Bike Bits!

Ok, So you cant build a bike without bits. So I set out to get some of the needful on the cheap. A guy Phil I work with also needed a bike and I had an old mountain bike I bought for £50 two years ago I rattlecaned it silver for him and gave it a tidy and he bought it for £40.

I been reading the London fixed gear and single speed forum and had a nosey about in their classified section. www.lfgss.com I managed to track down from one guy a set of drop racing style handle bars, a brake lever and rear track wheel complete with rear sprocket that had a prima miche track hub. Another guy had a matching front wheel with tyre and tube.

Turned out they were all from a raleigh conversion so I was pretty sure they would all fit.












Ebay also came to the rescue and my second pair of adidas sold. That gave me £65.

The bits cost.

Front wheel, tyre, tube =£16 incl postage
Brake level, rear wheel with track hub and sprocket and handle bars = £56

Total £72. Just waiting on front wheel coming tomorrow morning fingers crossed. Spent£7.40 more than I've from selling a few bits, so not so bad.

List of parts still needed.

front brake
chain
handlebar tape
stem bolt.

Bike part 2.

So after stripping the frame of unwanted parts, I started to strip the paint from the frame using some leftover nitromorse paintstripper from table. I ended up needing more paint stripper and some wire wool. I stuck two pairs of old adidas up for sale on ebay and luckily one of them sold for £25. It got spent on.

Montana black 400ml 'Jade' spraypaint x 2 =£9.50


1 x 400ml Primer and 1 x 400mlLacquer £8
1 x hacksaw =£1
1x file =£1
1x can nitromorse £3.98
1 x coarse wire wool £1.98

£25.46

Bike Swaps - Part 1.

Been a while since I blogged but few swaps have been going on in the meantime. I fancied building one of those fixed gear racing bikes, but needed a frame and cheap. So started trawling gumtree, I found an advert for a raleigh frame including saddle, crank and headset/stem.
The frame was a bit rusty but showed promise.

The owner wanted to swap it for a 26" Mountain bike wheel to repair his own fixed gear mountain bike. Sadly I didn't have a wheel but contacted the seller and set about trying to acquire one.

I went down to the lawrence street workshops in the middle of the holylands as it has the "belfast bicycle workshop" in it, hoping to track down a wheel. Sadly its owner, Austin was away but I bumped into Paddy Bloomer.

Paddy builds everything from a peddle powered soundsystem to making a boat from a skip and then sailing it round the canals of venice. He's a great bunch of lads.

Paddy took me round to his workshop that has every kind of bike including sinclair C5 and after a bit of rummaging hoked out a 26" mountain bike wheel.

He didnt want anything for it and told me to get him a pint sometime, but as no good deed goes unpunished after a bit of haggling he settled on 4 tins of guinness as a swap for the bike wheel :).

Later that night I met Harry the owner of the frame and swapped him the wheel for the frame, after stripping of all the stuff I didnt need for the conversion I was left with this...

still turning 4 tins of Guinness into a bike isnt a bad days work.

wax on, wax off.

I have finished sanding table and started waxing it. Looks decent, but pics dont really show the shine.

Getting there!

Phew! just put table together after finishing stripping all the varnish off it.

Seems theres actually a nice table under it all, Will do a final sanding then on Sunday.

stripping table top

Spent today stripping the gunk and varnish off the top of the table. Just need to finish sanding it now, but I got to wait til sat to grab my sheet sander. Just wondering what route to take once im finished varnish or some kind of wax?

An afternoon with a stripper.

Just spent this afternoon stripping the legs of varnish ready for the table to be refurbed.

just need a final sand and cleaned with turps.

Noticed one leg has been chewed by a dog for that authentic farmhouse feel.

Right, off to Leftfield tonight!