopace chainring and some really cool deore integrated thumbie/brake lever thing with fake leather 'hoods' on the levers. Looks like the left hand thumbie had a prang and is missing the dust cover, super seized up too. Right hand thumbie worked nicely but wasn't mounted to the brake lever anymore so assuming it broke off and was bodged back on. Annoyingly I rounded off the bolt on the makeshift bracket so that thumbie is staying put for the time being. BB, headset and rear hub were fine, front hub needs a service. I liked the trek logo stamped on the top of seatstay as well. Think we'll leave the rattlecan job as it is but there were some tempting specks of bright blue poking through and we did discuss seeing if we could sand it back to the original paintwork somehow, a job for another day anyway

The straight bars and long stem made for a very weird riding position for my partner who is used to her upright mixte. I had some swept back bars from my old fixie in my parts box and an adjustable quill stem which came off my trek. She really liked this setup and I think it's got a cool 'klunkery' look to it, I actually think the nerdy stem really suits it. Swapped the pedals and saddle for the one that came with my trek as well, much more appropriate.

As much as we're both really into the agricultural vibe with those tyres, it will be getting some marathon pluses soon. I'm not sure if I'll be able to revive the deore thumbies but I have some grip shifters in the parts box which my partner is more used to anyway. Ordered some tektro v brakes as well. All very sensible decisions, as much as I'd love to spend ages looking for the 'right' retro parts, she needs to ride this next week so it's getting built up with what we have for now

I also now have two more projects on my hands...

My partner is going back into the office in a couple of weeks time and wanted a bike to lock up at the station. She already has a nice 80s raleigh mixte, which to most people would already be a very serviceable station lock-up bike, however since we took it on some cycling tours last summer it's gained a lot of sentimental value and the though of it getting nicked doesn't bear thinking about.

As well as wanting her new bike to be unattractive to thieves, she also wanted something she could use for touring this summer, with a wider range of gears and fatter tyres than her mixte. Ideally, we were looking for something more or less identical to my trek, but in a smaller size, however nothing was coming up on ebay/gumtree. She found a rattle-canned steel 26er (also a trek) with an 18" frame, which I was worried would be a bit on the large and heavy side, but it definitely ticked the 'unattractive to thieves' box. We went to look at it anyway and found that the frame itself was a good fit but she needed a much shorter stem and upright bars. No idea what the tubing is but weight-wise it's somewhere between my very heavy 80s muddy fox and lightweight 00s trek. Anyway, she liked the bike and I liked how much tinkering it would need so it was a win-win.

While we there, I spotted this knackered old steel folder/shopper and immediately loved the look of it. I don't need it really, but told myself it might be handy to have a runaround for going to the shops and locking up at pubs, so I asked to take it for a test ride. The rear brake is more or less just there for decoration, and the rear wheel had plenty of play, but it was so much fun to ride. A voice in my head was saying "buyitbuyitbuyit", and the seller was happy to make a deal for both bikes (still paid way too much for the folder but it brought the price for the MTB down to a steal)

A few updates after a busy weekend...

First up, the Trek now has a shorter stem, brand new BB and nice clean and shiny parts. Went for the microshift 8s bar end shifters which I'm pretty jazzed about, nice clicky feeling on the right hand shifter in indexed mode. Trying out this specialized saddle which came off a sensible hybrid I had years ago. Just need to reattach brakes, cables and chain and it'll be ready for it's first shakedown ride:

Long term plans for the Trek are to tart it up with some nicer parts and get it ready for a summer of tours and longer rides. Long term to do list:

• Finalise bars/stem combo. I'm not totally sure about the woodchippers, they seem excessively wide and I think will make using bar end shifters a bit awkward. However I like that they're 25.4 clamp size which means I can get a nicer quill stem and more or less keep everything else the same. However another option is to go for less flared bars and maybe something like the VO removable faceplate 31.8" quill stem if I need a wider clamp size to accomodate.
  
• New headset. The current headset locks up slightly when the front wheel is facing forward. I might do this step before anything else as it seems like it'll be less of faff when it's not fully cabled up/bar taped
  
• Upgrade the wheelset. The bike came with some decent shimano hubs which seem pretty bombproof but the braking surface on the rims are pretty worn. Will be a fun opportunity to try my hand building old hubs onto new rims
  
  

Picked up a bike yesterday that should do the job so this is no longer needed. Thanks all for the replies

PMing about the stem, cheers

No worries - I think I was more into the jazzy paintjob than she was anyway. Enjoy!

That would be much appreciated, cheers!

That's great, cheers for the info. Will look into those measurements tomorrow but no worries if it gets snapped up by someone else in the meantime!

Ah cheers, but yeah it's not quite what she's looking for, probably too similar to the bike that she sold when she got her mixte. Thanks for the offer though (and kudos to your mum for riding 26 miles! Trying to convince my mum to keep up with cycling on her very similar giant)