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Been riding this quite extraordinary machine for a few weeks now , and I thought some sort of review would be in order . As a reference , my #1 machine is an early 90's Cinelli Supercorsa SLX , modern Campag 10s with Ultremo rubber, which is setting the bar high. I tend to ride out of North London into either the Chilterns , or N. Hertfordshire.

Handling - Initially not very confidence inspiring, a switch to 23mm ultermo tyres dramatically improved matters , corners and descends amazingly well now
Climbing - This is by far the stiffest frame I've ridden , you really notice this in a positive way uphill , especially long drags , climbs where I would be out of the saddle on the 21 I'm sitting down on the 19 .
Comfort - Well there's always a compromise with such a stiff frame but to be fair I only really start to notice this approaching 4 hours into a ride when I'm getting tired anyway , but this , and only 1 bottle cage limits the bike to shorter rides.
Brakes - Not as good as modern Campag for sure , but at least as good as the canti's on my cross bike , I like the feel of them , they certainly modulate well , mind you I haven't tried them in the wet yet!
Transmission - long time since I've used D/T shifters , and I love 'em , could do with an extra sprocket , really missing the 18t , may have to go 9 speed at some point.

I'm really happy with the way this project has turned out , frankly I was taking a bit of a risk , a British TT frame built by an unknown builder , could have easily turned out to be a real pig that only goes in a straight line , big kudos do who ever crafted this frame , very impressed.

Well I must admit I was really expecting this to be a big waste of my time, getting Shimano 600ax brakes to work that is, but they looked so right on this build I decided to persevere . Ax brakes had a reputation of being , well a bit crap , I have worked on them in the past on other peoples bikes and they are a bit marginal - you have to get the set up spot on to get any sort of performance. Now I'm not expecting modern dual pivot type stopping , but they need to be close to this or there gone.

First job is to check they actually fit, not as easy as it sounds , the brake pads don't adjust , they're part of the caliper , the only adjustment is up or down at the mounting bolt . With the brakes full on you need all the pad on the rim , not a problem on older frames like mine , but forget it if you have straight blade front forks. Not having adjustable pads also rules out any toe-in fine tuning as well.

Having established the brakes fit good , next job was to strip and rebuild the units with fresh lube , easy enough , the idea here is to reduce any unnecessary friction. I was very pleased to discover that the pads have been upgraded at some point with Mathauser inserts, this is most definitely a bonus.

With the calipers back on the bike, time to cable up , I've fitted a set of Jag wire cables with nice smooth runs with no tight curves , attaching the inner wire to the brakes on Ax's is a bit fiddly , removing the wheels helps.

Test ride time ,and they work ,I mean they really work , well chuffed with this . I have a sneaking suspicion that the Tectro brake levers have played their part as well , their cable pull turns out to be perfect for these brakes.

I will hopefully be putting in some miles on the machine in the next couple of weeks , I will report back , hopefully it rides as good as it looks!

Whoah, fantastic taste right there.
The third down, is that a Rudge?

Cheers, Never did find the true identify of that machine , the frame was really old, pre 1920's , but some of the parts were of a later Rudge .

Pre 1950 you say , here's some I've built / restored over the years;
http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr277/cloda12/P1200052_zps54bd9679.jpg
http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr277/cloda12/P1250940_zps0b36fda8.jpg
http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr277/cloda12/P1280054_zpsea819c4d.jpg
http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr277/cloda12/P1270896_zpsaf4ba4fa.jpg
http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr277/cloda12/P1270996_zpsa0915e27.jpg

Certainly interested. Not the same 'silver' as yours I know

1939 Sunbeam Silver Light Roadster , recently sold this to one of them war reenactment blokes , he said he was going to fit a gun to it !

Class frame , look after it .

This is lovely.

Those Tekro r341levers bearable on a commuter but are hideous and not very nice to use. Gutted campag levers of some kind might be the way forward. As you said yourself, contact points are important.

Was going to go with gutted Campag levers , but the only candidates I had were horrible plastic Xenon's , so the Tekro's , which are 't really up to the standard of the rest of the build, are staying until I can source some knackered alloy blades Campag levers on the cheap!

Good work with the Flite: what's your address? I'll get mine in the post. :)

How does the Fizik wear? Fancy some for a "jump on and go" bike, ie no gloves.

Good luck with the AX! Two frames down and I've yet to get them to meet the rim, either by virtue of the drop or the angle: having them slam me into the back of a bus would be progress...

It's not that hard to recover a flite,just not that easy I want to do it for anyone else :)
Fizik tape is quality , thinner than most , but I like that , will fail the smell test long before it wears out.
AX brakes will be a challange and may well end up on ebay, we'll see.

One of the few things in life that I can be accused of being fussy about, is my riding position, and bike contact points. All my bikes are carefully set up the same , they have the same type of saddle, bars, pedals, crank length etc. This is time well spent I reckon , in the many, many years of riding , including 11 seasons of road racing in my yoof , I've never had a problem with my knees or back.

My choice of saddle is of course , a Flite Ti , this one was originally yellow and scuffed up , so I had a go at recovering it in grey leather, now soft furnishings aren't really my bag, but I'm pleased with this as a first effort , leather was obtain off evilbay for £3. Saddle's bolted to a Shimano 600 aero seat post.


Bars are Ambrosio , again favorites of mine in 44cm width,there noticeably stiffer than Cinelli bars, only issue is, they only come in black
which meant I had to polish the centre through the black ano to the raw silver . Stem is a 12cm Cinelli 1a , went slightly off piste with the brake levers , there modern Tektro, chosen mainly because I had a pair knocking around and they feel very much like the modern Campag Ergo's I have on my other bikes.Bar tape is the most excellant Fizik soft touch in dark grey

Next, I will be attemting to be the first person to actually get a pair of Shimano AX brakes to work !

Now Sold, cheers

Price Drop NOW £50 bargaintastic

Managed to pick up some decent wheels for the build, hardly used but left in someones yard for years, so needed some work, namely removing the faded rim decals and replacing the rusty skewers . Mavic CXP30 aero rims, there pressures not sprints , DT spokes , radial pattern on the front . Shimano 600 hubs. Currently shod with some Pariba 20mm tyres which look the nuts with their amberwalls , never used this make of tyre before, so I'm a bit apprehensive of their performance, kinda got used to modern Schwalbe tyres and not getting flats.


OK , premature money shot

A pair of Track Wheels

Miche Primato large Fange hubs 32 hole 120mm rear spacing VGC smooth bearings

Mavic Pro rims , these have been used on a bike with brakes, so there is brake wear , not bad on the rear, but on the limit on the front.

DT stainless spokes , rim tapes , track nuts, Miche 15t fixed sprocket.

Trued and tensioned , great wheels but with braking surface wear.


£60 collect West Hendon NW9 or can post +£15 PM'S Please!

Now sold , cheers

Threads not closed, waiting for first person to PM me , primative robot,
to collect. If this doesn't happen soon it's over to;
chrisbmx116
marxist_vulcan
MrOG

Hope that's clear to everyone

^ Looks like R G F same design

Vintage Track Frame ( NO forks )

seat tube 55cm c-top
top tube 55 cm c-c
head tube 14cm
120 mm rear width
English threaded B/Bkt
531 db tubing
26.6 mm seat post
No brake drillings

Proper track frame , built in France ( possible Belgium) early 80's I would guess . Reynolds 531db with French '531' decal and metric ,slightly smaller diameter tubing ( hence odd size seat post size ). Really nice long point cut out lugs , chunky rear seat stays and integral A/key seat bolt. Obviously a quality hand made frame, the lugs have been thinned, and some nice detailed touches . Paint was really shabby when I got it , so most of it has been removed , mainly to check for any nasties, none found apart from a very small dent under the down tube. The head tube and B/Bkt have been faced , the B/bkt threads have been chased and the seat tube has been reamed.
Great project for someone , saddly too small for me (I would need 140mm stem to make the reach right which is a bit mad ) either strip the rest of the paint off and go raw , or paint it your dream colour. My old man picked up the frame for me from Devon of all places, unfortunatly I don't no it's history, there were no makers decals and theres no frame number.

**£85 collect West Hendon London NW9 can UK Post £15 PM's Please!
**

Right back to business , namely getting the transmission to work quietly and smoothly , not easy with the ultra short rear end on this frame , but here goes;

Firstly the front mech , this needed a fair amount of fettling to get correctly positioned to follow the curvature of the outer chainwheel and sit at the right angle to function accurately . This was achieved by sandwiching a shaped spacer between the braze on adapter clamp and the Shimano 600 front mech , a longer bolt was also needed . Next the cable clamp bolt was moved to the front of the operating arm , stopping the cable from hitting the rear tyre.

Next the rear mech , Started as Shimano 600 8 speed with a nasty scrape down the side , I polished this out and in keeping with the aero theme ,the lower cage was swapped out for a 7 speed one which has the fully enclosed cage.

moving on to the shiffters , now despite having a rake of old shimano D/T levers a could'nt quiet get an exact match, but I'm happy enough with these boys

All cabled using Jagwire stainless inners , and funky gold outer , the gears changed smoothly , but there was still too much chain noise, fitting a flusher 9 speed KMC chain considerably improved matters , but still not good enough. eventually moving the chainwheel out by 2 mm using a shim behind the R/H BB cup sorted the problem , now there's only chain rub on the extremes , which I'm never going to use.

Back in the day anyone using a ring smaller than 42t was considered a frilly dressed ballerina and told to join the CTC.
Conversly anyone using anything bigger than a 52t ( 53t when on a ' good day') was

1. A tester
   
2. A member of the Russian Milk Race team
   
3. Sean Yates
   
   

Yes going with Shimano for the gears at least , partly because that's what I have, and - whisper it - Shimano D/T index gears work better than Campag.

Dug out the perfect chainset for the build - a Campag C-Record , 1st gen as well , with the engraved cranks .
Like a lot of the parts going on this build , it's a re-generated race part ;

race bike > training bike > winter bike > parts bin > forward15 years > vintage parts bin .

theres heavy toestrap / overshoe rub , so I polished through the anodizing , looks a lot better now

A pair of hardly used TUFO S23 tubs 700x21mm , nicely mature
**£20
**Collect West Hendon NW9 or can post + £5

Thanks for all your comments , positive and negative , you don't put your build on here for an easy ride !
This is a frame with really clean lines , and I think the smaller D/T tube decals work well , it's what Cinelli did to great effect with the Laser , a little unconventional , but this is an unconventional frame.

All credit to Mario, he's done a fantastic job , mixed the colour for me and got it spot on, and the
finish is perfect . I supplied the decals he did the rest , turned it round in less than 2 weeks and only charged me £80 , fantastic service and a nice guy ,really happy to recommend his work ,

Did the first bit of spannering today , ream/chase/face the frame and fitted a stronglight taber bearing headset.

^^ Thats the conclusion I came to 2 years ago , but I checked with the shop in Putney ( it was still around then ) and they said the numbers don't match at all . Shame , I know Tommy Quick build some of their frames and I used to own a nice TQ lugless frame. The only other RT builder I can remember is Ron Thomas , which is a possabilty as I picked frame up in Harrow , all academic now as it's painted ,mind you if the true builder is every revealed, I'll fit their name somewhere.

No time to go through the whole plan now , but as this is going to be my #2 road bike , it's not going to be a NOS credit card shagging project , infact I've collected most of parts already ;

Shimano 600 tricolor gears with 8 speed D/T shifters , braze-on front mech with modified adapter bkt.
Campag C-Record or Chorus cranks
Mavic CPX30 rims
Shimano ax brakes

Anyway good news , not only is the frame painted , a mates picked it up from Mario , not seen it yet , but in apparently it's stunning , have to wait to Friday
Will post up pics soon as I can.