Vee must increese efficienzy to 110%

Learning to weld

 

Parcel from Jeff @ Riverside, clutch & brake pedal assemblies with a couple of Aussie rags thrown in (thanks Jeff).  The vast majority of 45 chops and WR racers disposed of the straps and front rod building a pedal setup around the rear support rod but I'm going to use stock controls for now, see if they don't look too stupid without the foot-boards.

Tony helped re-build the gearbox (again).

Putting the engine in!

Rise of the bicycle

 
       Bicycles have been trendy for a while now but only recently have prices got to silly levels.  Here's one that just ended on eBay:

       I bought my first track bike on eBay for £50 including postage from Newcastle.  I could probably sell one its pedals for that now.  Instead I'll just keep it until it corrodes away or until the hipsters are riding penny-farthings and nobody wants it.  I'm smart like that.

A-loo-mi-num-i-num

If you're featured in a magazine you're meant to slag it off but when you live in the middle of the English countryside with no old guys' stashes and no Davenport swap meets, you sometimes thank God for eBay.

Hill Climber

 

LASER

Gintautas Umaras shifting on a Cinelli Laser.  Such a tight frame.

Yimmy's Yayo

My favourite blog, Yimmy's Yayo, occasionally has some motorbike pictures.

 

YIMMY'S YAYO 

Flathead by name, flathead by nature.

It always annoyed me that flatheads weren't flat.  Recently I read someone moaning that they should be called 'under-head valves' which I liked.  Anyway I took mine down to Barry at precision engineering and played with his mill.

Barry, the master.

Before & After

The heads are both similar number 5's but one had a lot more flaws in the casting.  The aluminium was also thinner where the bolt passes through: 30.5mm compared with 34.5mm on the better head which meant the bolts stuck out at different heights, another thing to fix.  I later found that one of the bolt holes on this cursed casting didn't even line up with the cylinder hole, about 1mm out.  Odd as they looked like a perfectly matching pair.

It also annoys me how the alloy heads are bigger than the cylinders.  The top profile of the cylinder has these beautiful curves and scalloped sides but the alloy heads have straight sides so they overlap and look like an oversized mushroom head.  The iron-heads are curved to match the cylinder.

So, getting a bit carried away, we cut some scallops out of the sides to give a more curved profile.

Filed the corners a bit.

Polished the cut edge with a flap disc.  Parkarised head bolts.

Much happier.

R-R-R-Rigid

Pornarello

Reading an Italian bicycle blog I found a post about my very own bicycle!  The picture is when the last owner had it, he's a Hungarian racer and sent me that very pic when we were e-mailing.

It's an Italian Pinarello Prologo (Lo-Pro in English) track frame.  The smaller front wheel design is for time trials and gives better aerodynamics.  The curved tubing is for sex-appeal.  Speaking of which, donne nude..

http://www.milanofixed.com/pornarello/

How to fuck up a front end:

1.  Buy some Mullins 35mm trees and ebay some forks.  Add to frame and congratulate yourself on having great taste when it comes to narrow front-ends.

2.  Apply ruler between forks.  Accompany ruler round swapmeets, scrouge ebay, wrangle advice until realisation that the only drum your ruler vaguely approves of is from a cub 50 scooter which has an axle diameter of about 6.734 mm.

3.  Decide:  brakes or suspension.  Or machine your own hub but by that time you've already laced a Kempton found drum to the Borrani rim even though you knew it wouldn't fit but it was a twin leading shoe and you got carried away.  Brakes over suspension it is.

Chop (all important word) the fork tubes.

This is actually the first part I ever made on a lathe.

Milling in the lathe.

Taper practicing.

Taper turning.

At this point I drilled and reamed a hole.  Actually I snapped the pilot drill half way but seeing as it took me like two days making this part and working out how to use the lathe, I alternated.  Plunged an end-mill in about 2mm (the snapped drill bit rising into the hole in the end-mill), oxy-acetylened it, hammered protruding drill bit flat, plunged the end-mill another 2mm, repeat 10 times until mad with the world then enlarge messy hole to correct size.

Make a little axle.

Trim the fork tube caps.

 

OPTIONAL:  Advise all comfort cynics that you spent everyday for the last four years riding a completely rigid bicycle with 19mm cross-section tubular tyres at 180psi around crappy, pot-holed, English roads and you only had to see the doctor about an embarrassing lump on your anus once.  This should distract them from knowing best about vibration damage, cornering-grip, and other borings.

Out of action

Theoretical Analysis

 

Experimental Validation

A 45 Chop

Photoshop Practise

2007

University

This blog may be called 45 chop but being stuck at university means I don't get to chop any 45.  My last term though then we can get back to the point.

In the meantime check out this record box I spied in a student room last night.  His Dad raced Triumphs.  And won.

In the post

Wheels

Tosh has sorted me out! 21/19

Groovy Baby

http://vimeo.com/7640196?hd=1

Angelo Coppi

 

Angelo Fausto Coppi.  Nicknamed Il Campionissimo, he was one of the most successful and popular cyclists of all time.  Twice won the Tour de France (1949 and 1952), and five times the Giro d'Italia.  Plus the man had style for miles, check those tights! 

Speedholes

Renshaw's new blog

 

http://23bricksforever.blogspot.com/

Decisions decisions

 

Seat, post or springs...  want to use the frame pivot up in between the tank.