Well, I picked up the frame from a very friendly chap at ESP this afternoon. I have to say that I'm delighted with it. The pics don't really do the job justice, as there are various greasy fingerprints on it. Mostly mine. £40-£70 depending on what colour you're after. Nae bad.

There was a fair bit of surfacing pitting and they've done a great job of smoothing these out. This particular colour is "Candy Green" It looks a hell of a lot better than it sounds, I reckon it's fairly close to British racing green really.

Frame after powder coating with various bits for the build.

Originally I'd planned to lug line the frame. However, after seeing the job, and the way the coat thins over the lugs I've decided to leave well alone, as I like the look. There's various parts here. Some NOS some just new. I've managed to salvage the original pedals and that's about it unfourtunately.
The original forks still have the seized stem in them, and 1. I couldn't be bothered with this job, particularly as I found a nice new set on ebay for£18! 2. the
dropouts looked pretty knackered, I've still got them if I feel an overwhelming urge for authenticity at some point in the future.

I'd already installed the fork crown race. An easy job with a hammer and block of wood. No fancy tools for me.

The frame cups took a couple of minutes. Again, wood, hammer, controlled force, nae bother.

Here's the fork in with steerer still to be cut to length. Various people make a big deal of this, but honestly just measure carefully and cut. Two minutes with a blunt hacksaw from B&Q. Sweet. Loads of grease and then tighten.



Here's the cottered chainset, tried out for size. Turns out that the frigging salvaged axle doesn't have enough length. The chainring just clears the chainstay, but the left hand crank hits it's chainstay. Bugger. At this point I wish I'd purchased a sugino maxi chainset and bottom bracket etc. from velosolo for £30. I'm going to try and source another axle. I got the cotter pins from Willy Bain, so he may be worth a shot, although he did make a comment that the pins were "really going back in time." Still, no biggie.

I put on some of the rest of the stuff to cheer me up. I got the bars from Fresh Tripe. They're Velo Orange tourist North Road style bars. I kinda wanted Lauterwasser bars, so they weren't quite what I'd wanted.

I'd read that Jack Lauterwasser used to just bend his own by filling the bar with sand to prevent creasing and going for it. This is what I did! They've turned out okay, although I think I'll cut about two inches off each end. I'll see how the bike rides first.

I'm fairly pleased with it so far. It looks better in real life. Flash photography always brings out the worst in stuff. Obligatory kitchen shots of course.


I love the slack headtube angles.