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I was sorely tempted but my first one was a bit bendy, and belt drives are very intolerant of that. This is my first time using carbon tow which should make it much stiffer in the joints, so I might consider it in future. The Gates bits are just too expensive for me atm as well...

Ah, good point. Nice choice, I'm a big fan of fat tyres, and gumwalls.

Mine's fixed as well but I may put a rear disc brake mount on for future SS use, especially as I plan to get a front disc brake soonish.

Those cables really shouldn't work, but they do... needs mudguards though if you insist on putting a bottle cage there, surely? Very pretty without though.

^ needs to kick the habit.

They've self-destructed and the cages have fallen off, leaving the axle. That thief has very low aspirations.

It's a good idea. I'm halfway through finals and instead of revising I have been spending silly amounts of time combining the following into a functioning front end: a steel MTB frame with a 160mm headtube a 700c fork with a 160mm 1" threadless steerer, assorted parts of 1" headsets, threaded and unthreaded, and a 1 1/8" stem. The final product is more shim and steerer extender than bike and I have absorbed little literary theory. But I have relaxed ...

Is it a model of a giant bike?

Looks cool, good job. Lived in Bournemouth for about 18 years :) Do you have any info about the jig? I'm making another bike soon and may actually use a jig this time ...

Ha! Nice one :D Would look lovely with some fat tan Big Apples or similar...

Bump

You got any more pics / info about this one? Looks really interesting.

Awesome - looks like Moso with a bit of Black. You might find that the Black is too thick-walled for a seatpost, but it might be ok.

By another bizarre coincidence my bamboo has also arrived today. Your thinner bits look way better than mine, jealous. I'm going to go more extreme on the sanding so hopefully that should even out the imperfections in mine. May start a thread of my own if I can be bothered, but it'll be a few weeks before I actually start building ...

Or really small spokey dokies. Fuck I loved those things.

(re. the SJS ones, I have no idea what chainline they are since I have an adjustable BB)

SJS sell 140s - they're cheap, basic, and heavyish, though I haven't weighed them and they may actually not be so bad compared to to 170s. They're a small fixed chainring, how many teeth eludes me. Gearing wise they're pretty similar to a normal sized chainring with normal length cranks but obviously ymmv.

I've done maybe a couple of hundred miles on them and am happy. Takes oooh, 15 minutes to get used to them and then you're fine. Don't believe the silly bollocks people say about losing leverage - it's just the same as changing any other part of your transmission. Compensate with a smaller chainring or larger sprocket and the only difference is that you're doing a higher cadence. It's not nearly as noticeable as you'd think, because your feet are doing smaller circles. I can go just as fast with mega short cranks as with normal length ones, with a smaller chainring to give the same gearing.

I got them for the stupidest reason imaginable (got wound up with metal toe clips dragging on the floor on the pedestrianised parts of Oxford). There are other claimed benefits but they're slightly fringe and I didn't have knee pain before so cannot make miraculous anecdotal claims.

Sheldon Brown has a gear calculator that takes into account crank length, btw.

Anyone know a good source for 1 1/8" threadless chrome lugged road forks, with eyelets, and without brake mounts?

TFG sell some but they don't have eyelets unfortunately. There are some Tange Prestige CX ones, but they're a bit steep.

Also, in the event that I give up searching for chrome ones, are there any particularly recommended manufacturers for normal lugged steel forks? There are lots of different brands, but the vast majority seem to be a similar grade of cromo, with the same lugs and everything. For example, SJS Cycles sells some steel touring forks - I've been happy with the 1" version, and they're only £30 or so - is there much improvement to be had?

Cheers,
Ben

It is structural in steel frames but no-one really knows whether it's really needed for bamboo... I'd suspect it probably still is. Depends a bit on your geometry and how long the seat stays are. On my last one I had a bridge, the new one will be compact geo with a wishbone seat stay for mega stiffness.

Easily done. Your challenger's failure to add more specific conditions to the wager will probably cover your medical costs.

i've been bet a tenner i can't get down this brakeless, i will do it

It's alright for dogs like yours; little scrappy bastards like the one above get exhausted being forced to run along (look how it's pulling - he's not having fun).

Nice build, I'm enjoying reading his blog.

(But note the erroneous choice of vertical dropouts, and the not-so-magic magic ratio...)

A few years back a rider rode one of my Audaxes on an 76" fixed Bamboo bike he had made also using a Hemp and epoxy resin mix for binding/bonding the tubes in a similar way to Carbon weave.

His website is here http://ridingongrass.com/

what do you mean by sliding dropouts? I found some stainless steel track ends for about £25, I am still deciding whether or not to go for it.

I just ordered my bamboo from the bamboo bicycle project workshop which was almost certainly overpriced... it hasn't arrived yet, but I really just wanted something that was guaranteed and treated. I'm not too sure which species it is, I'll take pics when it arrives.
I bought loads of epoxy, 1kg of the 105 with 0.2kg of the hardener. I am the sort of person who will end up needing it again though so that's ok.

Something not entirely dissimilar to these:

Pros:
Set and forget chain tension - can pop wheel in and out without needing to redo it
Disc brakes are a possibility for SS
Can get the wheel very close to the seat tube without having trouble getting it out (horizontal dropouts and trackends may require you to deflate the tyre - something to watch out for (I fucked it up)).
Can easily replace the sliding plates if you muck em up somehow, or if you decide you want gears / Rohloff etc.

Cons:
Expensive
Heavier
More complicated

£25 for stainless track ends sounds alright; I think stainless is worth the significant price hike on bits that will never paint well. I get all my framebuilding parts from Ceeway.

The amount you paid for bamboo is fair when you consider it'll be properly treated and hand-picked for the purpose. I'm taking a bit more of a punt because I'm cheap. Also I'm experimenting with thinner tubes filled with foam, could be interesting.

Is the fork painted? If not, I'd just take a file to the axle as BQ said. Whether that's a good idea or not I'm not qualified to say, but I guess you're not getting any deeper than the depth of the threads, so I expect it will have dick all effect on the strength.

I'm lazy so I'd use a diamond file and finish in a quarter of the time (compared to a normal file), but anything will do the trick. Dremels are a great investment though.

My first came in under £100 for the frame - about £30 for the bamboo, about the same for the glue (I bought two West System mini packs and used about one and a third, perhaps - next time I don't know if I'll bother with the minipack because I barely used any of the fillers.), plus maybe £20 for the metal bits and the sisal cordage I used for the joints. So it can be done on the cheap. Tools and setup are much cheaper than any other material.

Sisal and hemp are cheaper than CF by a reasonable margin but I wouldn't use them again. I was also lucky in that I didn't buy the very best bamboo, nor did I buy very much of it, but it worked fine - I had plenty of useable stuff nonetheless, but a friend of mine had the bad luck of the draw and most of his split - if he had bought a small quantity like I did, he'd have about enough for a Raleigh Shopper style frame.

Despite using common or garden Moso bamboo I was very happy with it and plan to use it again, though I'd be interested to use something a bit stronger. What did you use, Wardy?

My second frame (soon to begin, will probably have my own thread to avoid confusion) will be a lot more expensive, because I'd like to use stainless sliding dropouts. Normal dropouts were about £12, I think - these will cost something mad like £75. I think it will be worth it. I may chicken out.

Does anyone know what that Anderson seatpost is? It's painted like it's integrated but I'm sure you can see the pinch bolt on the seat tube. Probably custom, I guess. I know there's a thread for this, but may as well strike while the iron's hot.

I think the bike's pretty cool actually, though there's something not quite right...