Thursday, February 18
Frank, it's a Revolution...
by
Billy Goat
on Thu 18 Feb 2010 09:31 GMT
Todays post is just for my 'virtual Buddy' Frank who lives in Canada and is a lover of vintage Canadian bike components, as is yours truly!! I owe him some information and am famously slow at performing tasks like this so I figured, surprise Frank and also do a little piece on these, my most favourite of vintage MTB cranks. The Revolution Crank first showed it's face in the 1991 Pro-Series Component Group (as far as I can remember) and it stayed around for several years with Syncros eventually making Road and Compact Drive versions. Material wise the early Revs were made from tubular Columbus Nivacrom and weighed 400g, which at the time was pretty damn light. Later on they were constructed from Tru Temper OX4 and tipped the scales at 410g. The cranks were cold forged at 125 ton pressure which was supposed to make the metal even harder and stronger.Syncros Cranks are either loved or hated, after all they are rather bland and boring looking when compared to something bright and garish like Kooka trash or Grafton etc, but they do the business and are very strong. They don't look good on every bike but are a good match for any early Rocky Mountain, Brodie, Offroad Toad etc and they also look kind a neat on my EWR  For some unknown reason the value of these has gone sky high in the last year or so and its not uncommon for these to change hands on eBay for insane money, in fact a NOS set sold in Germany with the elusive Crank 'o' Matic crank bolts for nearly £400 just after Christmas 2009.I am lucky to have three pairs of these, well in fact when I started typing this post I only had two pairs but I've just received news on closing a deal for a third pair so I now have two pairs in Standard Drive (110bcd) and one pair in Compact Drive (94bcd)  So, Frank....to get back to you, here are some pix for you, take note of the inner chainring bolt pix. The bolt is 14mm long by the way, let me know via RetroBike if you need any more info     
Friday, February 12
Honey, will you pass the lube?
by
Billy Goat
on Fri 12 Feb 2010 21:36 GMT
Call me old fashioned or maybe even call me wrong but I've been using GT85 to lube my bike chains since the early 90's, somebody back then must have told me it was a good idea...Anyway it seems things have moved on in the lube world quite a lot since then so its time to get with the times.
One of my riding buddies (Chris) talks highly of Rock 'n' Roll lubes, specifically Extreme Chain Lube which is some strange, gloopy blue stuff so I thought I'd give it a go so the Rohloff SLT-99 has had a nice bath in the stuff and tomorrow i'm off to some really shitty (mudwise...) forest down in Suffolk that has some nasty gritty sandy soil that really gets into the chain and mechs so this will be a good test!Man sized, Extreme lubrication  So, once the chain had a birthday I gave the whole bike a check over and paid some attention to something that many people leave untouched....the saddle clamp.
If you think about it this is an important piece of kit, you have your ass sat on it for long periods of time but it gets blasted with crap off the trail and probably doesn't get cleaned real well. So I stripped mine down, coated all the threads and brass inserts with Anti-Seize Compound, put a big bunch more on the rail clamps and put it all back together again....nice smooth bolts and no more creaking Ti rails Cleaned and greased Syncros clamp  As the Flite Ti was taken off the bike to clean up the saddle clamp I figured I'd swap in the SDG Kevlar Ti Comp that I got from the USA, I've been curious about these (as mentioned in a previous post on here). To be honest the profile doesn't look much different from a Flite but its gonna stay on for two big forest rides tomorrow so I'll report back later...Nice rails 
So the bike is more or less ready for tomorrow, just gotta get some air in the tyres.....watch this space for a ride report over the next few days 
Monday, January 18
Abandon hope all ye who enter here
by
Billy Goat
on Mon 18 Jan 2010 14:05 GMT
First proper Sunday ride since Xmas so I thought I'd make it a good one, headed out of town and across to Geddington to ride Clay Dick, then over to Fermyn Woods, then Aldwincle, Lyveden Way, Bear Gate Track and home. Clay Dick is an old Byway that links Geddington to Brigstock and possibly the site of a Victorian Brickworks (hence the clay reference...). Anyway usually the top end is virtually unpassable, with the trees hanging so low over the trail that in some places you cannot even push a bike through......except this time the Byway had been 'repaired'.
By 'repair' I mean they have bulldozed the whole thing flat, about 40 feet wide, ripping out all the trees, bushes, rabbit and foxholes and turning it into a mile of sticky wet clay that will take months to settle  . So I rode as much as I could until my EWR stopped working and my feet started to look like Swamp Thing and then I carried my bike for 3/4 a mile  .
I fought my way to Brigstock and crossed thru Fermyn Woods which was another, barely rideable shitfest before aborting the ride near Sudborough  Wildlife count for the ride was still good, four or five Red Kites (all eluded my camera sadly), 5 fairly big deer in Fermyn Woods and six Llama's.....yeah It's true, although they could have been Alpaca, Clovius Hoofus isn't my area of expertise Nice beginnings Mud stops Play... Magura 'Mud Magnets'...wheel locked   'Repaired' trail - The Long Walk Mud Magnets Part 2 FUBAR EWR Kapitan Billy Goat says "TARFU, Mission Aborted!!!"
Monday, January 4
World SPD Stamping Championships 2010
by
Billy Goat
on Mon 04 Jan 2010 11:50 GMT
For a year or so now my riding buddies have been extolling the virtues of SPD's and trying to sell the idea to me, you see, I still live in the world of the Toeclip so I can't see the sense. I never fall off my bike, never have much trouble 'getting in' to my toeclips and to be honest, in recent months I've gone back to flat pedals with no clips at all. Yesterday was what turned out to be a large RetroBike meet at Thetford Forest, the largest lowland Pine Forest in Great Britain, down in deepest Suffolk with 22 riders attending. Also present in large quantities was snow and ice.....LOTS of it, which, much to my amusement, seems to be THE Achilles Heel of SPD pedals The tranquil, picture postcard 'snowscape' scenery was shattered by the sound of dozens of MTB riders furiously stamping on their frozen/useless SPD's, wobbling and dabbing the ground...hence the title of this blog post  Joking aside a great day was had by all during the two sub-zero rides we did yesterday......some pictures:Chin Wag Art Haus Wobble Fun Watching the 'Bomber Kidz' Snow Road All Along The Watchtower Iced Mech Xntrick Machinery Alien Sunset More pictures and words can be found HERE
Friday, December 4
Thetford Forest Ride - Primordial Shitfest
by
Billy Goat
on Fri 04 Dec 2009 23:28 GMT
Main Entry: penis en·vyPronunciation: -"en-vEFunction: noun: the supposed coveting of the penis by a young human female which is held inpsychoanalytic theory to lead to feelings of inferiority and defensive or compensatory behavior.Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc. ...a little twist on this:Main Entry: 29er en·vyPronunciation: -"en-vEFunction: noun: the supposed coveting of a 29" bicycle by a man which leads to feelings of inferiority and defensive or compensatory behavior by owning a 26" bicycle when the fact dawns on him he has just been 'outgunned' by superior technology.....so, NEVER try and keep up with someone on a 29er, especially when you are on an early 90's fully rigid 26" MTB
It was like a Roadrunner cartoon....Jango was off into the distance, casually pedalling while still seated, as if he was on a genteel Sunday amble. I was Wile.E. Coyote (Pure Genius) pedalling crazily like a schoolkid on a BMX, bouncing off tree roots, slipping all over the trail, vibrations from the trail jarring my body, repeatedly looking down at my gears as if there was something wrong or about to fall off.....there wasn't, I was just riding 'Old Tech' and the 29er, as horribly modern and soul-less as it is, this was was the superior machine on the day.....it was like trying to follow a Cruise Missile in downtown Bagdad (remember the Speederbike chases in Star Wars?) Thetford was cold and wet but the sun was out and the clouds had gone, only two of us turned out for the smallest Mini-Meet in history. Thetford Forest's trails had turned into Primordial Ooze.....it was a Shitfest of the highest order, gloopy brackish slimey puddles, slippery trails and a cold wind but it was great riding. We did most of the Dusk Till Dawn route, plus some of the Black Route and The Beast in the morning (12 miles) then back to Brandon for Macaroni Cheese and unedible Bread Pudding before hitting the trails again after lunch, our bottom brackets feeling like someone had packed them full of sand and refitted them and our rear mechs complaining bitterly about all the gritty shit they were being force fed  The afternoon was a shorter 7 mile route on the Visitor Center side with some great flowing Singletrack.A brilliant days riding, cold wet legs and some very dirty bikes!!
Daddy Tractor and Baby Tractor
Sunny Fire road
Dangerous times?...Health & Safety paranoia
Oh well.......not NOS anymore
Halfway point
A cold, wet and HUNGRY Billy Goat
Shitfest got my EWR
Shitfest got my EWR - Part 2
Shitfest got my EWR - Part 3
Monday, November 9
EWR Project - Phase Nine (Part 2) - Dang Stems...
by
Billy Goat
on Mon 09 Nov 2009 11:53 GMT
My dentist put pay to my Sunday ride (an un-blogworthy story) but just think Texas Chainsaw Massacre and you'll get close to the Codeine popping pain I'm currently in...So, where were we?....oh yeah, continuation of Thursday's Steam Tweak.....Ok, anyone that has fitted a Syncros stem and not wanted to damage/scratch their bars will be well aware of what we call in the UK 'The 2p Trick' (some of you might well know this as the Dime Trick or Euro Trick ). It's the one where you unthread the alloy bolts from the bar clamp, feed them in from the underside against a coin and force open the bars wide enough so that they don't scratch your beloved NOS-ness as you slide on your new stem. Well, I'm using riser bars on the EWR so we have all those bends to negotiate so we're into a whole bunch of fun with these!!! You see, the 2p Trick spreads the clamp using the maximum of the bolt thread, plus the thickness of the coin......and the stem is aluminium, which don't like being bent....EVER!!The '2p Trick' So, we start with the 2p Trick and voila, the Cattlehead stem glides round the first bend gracefullyRound the first bend
I start to feel confident and everything on earth was at peace......UNTIL, we get to the centre bulge on the bars .
This is where you need to grow a set of balls as big as that Bull I posted up on here a while back and go for the 'Open Wide And Say My Name' 8p Trick. The 8p trick is FOUR 2p coins and my NOS Syncros stem stretched wide open to heart stopping, this baby's gonna crack, proportions If I open any wider I'm gonna split asunder Someone was on my side, I got round the second bend and quickly cranked the stem back up tight. Not had a chance to ride the bike yet and I'm into that whole messy, sloping top cap rubbish you get with Syncros stems (say goodbye to another lovely King Top Cap...)Third stem on my EWR, third time lucky?
Thursday, October 22
1 x 7 Beater Project - Pt 1
by
Billy Goat
on Thu 22 Oct 2009 13:42 BST
This is a little 'side project' and one that shouldn't be taken too seriously ok?There are bigger and (maybe) better things destined for this frameset but for now it is going to be a kind of 'Parts bin, junk, beater' build where I'm using up all sorts of crap, some of it tatty old junk, some of it new parts to create a fun 1 x 7 build suitable for my local bike park.Background:This is a 19" Saracen Traverse Competition Hydrotech and I bought this bike new in 1991 from the Chesterfield Cycle Center (J.E James of Sheffield, England) for £600 and it was my first proper MTB. I couldn't afford the exotic Funk in the showroom at Shockwave in Nottingham so this had to do........it was full DX and originally had Wolber rims, Magura HydroStops, Saracen's own bizarre oversized handlebars and a 150mm stem  . Very quickly I dumped the stem and bars for a Syncros Cattleprod and some Answer Hyperlights and it stayed like this for six years while I rode it every day, putting 200 miles a week on it all year round. In 1997 after thousands of miles on this bike I bought myself a new Pace RC200 F6, gave this to a friend and promptly forgot about it. Fast forward 12 years and I get a call from this guy saying he had found an old white bike frame I'd given him and did I want it, wow....I got my baby back As mentioned earlier I do have some radical plans for this frame in the shape of a Singlespeed project but this 1 x 7 thing is more of a bit of fun and as a 'proof of concept' so its most definitely function over form.....it WILL look ugly and have an odd mix of parts on it  The bare frame (Tange MTB, weighs LOTS!!) Posh headset for a piece of old crap... My Crown Race Setting 'tool'... Some old forks I had laying around Taking shape...
Tuesday, October 20
RetroBike - Grove Explosion
by
Billy Goat
on Tue 20 Oct 2009 16:29 BST
A German Grove collector burst onto the RetroBike consciousness this week with a jaw dropping series of posts documenting his huge and impressive collection of all things Grove. There are stunning examples of fully built Aggressors, Hardcores, X's, Titans in all manner of paint schemes and as if that wasn't enough he also has a 1989 Tamarac and a Progear The BIG Grove Innovations thread: http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=752461989 Tamarac: http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=75720Progear : http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=75795One 'teaser' pic.....
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