Showing posts with label cable cutters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cable cutters. Show all posts

Sunday, 26 February 2017

Random Tandem










It’s been a roller coaster week. A full cable refit to Graham’s recently refinished mid 90’s Timberline concluded my test of those Super B TB-WC30 Pro Cable Cutters https://www.sevendaycyclist.com/super-b-tb-wc30-pro-cable-cutters. I was also rather excited by a freshly blasted racing tandem that prepped and plugged, ready for a zinc rich epoxy base coat.
Turns out it’s an early 1950’s Rory O’Brien. Part of the refurb involved removing braze-ons, including the bottle bosses, which struck me as a curious move-even if the machine was being used for short-distance TTs.  
While the forks follow the traditional lugged and brazed construction, the frame is beautifully fillet brazed. Some would say this was an obvious choice for a pared to the essentials race rocket for two, saving precious grams and making it harder to disguise poor workmanship.
Urban myth, on both counts; though not commonly practiced during this frame’s era, TIG welding still translates into a lighter build, saving approximately 340g on a typical tandem frameset.
Fillet brazing is a process where brass is built up in layers, forming a very strong, uniform bond.  A frame constructed this way stands a better chance of survival following a collision with a tree, or parked car.
Talking of cars, anything other than fusion welding will signal MOT failure but a decent coachbuilder could successfully join two old school Jaguars together without any fear of failure. Motorcycle frames were also fabricated using this method.  
Being more labour intensive, there’s a cost implication but less competent/experienced builders can still get away with sloppy work. Done properly, large, smooth even fillets are all you’ll see. Be wary of overbite (where the tube has been filed at the fillet). This creates a stress point, which can result in premature and potentially fatal frame failure.  
John Moss has been focusing upon getting the Mango’s Di2 and Alfine hub combo harmonious but a conversation about machine shops and this Chinese made titanium seat post ignited his curiosity. Staying wit the Di2, he’s been having problems getting the shifters to communicate as he’d hoped with the 11spd Alfine hub. John’s career as a highly skilled technician means he loves to diagnose, fault find and continuously improve equipment.
I explained I had a 27.2 Ti post doing something nothing close to nothing and was toying with the idea of having it machined down to 26.0. This could then replace the Univega’s otherwise likeable BBB skyscraper. After some calculations and precision measurements, he calculated with a carbide tip, he could shave 136mm from the bottom, thus it would slide securely into the tubby tourer’s seat tube. Modern social history, human geography and industrial decline are subjects that have always fascinated me. Most cities have their no-go districts, or at least those with ill-repute.
Hillfields in Coventry has an unenviable reputation for being the city’s red-light district. Levels of deprivation are high, just as some inner London Boroughs including Hackney (despite the latter’s superficial gentrification, some might say, socio-economic cleansing).
However, it’s renown for being the region’s red-light area, drugs and associated criminal activity being consequently rife. I had always presumed this had been a relatively recent phenomenon, a’la Dagenham intensifying when the car factories and similar business left.
Anecdotally John and several other reliable sources refute my hypothesis. I’ve heard tales from the 1950s of organised criminal activity, including protection rackets, money laundering and of course, drugs. During the 1950s a smartly dressed young man walked into a CafĂ©’ and was greeted with smiles and warm acknowledgement.
A few minutes later, a woman running said eatery heard a scream and discovered the young man’s throat had been slit-in road daylight. She called for an ambulance and applied pressure to the wound using a clean tea-towel until paramedics arrived. The man survived.     
Conversation with Graham at Maldon Shot blasting & Powder Coating suggested painting the exposed section satin black wouldn’t be an issue either. It was decided that because of the metal’s characteristics, attempting to blast the surface (giving the paint fighting chance of staying put) was a non-starter, so he’d use an acid etch primer instead...Stay tuned…

Thursday, 2 February 2017

Roads Paved With Dung











Shod with the Schwalbe Marathon GT, Cross flavoured fixer and I have been belting along the back roads. The GT feel a lot faster than their 808g suggest and continue to inspire confidence by the bucket load-in every sense. Talking of tyres, Seven Day Cyclist has an eight month test of another beefy section tyre, Maxxis Roamer http://www.sevendaycyclist.com/maxxis-roamer-tyres  

Fun is obviously high on any rider’s agenda but for me at least, reliability is level-pegging on a daily driver or winter/trainer. I want to concentrate on the ride, or let my mind wander in reflective/creative directions. While punctures and mid-ride mechanicals per se, are all part of riding, being sat by the roadside tackling a flat; or broken chain are events I prefer to keep infrequent.

Last Thursday, the thermometer had barely crept above minus 2, so I headed out late afternoon. Run at 85psi, their contact with the surface, coupled with the ability to regulate speed by holding off against the cranks, made 1in 4 descents and similar efforts that bit more comfortable.

Ascending one climb, dancing on the pedals and shoulders shuffling to similar tempo, my heart momentarily sank at a fut-fut sound, synonymous with a flaccid tyre. Glancing over my right shoulder, I was relieved (and somewhat amused) to discover this was a wheezy, asthmatic contemporary Fiat 500. Said super mini eventually regained composure and passed, observing a welcome 1.5 metre gap a few hundred metres later.  

Three miles from hot coffee, I swept around a bend to discover a young man tending to his motorcycle. I called out, checking he was OK; he affirmed this and explained his motorcycle’s final drive chain has snapped. This was literally 50 metres from where I was performing link surgery the previous Tuesday evening.

I offered to call someone but he politely declined, much as I did at his age and continue to. In parallel with the sheer fun and freedom, Cycling and motorcycling tends to engender a fierce sense of self-reliance.

We wished each other safe journey and I spun my way home, fingers and toe boxes nipped with chill. Next morning, I took the same route and saw his machine parked on the verge. I’m hoping he got home safely, acquired a new chain and is back to enjoying his machine again.      

These Super B professional cable cutter and inner cable puller arrived this week. We’d hoped to get them in ready for the Univega’s rebirth but no matter, these things can’t be helped and it’s timely enough given the stage I’m at with Graham’s GT. 

In common with other workshop kit, such as work stands, cable pullers aren’t essential but make maintenance and repair jobs that bit easier and quicker. Cable pullers; sometimes referred to as fourth hand tools tension the inner wire, leaving yours free to nip everything tight. Care is needed to avoid over-tensioning when feeding the inner wire into the slot but that’s as difficult as things get.

A decent set of snips, by contrast are the staple of any basic toolkit and will repay their investment countless times over. To some degree, there’s no limit to what you can spend. £30 odd is my benchmark and these Jagwire Pro my all-time favourites to date, anyway. http://www.sevendaycyclist.com/jagwire-pro-cutters  At £29.69 the imaginatively monikered Super B TB-WC30 are quite a bit cheaper, which fuelled my intrigue. Will be interesting to see how they fare in the longer term too.       

Elsewhere, John Moss has been plagued by a slipping Alfine set up. He attributes this to the manual system, so is talking in terms of upgrading the mango to Di2-price dependant. Mercifully the tandem’s Nu Vinci hub seems to be behaving itself impeccably since its rebuild.  

The same goes for the Univega, aside from another chain breakage-easily sorted with a few spare links and this Pedros multi-ttol. The 1x9 set up has enough range for long hills and fast descents. 

Full length guards offering ample protection from winter’s slimy slurry and of course, rural backwaters.The highways agency appears to be encouraging farmers to resurface with generous helpings of dung- even its Time ATAC aluminium pedals were showing signs of being engulfed. 

I also resurrected the Geonaute G-Eye2 to capture some footage. Lazily described by some as a poor man’s Go-Pro, it’s less intuitive than the Tom Tom but still offers decent image quality for a budget model.  

Right, I’ll leave you with the Visijax Gilet review http://www.sevendaycyclist.com/visijax-led-gilet