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@retrodicorsa I might be interested in this if @Qebrus isn't. Don't suppose you have the mounting bracket with it?

I'll take the jack brown tyre please, and possibly the pletscher + nitto short reach. Messaging now.

Yeah it makes your bike a horse. It's not mine, this was a relatively recent prototype being tested.

I'm pleased with the rack. It's pretty solid. 966 grams without bolts, not that it matters. I want it mounted as far back and low as possible, and that will take some bodging because the cable hanger is in the way of the top tube. I also need the rack to be a bit further back for the p-clip to attach this way. I was debating whether the top tube is really necessary, but just had a thought. What if the top tube was the cable hanger?

In general I like stuff to be modular so e.g. I can take the rack off without having to fiddle with the brake. But I'm hoping this rack will be a permanent fixture, so I'm tempted to do it. I'm thinking a hole in the top to take the brake outer, and a small hole in the bottom of the same tube for the cable to pass through. And maybe a hacksaw slice through half the tube vertically, connecting the holes so the brake can be detached quickly without undoing the cable.

Is this silly? The canti yoke might rub on the tube below. I guess water getting into the tubes is also a worry. Maybe I could bung them up with expanding foam after drilling? I think the material is nickel plated CrMo. Will the surface around the holes rust badly?

A couple of weeks ago I bought this monstrosity on eBay. It's a Nitto Campee 34F aka Big Front Rack and from what I can tell it was commissioned by Rivendell a while ago. It's a bit of a weird design - the bolt slots in the middle don't match up to any fork eyelets so you're supposed to use p-clips or bodge your own struts from the eyelets. Also the slots look nearly parallel to the tangential movement you'd get from rotating the rack around the mounting point at the dropout, so not very adjustable. It's not a proper platform on top but it is quite wide and very long so I think I'll be able to strap a lot on there. To start I'll probably try a basket with zip ties.

I've been wanting a porteur rack with low rider pannier rails for a while, but the ones I've seen with that functionality seem overkill and are crazy expensive.

I love the simplicity of the tubus tara which is great for low rider panniers. So I decided to mimic its design but using the old bent forks which initiated this build and, wait for it, 3 tent poles on top to make a platform - take note @nick_h.

If you ever want to feel truly alive I can recommend setting up a rack like this just in time to cycle fully loaded to Victoria for the train to Newhaven to catch a ferry to Dieppe. Miraculously it held up for that journey, and the subsequent tour down to Marseille, and I used it around town for a while after that. It was pretty good but ultimately the platform wasn't very sturdy, and there wasn't much support for the bottom of the panniers. If I had more time it would be fun to work on these issues, but life is short and there are better racks out there. Also, a stray football in a park snapped one of the tent poles.

I can't find any good photos of the rack right now, but here are a few including my mate testing trotify. It might look bonkers to stick another pair of forks on the bike but this setup was actually lighter than most big porteur racks (and admittedly less functional).

Looking forward to seeing this build, and the trips that follow.

Where is the cat going? In front of you or on the rack made of tent poles? I'm here for the journey.

Yeah straight on the quill with 2 shims. I have dreams about a 1" ahead stem to reduce the shimmage or a custom 22.2mm one, but that would be silly. It would be easier to have 2 handlebars on a 1 1/8" fork - you'd just need 2 ahead stems.

Thanks for asking. It all started on a sunday morning in january outside rich mix on bethnal green road. The saddle came from classifieds on here, and I usually had bike chain links securing it to the frame but I'd removed them temporarily. Not sure they would've helped. I left the bike for an hour and the saddle was gone when I came back. The rich mix staff were very nice & offered to help go through cctv, but then realised brick lane market had started 50m away. I went straight there and boom, my saddle was on the first table.

"Morning lads! Whose saddle is this?". They were defensive & said some guy had just sold it to them for a tenner, which I believe. I told them it was mine and I was taking it, which they accepted reluctantly. Then I went too far by having a go at them for being part of this shitty system and got my phone out to take a photo. Stupid mistake, they got aggressive and I was lucky to get out of there with my saddle, phone and face intact.

Fast forward exactly a year - super busy sunday afternoon on columbia road where I locked my bike for 45 mins. This time I had a crap cable lock on the saddle. Easily snipped, saddle gone. Again I go straight to brick lane market but it's the end of the day & most stalls are packed up. Managed to go through one bin of brooks saddles as it was being loaded into a van, but no luck finding mine.

The whole thing is pretty sad, especially seeing how many kids get caught up in the market. I think there are also a bunch of vulnerable people whose main source of income is nicking saddles on sundays off bougie dickheads in shoreditch. I made peace with my situation and bought a new one on sale from spa cycles. I've gone with ball bearing + wax in the bolts. Hopefully no thieves watching.

On that note, I took the bar end shifter off last week to sand off the paint and make it shiny silver (internet peer pressure). Somehow the thread that the expander bolt goes into got stripped, so it now doesn't tighten up properly. I ground the bolt down a bit to try avoid the stripped area, but it isn't enough so I'm on the lookout for an M10 tap if anyone has one knocking around.

Other way round actually - the bar end shifter is on the "wrong" side. I think it was to make the cables tidier.

Thanks. Next thing is sorting out a proper front rack, probably with basket & low rider panniers. I'm trying to make the front of the bike as heavy as possible you see.

Well this has treated me well over the last 5 years! I can't remember all the iterations it's been through but since the last post it looks like it got:

• powder coated (after issues with the paint, kindly sorted by Mario)
  
• tektro cantis instead of drop bolt callipers
  
• compact spa cycles crankset instead of enormous campag
  
• a front derailleur. I don't know how I did the dd in that big ring.
  
• B17 saddle (twice stolen, once recovered)
  
• 4x new levers
  
• humpert upright bars from sjs
  
• some rivendell treatment after a visit to the holy land of walnut creek
  
• technomic stem
  
• gb mudguards
  
• 32mm tyres. 25mm front is temporary, excuse the mudguard line.
  
• deore + exal lx17 rear wheel, first one I built.
  
  

Hoping to share my ideas for the next developments on here :)

Dibs on the wheelset please

Sold to @sergioldn and donated £15 to the forum.

Sorry I missed this @LeMesjeu but I didn't want to post anyway.

I'm probably going to pick this up from Bristol next week so it'll be collection from London N16

Thanks for letting me know, although I thought new framesets were £600? [edit: ah, original rrp, fair enough] I came up with the price by averaging other cross check classifieds on here, but they probably were newer.

I'll try it at £200 but someone else tell me if this is still off?

Price drop £230 and I'll donate £15 to the forum

Posting on behalf of my sister. The frameset has been sitting around unbuilt for the last 3 years.

• 54cm "surly size" (53cm centre-to-centre)
  
• Tatty paint & needs a bit of a clean. Small ding on top tube, just about visible in photo.
  
• Sold as pictured with Cane Creek Forty headset.
  
  

£250 > £230 > £200 collected from Bristol BS16 / London N16 and I'll donate £15 to the forum.

From the surly website, assuming spec hasn't changed:

Reach: 394.8
Stack: 538.4
Head Tube Angle: 72.0°
Head Tube Length: 102
Seat Tube Length (ctt): 540
BB Drop: 66
Wheelbase: 1014.3
Chainstay Length: 425
Top Tube Length, Actual: 559.9
Top Tube Length, Effective: 560
Seat Tube Angle: 73.0°
Standover Height: 809
Fork Length: 400
Fork Rake: 44

Thanks. I'm going for the cheaney, they feel really good. Anyone got experience getting veldtschoen resoled?

I'm struggling to choose between a pair of boots and thought that lfgss might be able to help me overthink it.

My feet are like little spades (gardening not playing cards). Very wide. All my shoes start tight and end up spilling out at the side. But now I have self-respect and I want a well-fitting pair of boots that will last 10+ years.

It wasn't easy finding wide boots. I got these both on sale for the same price - Tricker's Grassmere in tan and Cheaney Pennine II R in "burgundy". They're both G fitting, or as tricker's likes to call it, 6.

Despite being 1/2 size smaller, the tricker's are bigger than the cheaney, on the outside at least. The sole is 7mm longer & 3mm wider (both are commando). The tricker's feel higher quality overall - the leather is thicker, the top of the tongue is lined. But surprisingly the cheaney are more immediately comfortable with less pressure at the widest point of my foot. What's going on there? Some theories:

1. The cheaney are "veldtschoen" with the upper leather bending outwards. The tricker's are storm welt with the upper leather bending inwards + a layer of welt on the outside. Do these methods make the insides of the shoe wider/narrower respectively?
   
2. The cheaney leather is more forgiving, allowing my foot to overspill without feeling it as much. Does this mean they won't last as long?
   
3. The cheaney last shape fits my foot better. It's boxier, so maybe more height near the toes. But tricker's last looks wider all round.
   
   

Basically I'm leaning towards the cheaney because they feel wider, but is it an illusion? I'm sure I could break in the tricker's. Is the thicker leather worth it in the long run?

Other questions:

The tricker's heel is much wider and has a thick layer of leather in it, the cheaney is all rubber. Is that just aesthetic?

How easy/cheap is it to find a cobbler to resole veldtschoen vs storm welt?

I'm not sure what period they did JIS but it can't have been long. My frame & stickers looked near identical to this and it was JIS. I think it's early/mid 90s although I might be wrong. Easiest way to check the standard is to remove the crown race from the fork and measure the diameter of the fork crown "seat". Or try bang an old ISO race on it - it won't go.

If it is JIS there's nothing wrong with just keeping your headset, or buying another JIS one. Going ISO would give more options & might be cheaper.

I've been considering this for a while on mine. The bb is pretty low. I guess that's fine if the tyre width makes up for it, but there isn't much clearance front or back on these 90s frames.